Does not the PS3 Blu-Ray player continues to spend for both games and movies? Of course the more you use it the more wear and tear yet I fail to see well a Blu-Ray movies would cause more wear and tear than a game would. I know of those who didn't use their PS2 at a dvd player and yet still had hardware failure from them in the first year PS2 was out. I have used my PS2 for 6 years now as for both games and movies though I haven't play many ps2 games in the last 2-3 years. 

From what I heard PS2 was an average DVD player when it was release compared to PS3 is said to be of the best Blu-Ray players.

Games use the drives very differently from how movies use the drives (I think RocketPig pointed this out earlier).  The drive may stay spun up in both circumstances, but a game usually leaves the drive alone until it needs to read the next textures, sound, game locale, etc. in.  With a blu-ray movie the drive has to spin at a changing rate (CLV) as the movie progresses and the device is constantly reading and caching video and audio from the disc.

Until someone does exhaustive MTBF studies for both scenarios on the specific drives used in the PS3s, it's not going to be easy to determine exactly what the effects will be on drive stability.

I don't think it will have much impact, its a well built console.

Yeah, I think problems with the ps3 will be hit or miss. My disc drive died, and I have a launch unit, but I didn't really use it heavily* until the past two months or so. In fact, from January through May I hardly used it at all, since I left it home in New Orleans while I was at LSU. Yet, for some reason, mine dies and yours is fine.

*Really, it wasn't used "heavily" at all, compared to how much my cousin uses his. Although I did do a Lord of the Rings Extended Editions marathon when I got my wisdom teeth out. :D It looked awesome upscaled. Just imagine those babies on Blu-Ray. =o

Thanks alot everyone for your help

I would like to add something to what I previously said. While I did use mine rarely up until just recently, I know two people who bought there ps3s around launch strictly for Blu-Ray, and have used the machine heavily since, and have yet to have a single problem. I think it's just luck of the draw, tbh.

I would say that the PS3 is the first console really designed to support movie playback as well as playing games - i.e. the movie playback is not a secondary concern but equal to gaming.

I guess this fact has caused more argument than anything regarding the PS3 but should bode well if you want to use it to watch movies. I've had PS3 for 6 months to watch movies and play games and no problems. Given that the machine is touted as a BR player heavily I'd be pretty upset if it didn't hold up exactly the same as a standalone BR player.

Its is the best blu-ray player, threrefore it has a higher life than stand alon blu-ray players.

I Own a ps3 and live with 4 people who play it. (Dorm) I own 20 games and 20 blu rays and watch all standard dvds on it. I would say it has been used 5 hours a day minimum since I purchased it november 2006. No problmes what so ever...knock on wood.

 ^since when? How do u know that the standalone BR players are worse? In fact, I bet the stand alone BR players are better