Overheating pretty much sealed all of the original xbox 360's fates, since microsoft decided to create their own gpu after severing ties with nvidia. What resulted from this( and this can happen on the original ps3 models because of bad placing of thermal paste, thanks to dashv's research) is that the heat dispersed from the gpu can't be negated by the internal system fans and eats away at the solder, causing the system to overtime becomes hotter in temperature until it overheats the rest of the components inside, which causes a general hardware failure and that infamous "Red Ring of Death"( or YYLOD in the original ps3 models). It may also have to do with bad soldering in the system, or using kinect with the older xbox's, but the 360 has lots of technical problems with its system, that sticking with the newer models seems to be the best bet at getting around the problems, although this could cause price spikes in the future if people really want the system but there are going to be way too many faulty consoles out there that can't be used for a long period of time thanks to its problems.