I am on my 3rd PS3..

I'm on my fouth too, although to be fair I discovered an issue with some faulty wiring that probably caused at least two to fry.  It is annoying isn't it?  Still, just thought you'd like to know you're not alone - you have a fellow 3 time failure sufferer.

BTW if you are somewhere Sony offer insurance - I think they call it Pay to Play - you might want to look into that.  When my third died I noticed the offer for insurance at £5 a month and took it.  The estimate for repairs was £140 pounds and I figured it was better to spend £5 a month instead, get a free replacement PS3 and still be covered to boot vs spend £140 for a one time fix.

I too am on my third ps3. The 1st two were 60gb like yours and both died from the YLOD too. You're lucky sony offered you something for free. They asked me to pay $150 again even though the 2nd ps3 only lasted 8 mths. It was about 3 months before the slim launched so I just waited and got a slim instead like yourself. Borrowed my cousin's ps3 in the mths in-between.

If I start hearing of any serious breakeage issue like YLOD for the slim, I'll personally make sure mine breaks before sept 1 this year so I dont pay any overpriced repair fees. I also dont get why people still think ps3 hardly breaks. It does (at least the 60gb does)

you either must be neglecting your ps3's or you must be real unlucky, and there are plenty more of these stories on the x360 side, trust me.

I had an original ps3 60 BD PS3 which managed to last up to this christmas without any problems, that is 3 years worth of gaming without any problems, then I sold it when it started to freeze on me and got myself a ps3 slim.

The ps3 slim model seems to be the best bet at the moment as they have better fans, so can keep cooler, and they don't use that rubbish solder that the original ones did(the old ps3's had solder which dried up due to overheating), maybe you should give them one more chance.

The fat ps3 i used to have ylod (not my problem anymore lol) but i got a b/c 60 gig so i shouldnt be talking.

You must have really bad luck.

seems like lots of people are having problems with the 60gb

maybe thats why sony took it off the markets years ago.

Yeah I am getting a PS3 slim because like you said, the production quality is much better from what I understand. What I meant when I said I understand how 360 owners feel is that I now know why they keep going back to MS even though the machines keep breaking. Its just waaay too hard to start over for this gen. So I am sticking it out with teh PS3... :)