I've personally never bought an eletronic that failed on me...

I am in disagreement, because the numbers dropped significanly after the issue was raised (again in my region). The numbers don't lie. Whether they didn't "really fix" it is irrelevant since the figures dropped significantly after launch (even if it wasn't a true fix as you're insinuating).

Didn't say it was, and that was not my argument (hardware or sofware). It's omission due to a rushed launch still played a major role in bricking which was solved post launch (5 months or so after). 

Well you know what they say about assumptions.

You have precdents for the part in bold? ... apart from the 3FixMe, of course.

The real question is, how did the hdmi port pins get bent in the first place???

Did a competing company send agents to sabotage the console?

Its a conspiracy.

Quickly, buy a lottery ticket.

Thread backfired.

a) Manufacturing irregularity at the plant. Either some hdmi socket batch was bad. b) The guy that soldered it into the mainboard made mistakes. c) the testing unit did not test through assembled units, but through direct mb contact. So this bad batch (let's hope it is only one batch from one line from one day) slipped through unnoticed.

Now we have an unknown number of consoles with potentially destructive hdmi ports on the loose. Chances are that people just stick the cable into the port and if it doesn't work, push harder.. ("if it doesn't work, push harder. if it fails, it needed replacement anyways" is the rule). Even Kotaku didn't figure it out, apparently they just ruined one cable after the other. The problem is that the connector problem is not obvious, as many consoles seem to work anyways (essentially timebombs in the making).

If it doesn't work, you have two problems: either a pin or more in the cable is/are pulled backwards, causing no contacts, or some pin is shorting in the connector. Then you either brick the console or you get no contact, again. If Sony gets back the "bricked" consoles, many will simply work because of marginally ok connectors when they test it. So it's a mess to figure out.

Then there is a good chance the os still is too buggy and actually hangs in an infinite loop because some logic is happening that noone foresaw (like bad file when the very first upgrades fail.

Me? I'm still puzzled hpw Sony has completely messed up the customer support part. Insufficient phones, clueless "helpers", management gone fishing, apparently.

The numbers dropped because people just stopped putting their console vertically. 

Firmware issues, especially ones that cause a rare problem isn't a good reason to wait to buy a system because the vast majority of users didn't and probably never would have experienced it. That's why it took them 5 months to fix it.

You're right, I shouldn't have assumed you were talking about the actual issue the user was having. I should've figured you could have been talking about general problems for no real reason at all.

One example (there are plenty of others) would be when a cars get manufactured at different times of the year. An earlier batch may be just fine, but a later bstch may need to be recalled due to a new issue.

Nah, if it's even a slightly big problem they'll just put in a better HDMI port.

They probably just went with the cheapest part possible for profitabilties sake, figuring that if it's that big of a problem they can fix it before mass market.

That's the advantage of early adopters, and why they're often treated as "beta testers".

They aren't likely to get mad.

Definitely not advised, this sort of stuff could void the warranty from sony / the retailer.

I doubt they would change the port for this issue as it's most likely the same port they've used in the last two PS3 designs, their Blu Ray players, their TVs, etc. I don't think there would be much cost saving in skimping on something that a lot of their products have.