What happened to my mates PS2 was, I think, the laser itself went out of alignment. The drive motor still went but it didn't read the disk.

Wii's seem to be working fine. Should grab one up, if you can find one.

Awww. $500 and you got a stinker? Good luck with Sony customer service. 

Pikaboo, that had nothing to do with the topic. Just as I told MikeB, if you have nothing to add to the topic, don't post.

My girlfriend's PS2 had the laser alignment issue out of the warranty period. Thankfully, it's a self-repairable issue with lots of how-to articles on the web, and she was able to fix it. Twice. Hoping it stays working for a while. :)

@kcua, it sucks that your PS3 failed just after the warranty expired. Unfortunately, these things do happen. What's most unfortunate isn't the failure, but the way it's being handled. I would write to them and see if you can get a better response. Explain to them why you feel they mistreated you, and explain that $600 is a lot of money to spend on a console that fails just outside the warranty period. Explain that it seems very unreasonable to have to choose between paying for expensive repairs only a year after you bought it, or be stuck with a $600 paperweight. If you don't get the response you want, ask for your complaint to be forwarded to a supervisor.

Above all, remain calm, and remember that the Sony reps are people too. Don't use threatening or foul language, don't use all caps, and don't exaggerate your problems. The more reasonable you are, the more likely someone will be able to empathize with you and want to help you. But take it from a guy who worked as a repair technician, no one wants to help someone who's yelling and screaming at them to get their way.

this is why i paid £40 for a 3 year extended warrenty when i bought it, seems to make sence to me, if i buy summert and it has one year warrenty then i expect if it breaks after a year there is nothing i can do about it, over here in the uk its cost arround £10 to post a ps3 one way, so thats £20 to get it back to you , and your having to pay $120 which is about £60, so you are paying roughly £40 for some one to take it apart and install a new motor and your complaining, thats pretty cheap if you ask me, PC World over here charge £49.99 to install a piece of ram in a computer

well...maybe the laser (that reads the disc) has burned out (possibly u kept ur PS3 on overnight)

Yeah this happened to me, my PS2 was in the warrenty period, but they wanted to charged me 50$+ shipping for my ps2 even though it was in the warrenty cuase it may have been dropped, so i sodl it at gamestop and bought a new PS2 silver slim off ebay for 90$ with 2 games and 2 controllers.

Update

OK, got my PS3 fixed finally last Saturday. Gave up on Sony customer service and went with a local console repair center. I also brought my broken fat PS2 for repair since it's just collecting dust in my shelf for some time now.

Went to the shop and waited for the technician to fix up another PS3 with the same problem as mine.

The motor wasn't the problem but the lens assembly. My PS3 needed a replacement and lucky for me I got the last one they have in stock. Payed roughly 140 USD for the repair job. Took the technician 10 minutes to open up the PS3 and install the new lens. It is working perfectly now. After mine was fixed, another guy came with another PS3 with the same problem as mine. Unfortunately for him, there was no lens assembly available for him.

But here's the interesting part. While fixing up my PS3, I took the time to interview the technician. According to him, they are receiving an increasing amount of PS3's lately all with the same problem as mine. According to him, they are getting an average of 5 broken PS3's daily lately, and according to him, apparently all SKUs suffer from this BD lens problem. And quoting from what he says "humahabol na ito ngayon sa Xbox 360 sa sira" which means "this is quickly catching up on the Xbox 360 in terms of problems" which they aren't accepting now because of the known failure rate. And also according to him, 40Gb SKUs also have problems w/ the board which causes it just to freeze randomly in game.

After my PS3 was done, I left my PS2 for pickup. Today morning, I phoned the technician whether my PS2 was done and he said it is. So I went there to get the PS2. To my surprise, I saw 2 stacks of PS3 waiting for repairs (around 13). Out of curiousity, I asked the technician what the problem is w/ those PS3s and sure enough, all have the dead lens assembly. I though its interesting so I asked him whether I can take quick photo using my phone and he agreed.

Honestly, the first time he told me they are getting an average of 5 ps3's a day for repair, I though he was just bluffing. Now I think he isn't.

BTW, I'll upload the photo I took w/ my phone tomorrow because I don't have access to bluetooth right now.

wlecome to my world >.