It WILL die if you use it without having this done. It's like running a car without changing the engine oil. Whether it takes a few hours or a few weeks of heavy use it will die without new thermal paste in it. Take it somewhere and have it done or expect to buy a new PS3 in the coming years. 

Yep the slims from late 2010 onwards till the super slim are also tanks, and very reliable and very good option. But the super slims not so much.

My Super Slim from 2012 is doing just fine. No issues at all.

Loved my PS3. The time in my life when I had most time for games the PS3 was my mainly used console. But I could never go back to it today. I feel spoiled with the modern controllers and PS2 and PS3 controllers feel awful to me today, like they are stabbing my hands when I hold them. Granted I never much liked them to begin with but now it is a much steeper threshold when I can play most games on the PlayStation family with the dual sense. 

All of those craps is bullshit. I know it's written by pretty much everyone on the web, everywhere, but I proved myself this is all bullshit or at least not valid for every case. It may have been just for the early models, or in cases that you took your console used from someone you don't know. Therefore you don't know how he cared for the machine over time. Or in cases where there is dust or smoke. Maybe in those cases there is point in changing it. But not if you have good revision and always leave clean everywhere, you are not smoking in the same room, and you are the first owner of the console. I don't know if I have to be some lucky guy, but how lucky can I be when I have bought and owned PS3 and 360 for 16 and 14 years respectively, gaming PC for 10 years (before I sold it), 3 laptops I used for around 6-7 years each, PS4 and XB1 I also bought brand new and used for around 6-7 years, and on top of that friends with also a lot of machines used for different periods between 5 and 10 years with none of those that I mentioned being opened for change of the thermo paste ? Not only that but all of those also run and worked very good, like new after so many years, and most of those were under heavy usage for those periods. Again my PS3 is running at 31% max temperature in the summer with Last of us and GTA 5 running. My 360 isn't hacked and I can't see, but it's very quiet, quieter even than the PS3, therefore probably less than 31% fan speed. So what are the odds, of me being lucky with so many machines, and the people around me too for that to be a true thing? I don't believe it. I also can't explain how the engineers of big companies will be so incompetent that there will be a need for the customer himself to open the console like a technician after some time, and do repair operation (changing the paste or whatever) just so that the machine can continue to work, while at the same time, machines like NES, SNES, SEGA and every older console will be just fine after 30+ years.

Anecdotal evidence is not useful. You and your friends haven't actually checked temps or performance in any sort of objective way. "It runs fine" can quickly turn into "It just up and died for no reason". Meanwhile, there was a reason and it was ignored for years. Big companies don't care if the game system you bought from them breaks in 5-7 years, let alone the 13 years that a PS3 slim would be. With older machines it is best to baby them and hope for the best. Also, lots of older game systems come with bulging caps that will leak acid onto the board. Unless you have another PCB or can do trace repairs the system is dead once a cap has leaked and corroded the board. Even GameCubes from 20 years ago have failing caps now. And if you don't change them out, your disc drive won't work anymore. 

Okay, fair enough. All I am against is how everywhere is told that unless you change your thermal paste like every year or every 2-3 years your console is gonna die, that is all bullshit. For old console, I can see that it may do some difference, especially if it's not so reliable model. But the general acceptance of that is what I am against. It got to the point of misleading information. Me personally, I have saw what I needed to, to make my opinion on the matter, and I will continue to not change paste on tech I buy and use brand new. About the caps, yep, I can't say nothing there, this is real possibility and a problem, time ticking bomb. For my main examples specifically (my 360 and PS3) I won't do anything, because I've already got the use out of them. I've played all the games I wanted from those generation (on both systems for trophies/achievements), multiple times for most of the games, and they just outlived the usage I can take out of them. But honestly even if I had to play 5 more years on them, I wouldn't do anything, since they worked fine so long, so what are the chances of them breaking now, versus if I risk to open them, to change caps or paste. Let alone the question that if you haven't that those operation you risk even more, since you can do it wrong.

To your first post that I quoted, I didn't agree that it is 100% sure @curl-6 's PS3 will die. This is what triggered me. Some people told me the same for mine when it was 10 years old and nothing happened. Of course that is not prove or evidence by it self, but the chance of his PS3 working just fine for another let's say 3 or 5 years, are decent, and you wrote it like it's 100% sure it will brake, if the paste is not changed. That may be true for some unreliable units such as the first FAT units or even the first slims which also brake a lot. But for good revisions, it's not exactly mandatory. It's nice of course, but even without it, his PS3 have a good chance of working for couple of years more. He can also checks regularly his fan speeds and temperatures. That is good sign he can follows.

And by the way, I have checked the temps of my PS3, it runs cool enough for both CPU and GPU for now at least. About the longevity of the systems, where did you get the info that the systems brake after 5-7 years, were there some reports or what ?

Grabbed the Left Behind DLC for TLOU and made a start on that this evening; so far it's just as good as the base game, which is to say very.

Also ordered Infamous 1 + 2; thinking about which of the system's Ratchet and Clank games to make a start with, was considering doing Nexus first as it's the most recent and is supposed to be relatively short; figured if I like it then I'll grab the rest of em.

So the store for Playstation 3 is still open? That is good of them to still support it.