Console Service Centre in Boksburg has logged over 10,000 repairs across the past 15 years – including 1,021 console repair tickets over the last year alone.
Over the past 12 months, these repair tickets were for 914 unique customers, and 630 jobs were completed and invoiced – the majority of which were PlayStation 5s.
Console Service Centre’s founder, Shaun Potgieter, recently told MyBroadband that most owners are far better off repairing their consoles than buying a new one.
Potgieter shared his shop’s data for the last 12 months, noting that the median repair cost was R1,323, and the middle 50% of jobs cost between R863 and R2,120.
These figures are notable when compared with the average price of a new PlayStation 5 Slim Disc console, which usually retails for around R12,000.
That means repairing a console is roughly 89% more affordable than buying a new one on average.
87% of customers proceeded with a repair once the company provided a firm estimate, while around 7% of customers recycled their consoles because they were uneconomical or impossible to repair.
PlayStation repairs dominate
The company’s repair statistics showed that PlayStation consoles accounted for a large share of the Console Service Centre’s repair tickets over the past year.
The PlayStation 5 was the largest contributor with 42% of tickets, which translates to 428 units booked into the workshop, followed by PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro consoles at 28%, or 288 tickets.
In contrast, the Xbox One family accounted for only 19% (190 tickets), and the Xbox Series X/S accounted for 10% (103 tickets).
This means the PlayStation 5 alone accounted for more repair tickets than all Xbox consoles combined.
Potgieter said he has noticed several recurring hardware issues with the PlayStation 5.
“The PS5 has a structural HDMI weakness that the PS4 didn’t have. Five times more HDMI port damage in our PS5 tickets,” Potgieter stated.
“Two common causes: people moving the console with the HDMI cable still plugged in, and people standing the PS5 upright in tight spaces.”
When the console is knocked over with the cable still in, the movement and strain can rip the port off the motherboard.
He also highlighted an overheating problem that he has discovered in PlayStation 5 consoles.
“PS5 overheating has an under-reported root cause: the upright orientation lets the liquid metal pool,” Potgieter said.
“Sony used liquid metal thermal compound between the PS5 APU and heatsink — when the console stands vertically for months, gravity pulls the liquid metal toward the bottom of the chip.”
This creates a dry spot at the top of the die, leading to thermal throttling and eventual shutdown.
“We see enough of these that we bought a 3D printer this year specifically to print custom horizontal stands,” said Potgieter.
“Every customer who comes in for a PS5 full service and liquid metal replacement goes home with one. Without the stand, the same fault is back in 6-12 months.”
Growing a business with AI
Potgieter said that AI optimisation has played a key role in his business’s growth
For the past 18 months, he has steadily been turning his business into one largely run by AI agents.
“I designed and shipped a self-hosted automation stack with 8+ autonomous Claude-powered overnight workers,” he said.
“They handle SEO monitoring, blog drafting, security audits, CRO analysis, competitor gap research, and morning operational digests.”
He also outlined how he has built at least 8 custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers integrating Claude with Xero, Google Workspace, Search Console, Business Profile, Supabase, and Home Assistant.
“That included OAuth token refresh handling and standalone HTTP fallbacks,” Potgieter said.
“The CRM, marketing site, agent system, and the underlying Coolify/Proxmox/LXC infrastructure are all things I designed and ship to production.”
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