So, despite the recent price cuts, Sony’s 7th generation offering (the PlayStation 3), is still the most expensive console available to purchase. Despite this, your R3800-odd piece of hardware will still set you back over R2200 to repair if something goes wrong, and your PlayStation happens to be out of its 12 month warranty. It stands to reason that if you are shelling out that kind of money, you would expect a decent service plan to accompany your purchase. Sadly, this isn’t the case.
We’ve all heard about the famous Red Ring of Death error present in Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, and how Microsoft reacted by largely sticking their heads in the sand about the whole thing. Now, it seems to be Sony’s turn, with a seemingly increasing incidence of the so-called “Yellow Light of Death” (YLOD) and Blu-Ray laser failures. The latter happened to me; at least, I assume it happened to me, because my console isn’t reading any disc-based media anymore. So let me explain how Sony’s warranty program works.
Basically, if you go what I like to call “the official route”, you will phone up your nearest Partserve (who are the official Sony product warranty people in South Africa) branch, and will be told to drop the console off. Then, after taking the morning off work, you will arrive at their branch and be told what is going to happen. Basically, they are going to take your PlayStation 3 from you, and, if they have any in stock, they will give you another one, right then and there. If you are unlucky, you will have to wait until the next batch of repaired consoles arrives from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
That’s right, regardless of the fault; they will treat your console like everyone else’s. It will be packed up into a box (presumably) and when they have enough consoles they will ship all the faulty ones off to Sony to be repaired. Once Sony has repaired them, they will be shipped back to South Africa and distributed to Partserve centres nationwide. These will then be used as refurbished consoles, and swapped out for broken ones on the spot, as described above. The only difference between being in and out of warranty is the price: expect to pay over R2200 for a refurbished console if you bought it over 12 months ago.
There are a number of unofficial repair options options available, and the ones I’ve heard of offer a cheaper cost and a longer guarantee. The official Sony refurbished console’s guarantee? A measly three months.
So the question now becomes, do you wait, with a broken PS3, to see if the rumours about the premium PlayStation Network with its three year warranty are true, or do you take your chances with a non-official repair job, since you’re out of warranty anyway? Do you really have over two-grand lying around in case your console breaks, and will you feel confident enough with their three month warranty to keep the console?
Sony needs to move quickly in extending their warranty; before gamers start associating “Sony” with “poor quality hardware”.
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