PS3 Breakdowns are ‘Getting Worse’
A certain ‘games journalist’ (me - Gamoc) had his Playstation 3 die yesterday. It stopped reading disks of any kind. This was a bad thing, as it can not be fixed. So I took it back to Game (with the receipt) and they replaced it (unfortunately with a 40gb).
Now, the point is that, whilst I was waiting for my replacement 40gb, I couldn’t help overhear (from where I was eavesdropping) a small conversation between two employees:
‘This is getting worse.’
‘What is?’
‘PS3s being returned.’
‘Yes I know.’
At this point they made a bad joke about a PS3 disease, I’ll spare you that horror. So could this be true? Are more and more PS3s breaking down? Well, whatever you say, we think that Sony need to fix this before it gets too out of hand. We don’t want to end up like Microsoft now, do we?
This article originally appeared on TheSixthAxis]
Filed under: Playstation Network, ps3 firmware
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Aw, sorry about your loss (and your downgrade), I really hope that Ps3s aren’t turning into the next 360….I really, really love my 80 gig right now.
It’d be a shame to lose it.
Did yours show signs of slowly dying? Or did it just go kaput all of a sudden?
I’ll just say this much.
It can’t be worse than the Xbox 360 breakdown rate.
*laughs*
Well no, it can’t possibly be worse.
And mine was working fine, absolutely flawlessly. I was playing Lost Planet, I quit, played Pain for a bit, quit that, and then it just wasn’t reading any disks. It just…stopped.
Well mine broke, but a week after i got it, but it didnt stop reading discs. I turned it on one morning and it said hard drive corropt(*srry cant spell). I did the recovery and it restarted. But it still was croppoted. so i brought it bak to best buy and got a new one. But i have no idea wut happen.
I just went through this with my PS3 80gb too. Bluray died… No warning, just a crash then no longer worked. For me it was right after putting in the Bluray DVD “Pathfinder” from Netflix.
It was still under the factory warranty so instead of returning it to Best Buy for a 40gb downgrade (bullsh*t) I worked directly with Sony. They were helpful and compared to most tech support — pretty quick/responsive. It didn’t seem like the first time that they had heard of a PS3 no longer reading discs. They sent me the packing mats with everything I needed to send in my system. I think the whole process took about 14 days.
I think it’s a simple equation: (PS3’s sold) x (failure rate) = total breakdowns.
So even if sony is making better consoles, if sails keep going up like this the failure rate will increase as well.
Also keep in mind that failure usually occurs after a while, so the first PS’s might indeed be failing now…
All the stories on the internet are of 60Gb models, the first ones to ship… Let’s just hope Sony will either replace it with another 60Gb model, or, when they are out of stock, for the 80Gb (because of BC not the drive size, hell, for all I care they just swap the drive out!)
So let me get this straight. You took your faulty 60gb PS3 (that plays PS2 games) back to the shop to swap it for a 40gb PS3 (that wont play PS2 games) and you were happy about it? I wouldn’t have accepted that. I’d have wanted a full refund (£425) then I’d have bought a 40gb PS3 (£299).
So I don’t believe your ’story’ for 1 minute I’m afraid. You’d be over £125 down on the deal.
I would have tried to duplicate the disk on a pc before returning.
Harvey, I have the 40gb in front of me. I paid £350 for my 60gb PS3 and a 40gb is £300. I was £50 down, which I got back as store credit (and bought CoD4 with). I had a few PS2 games, but the last time I played one was…2 months ago. I prefer my PS3 games, SHOCKINGLY, so I play them more.
I traded 4 PS2 games (which were all I could trade) and got £15 for them (urgh), which I’m keeping on a gift card until the 29th and getting GTA IV. I much prefer PS3 games now - not that PS2 games aren’t still good, I just prefer to play PS3. BC isn’t a big thing, it doesn’t really hurt that much if I don’t have it. The things I am lamenting are no memory card readers (which I used a lot) and 2 less USB ports, but I’ll get over it.
I now have 9 PS3 games that I enjoy playing. I don’t need any PS2 games to play, and considering that it seems 60gb models crash more, I don’t want to risk losing all my data too often, so a 40gb is not huge problem for me. Also, CoD4 is better than I expected, I never really bought into the hype, but the online is awesome - I wouldn’t have it if I didn’t get a 40gb instead.
I had the same problem, but with a 40gb model. Blu-ray drive just didn’t work one morning, after a hard night of Cod4. My console was about 3 months old, but i thought the problem was caused by the alarmingly high amount of dust in my room
Well I took the console back to the store and got a brand new one, and luckily I had made backups on my computer, so a happy ending for me
it happened to me too…
i was playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma, then the game froze while it was saving… that’s when my ps3 decided not to read any CDs whatsoever.
i returned it, got me a replacement and now i’m happy again.. i just really hope it doesn’t happen again, coz it’ll break my balls since i’m out of my warranty year.
My 60GB has had problems before, but nothing that bad (yet).
A few time while playing Oblivion it has frozen up. Music still plays but nothing on the screen. I just hold the touch power button for a few seconds, restart the beast and all is forgiven.
With GTA:IV coming soon (with any luck), I hope that this disk failure stuff doesn’t hit me.
I have a 40gb PS3 and my disk drive died too, it was replaced after a few days which was great service! I had been watching a a ilovefilm rental blueray disc when it packed up. I had wondered if it was the label on the disc causing issues
This one should paint a brighter picture for the PS3.
I have an original 60Gb Japanese PS3 which was one of the first imported to the UK.
I play on it every day, its constantly covered in dust and gets knocked about in my rucksack when taking it to my mates houses………………and guess what, its still working as if it was brand new, its never done anything to worry me and im sure this will continue for as long as i own it.
Have you ever heard the phrases “Right first time” and “if its not broken dont fix it”
I dont know why sony scrapped the 60Gb PS3 but i know its been the best one so far and i have no plans on swapping it.
Mine also quit reading disks.
Same thing happened to me on my 80 gb. Stopped reading while I was playing COD online. I sent it to Sony and got a new 80 gig, I just hope it doesn’t happen again because Sony isn’t nice enough to extend my warranty any longer than it has left.
Well unfortunately I have had this happen to me TWICE with the 60GB model I have. Fortunately the first time it was covered under warranty while the second time it was not and I had to pay $149.00 to get it replaced. This also took almost a MONTH to get back
I have a 60GB model that was purchased on December 2006. I use it almost every day for browsing, movies, music & games (roughly 350 hours on TheElderScrolls:Oblivion alone, I play LOTS of characters) and I have a huge catalog of PS2 games(65 titles.. I know, its almost sad). Oblivion did lock up on my twice in all that time, but it was exactly the same symptoms as Mike had with Oblivion (power cycle fixed everything). Who knows, maybe they went TOO cheap with the 40GB model but my 60GB original model is quite the trooper… (I spend way way way too many hours tooling around in Gentoo on the PS3 also. FreeDroid FTW!)
mine fukin went aswell i think sony need to sort there heads out and get on this problem because this is the second time in 7 months its happened to me! im gettin very pised off with this!!!!
My first PS3 didn’t read my games on the second day when it was bought so i went to GAME with my receipt and they gave me a new one and when i went home the disks got jammed into this new ps3 and started spinning mid way note that these were the 40gb version im on my third one just waiting for it to break down if it happens
Happend to me just yesterday. I was on Fifa 08 - Online in a lobbie, It crashed or rather froze up, So (STUPIDLY) I used the power button at the back to turn it off.. Which now (PS3 told me) that using that button is the most probable cause to Blu Ray drives crashing, But not just that. but anyway my warranty was out.. BUT! I traded in the PS3 in a store called Gamestation.. Got 220 for it… Which I guess is ok, and getting a new one tommorow with 2 years warranty…
I have a 80 gig ps3 (7 mths old), without warning and in the middle of playing COD4, screen went black and I was out of the battle. Tried to play other games and Blu Ray movies but nothing worked. PS3 still turns on however will not read any type of disk. Hopefully sony will fix or replace it with same 80 gig.
PS. got nothing to do now.
My 40gb just went kaput after only 7 weeks. GTAIV was stuck inside and the system turned itself off after 2 seconds of me starting it back up. I left it for 24 hours to no avail, then took it back to HMV who sent me away and said I had to go through Sony. Nice customer service HMV!! Sony were great though, and my replacement comes tomorrow, 4 days after I called them up. Here’s to better luck I hope…….and I will definately back up my game saves in future….((