SCEE expresses “serious concerns” over Watchdog report accuracy

It’s weird, there seem to have been a large number of YLOD/Blu-Ray Failure/Other PS3 implosion incidents with EG forumites just in the last few months. Nothing like the heydays of RROD, but certainly far more than I was expecting.

I’m on my third, so I’ll be watching. Especially as how people I know who are having problems now are being asked to stump up £150 for the privilege of a replacement.

I’m not expert, but the machine is the biggest dust magnet (theres a gag in there somewhere) I’ve ever owned and that can’t be healthy. Even if the machine is one glorified heatsink.

It’ll be a slim for me once I can justify shelling out for one. After two duds I have no faith in the old fatty any more.

No probs with my fat at all. Quiet as a mouse.

wow how did I miss this

Too busy wanking over your computer?

My first PS3 died within two months… total blackout on the video output after a few days of “sparklies” and graphical corruption.

The real kicker was that it was a US version, so I had to send it to my mate in the US to RMA to Sony.

I am saving this link for the day, ps3 fanboys need ago at pc gamers.

I have a funny feeling I will be putting out hiphop gamer miss information he has been brewing over the net.

My 60gb died a few months after I got it – that was a year and a half ago. I took it back to game and got a 40gb replacement which I haven’t had any problems with at all.

A one year warranty on a games console is a joke (particularly if you are an early adopter that paid £400 for it) and if Sony has the level of faith they say they do, they should put their money where their mouth is and extend the warranty to three years on YLOD and Blu-ray laser issues.

I mean if the machine is as reliable as they say it is, they have nothing to lose, right?

“The testing concerned a sample of only three PS3s, which cannot, on any basis, be deemed to be representative of a UK user base of 2.5 million,” stated Sony. “One of these had in addition been materially altered by the owner.”

“Presenter Iain Lee is no stranger to the videogame business, having fronted corporate events for the likes of Capcom and Microsoft. He has also been employed on a freelance basis by Microsoft, according to his work for MSN’s Tech and Gadget site”

Yep

All electronic goods, especially those that cost a lot of money, should have at least a three year guarantee from the manufacturer. One year really isn’t enough.

I never had an issue with PS3. Its not as bad as it seems. SHould have worked for MS when I did for the Xbox all the calls were RROD. 1/20 would be something otherwise. I hated those days.

In the past 3 months at least 3 of my friends on my psn list have had the issues with their PS3′s. some YLOD others with the blu-ray drive. I don’t know what their living conditions are that could have contributed to some kind of failure.

I’m a neat freak, I don’t smoke, and my house is damn near dust and lent free but my two original (20 and 60gb) still get clogged with dust. Despite that they still run like brand new and are quiet as a whisper.

The majority of my friends who do have the failures are A. from Europe B. Their PS3′s are used by their younger siblings which could include some foul play possibly or C. They don’t properly take care of the machine.

Could it be that when Sony released the PS3 into the European market 4 months after NA they took short cuts to build the PS3′s in that region. For instance the mother board is different I think because PAL PS3′s don’t have all the chips a NA PS3 does.

Anyway its a problem and I’m glad someone is out there exposing this annoyance. Hopefully they will also expose Sony’s horrible customer support too.

I agree with you Syrok. If my PS3 had broken down 1 day after the 1 year warranty I would be furious. $600 is something no one likes to just throw away. Especially when said machine is advertised as having a 10 year life cycle and is future proof.

Hopefully this report puts some pressure on Sony to fix all the YLOD PS3′s out there.

Who are you and what have you done to TEA???

The boards did differ quite a lot initially, TEA, but they should be pretty much in synch since they removed the BC from all PS3s.

I’m surmising that many of the PS3s that are breaking down are earlier models, though – it would certainly make sense that those would be the most unreliable.

Holy crap, £128 for an out-of-warranty repair? What the hell are they smoking?

Why do people take their broken PS3s to Sony? You didn’t buy it from them. They can charge you whatever they like.

Your contract of sale is with the retailer, and you should be taking it back to them, not contacting Sony.

The 12 months warrenty thing is a complete myth; no where is it mentioned in the Sales of Goods act.

Learn what your rights are, and it’ll help stop you getting screwed over by situations like this.

bought mine at launch, works perfectly still, the caddy broke when i switched hard drives, they sent me a free one

As I said in the thread on this IMO electronic equipment seems to have a shorter life span than 10 15 years ago.

The general attitude these days would be we live in a throw away society. IE if it breaks after warranty just go out and get another one.

I may not even like Sony or the PS3, but compared to the problems with the 360, the PS3 is practically problem free.

@ Blerk – sounds just about right

@ Reask – So true

@ JonFE – I’ve made the Jump “IN”

My fat launch PS3 is still going strong.

Meanwhile my launch X360 died twice and was replaced each time in warranty by Microsoft. Meanwhile my X360 Elite hasn’t had any issues.

How can I watch this BBC report? I don’t live in the UK.
Will it be posted on you tube shortly after?

There could well be reliability issues with the launch models, but any attempt to liken the situation to the 360′s RROD is ambulance chasing at it’s worst.

Looks like Sony are ready for a fight if they do broadcast it though! I bet we haven’t seen the last of these types of headlines.

The way I see it is that if the problem is minor, Sony should just extend the warranty and be done with it. If there really aren’t many machines failing then extending the warranty will cost them fuck all.

What they’re charging for a fix is frankly extortionate (though not as bad as it was).

@ Robo_1

“but any attempt to liken the situation to the 360’s RROD is ambulance chasing at it’s worst.”

But at least MS were big enough to admit there was a flaw and extend the warranties to cover it rather than putting their fingers in their ears and saying it never happened.

@Psycho: They used to charge more than 50% of the cost of a new one?

I don’t tend to pay for things in percentages.

lets not get out of hand with this ppl. the ps3 failure rate might have moved from 1% to something like 5% but its nowhere near 64% or higher like the 360. just stating the obvious.

Well said Evil. Have these guys actually done a piece on the 360 failure rate yet or did are they just stupid and blind along with this unfairness? I could see this if it were a follow up to a 360 piece, otherwise its just biased garbage.

“Have these guys actually done a piece on the 360 failure rate yet”

Repeatedly. RRoD, disc scratching and drive failures.

Well, that’s different then. As long as they’ve covered the number 1 maker of defective consoles than I have no issues with them covering number 2.

It was exactly this kind of pressure that brought about the Xbox 360 warranty extension. In a sense it is history repeating itself: users report problem, journalists write the stories about the problem, manufacturer denies problem, problem continues to escalate, manufacturer embarrassingly capitulates.

I don’t think any one is suggesting that the PS3 problem is anywhere near the scale of the 360 one, but the bottom line is that it obviously is an issue. If any one’s PS3 goes pop, they won’t care about the scale of the problem in relation to 360… they will just want to have their console fixed/exchanged as quickly as possible.

I don’t care if the retailer or the manufacturer sorts it out, the bottom line is that there needs to be a system in place to sort the situation out if it happens – with the consumer not getting fobbed off by retailers, or charged 150 Euros by Sony.

Oh, where’s Tonka when you need him?

Going to be interesting to see the program, that’s for sure.

TEA – I reckon the only way you can see it outside the UK is to “acquire” it after the fact. Not sure if BBC programming’s officially viewable outside Britain at all.

it isn’t. doesn’t stop me though

muhahahaaaa

Go over to Justin.tv and do a search for Watchdog. I’m sure someone’ll have it.

@ Pat – not even youtube awwh man

@ stickboy – he’s probably standing next to a microwave waiting for his hot pockets to finish cooking, but for the sake of the article I’ll fill in for him. (you might want to bookmark this one)

“Wow the PS3 really is shit!”

(never again will I type that so enjoy)

Edit: thanks Master Mike

@OwningXylophone, you are joking right? MS was forced to admit to the problems and extend their initially very short warranties by class action lawsuits and threats from the EU.

Do a search when it’s on, obv. 1hour and 9 mins to go.

Can’t wait to see Sony get their balls busted. I’m realy looking forward to this

oh and Cort is right. That’s how it pretty much went down

A couple of interesting things here.
The PS3 defect issue is prolly not nearly as big as rrod. However, upto now relitivly few ps3s have sold comparied to xb360.

Regaurdless if there even is a PS3 defect or not, by putting the idea/word that there is a problem could be an attempt to stifle a comeback from the PS3. Of course I am not saying that MS is behind this thing, that would be something for a PS3 fanboy to do.

I think this is mostly due to the same thing xb360 had happen. Craptastic outscouced manufacturing. I love my system made in Mexico no wait, I mean China, or was it Korea? There is a hella difference between a 400usd gadget and a 40usd one. But if they are both made with the same kind of lack of quality, they will both break. One just costs you more to replace.

I can not tell you how many of my systems have died. I have lost count. Yea I am smokes free, late 30 yr old, pet free, and somewhat OCD. I can take care of my stuff. But sometimes they just die. Most from being used to death. I just over used my Saturn. But I remember managing a MicroPlay when the PSone launched. Within a week we had to turn most of them upside down in order to get the reader to read the game. Was crazy to walk into the store and see 4 PSones upside down and running. I have been through one xb360(replaced for free), been through one PS3(I bought a second one – because I am a MS fanboy dontcha know), I had 6 or 7 PS2s, two xbox ones, one gamecube(still working great and with as much as I played PSO it should have died ten fold by now), two saturns, One Dreamcast, one Neo Geo(can’t kill that thing), only one Turbo Duo(my fav system of all time). I am still using my first SNES, my first Gen/megadrive, I have no idea how many NES’s I went through – too many. All systems if you use them enough I figure, will die. But the newer ones don’t seem to stand up. Oh and for what it is worth I only have one needed one Wii(but it doesn’t get too much use). Neither does my PS3, btw, and that could be a common reason why up to now not much was made of them breaking. Once free realms and Mag come out i prolly will use mine more often.

Thanks for the link mike I have to go out so cannot watch it at 8.
OT.I reckon the response they get following the show will be more telling. IE phone calls confirming there story although I find the beeb pretty spot on with there facts when doing stories like this.
@PT.
I still think the drive problem is big as far as 360 is concerned.
My nephew has the 360 only 9 months and has to load games several times before they read.
Gets the please put disc in 360 console message.
(I told him to ring MS but he cant be bothered)

My own is the same for the last 3 months or so.
Some games load first time others can take from 2 to 9 loads before reading.

Funny thing is once it loads there is no hassle and game runs 100% perfect.

Evil – you should be on MAG !

@reask

I still think the drive problem is big as far as 360 is concerned.
My nephew has the 360 only 9 months and has to load games several times before they read.
Gets the please put disc in 350 console message.
(I told him to ring MS but he cant be bothered)

My own is the same for the last 3 months or so.
Some games load first time others can take from 2 to 9 loads before reading.

Funny thing is once it loads there is no hassle and game runs 100% perfect.

Having that exact prob with one of my xb360s now. I had to buy the us download of Civ Rev to be able to play the stupid thing.

YOU GOT ME A MAG BETA CODE! I’M GOING HOME NOW!

Email me to my psn name@gmail.com

YES WOOHOO!!!! I’M gonna be playing some M.A.G. I owe you big time for this Seraphemz

See you there. 6pm PST.