He also said it doesn't look that bad. And I'm inclined to not discard that either.

All my glossy stuff, like the Macbook I'm writing this in, has a bunch of fingerprints. If it was black instead of white, and I took a flash photo of it, I'm sure it would look almost as bad. Besides, who knows how many people touched that thing since it was opened at the warehouse? Clearly it was moved, as the several photos show.

And about the dust, it's on the inside of the vents, and ports. How exactly is someone supposed to clean that stuff up without voiding the warranty? Yes, the thing looks like a total mess. But I live in a dusty area, and it doesn't look that much worse that the ventilation areas of my computers. And no, I obviously don't dust the inside of the vents every week. Besides, I've "had to" fix computers (friends and family) with a ton more dust than that. Black dust, brown dust - looks exactly like that. The photos can make it look much worse than it is. I mean, people are acting like there's a huge layer of dust on the thing. You'd stop to think for a second that if there was that much dust, it would fall over and turn into a huge cloud when you moved it upside down like they did for the photos.

And souixan, I'm betting I must be a lazy pig now, because I don't dust and vacuum my house every day. Seriously man... get a life.

Like my above post, I've already disregarded the fingerprints.

Apart from wondering about how much dust there is (especially on the inside), I'm also wondering how hard it is to really clean it up. One way to avoid a mass amount of dust is to keep an area cleaned up, no? There is no way I'm going to say clean up every day since I don't even do that, but it would be a good idea to be like "Okay, I'm seeing a layer of dust on my entertainment center and all of my electronics here, It's time to take five minutes and take care of it".

Please, I use a freaken air compresser to blow out my PC tower every month or two (or whenver I take it home) and my PC is on at least twelve hours a day sitting directly on the carpet. I obviously still want to know what his PS3 looks like on the inside, but unless they caked dust and dirt on the dude's PS3, I find it difficult to want to fully side with him unless more information comes out (such as better photos). 

^ agreed e would have seen dust in the air when they moved it if it was that dirty--also the box it came in would have been filthy---this is just some clever photos to make it seem worse then what it was

He said he wiped the outside. We either believe him, Sony, both or none - and I'm more inclined to go with one of the last two options.

He may very well have dusted it before sending it in, and then it gathered additional dust in transit, or at the warehouse. Where did that dust come from? From the inside of the PS3, is just one of many possibilities. This means both of them can be right. It also seems people have already forgotten this: http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/ps3s-kicks-ass-at-collecting-dusk-217197.php Notice how the finger barely shows any dust, whereas the flash photo of the piano black surface shows a disgusting amount of filth, with only about 2 weeks worth of dust. This means both parties can be, and probably are, simply exaggerating the truth.

Also, the amount of dust inside is pretty irrelevant. The consumer can't be expected to clean inside, in particular not when it voids the warranty. Whatever is inside, unless it's proof of misuse (and dust IMO isn't), is irrelevant.

Finally, yeah I know. I'm a filthy, filthy pig when it comes to my PC. I never once opened it up simply to dust the inside. Imagine that. I know, I know - shocking!! I should do it every month, no make that every week. And dust every day. Seriously, guys - get a life. No one besides us techies opens their devices, air blows the dust or vacuums the vents. People wipe the outside when it looks dirty. And they don't clean them very often because they're afraid to even touch them, so that's as far as they'll go. I hope you understand that the common man doesn't even know what an air can is. Only an insane company would require Joe six-pack to open his PC to clean it up. I mean - get real. Are these mass market products or what?

Yea, I've seen the Kotaku picture. The one difference between it and the one guy's PS3 is at the memory card and USB ports. That's where it bothers me a bit because you can't even see through it, it looks like it's a thick layer of it. Using the Kotaku picture is where I come from when it comes to cleaning. Literally one quick wipe and it's clean (except for tiny scratches, I hate that). I wonder about seeing the inside because since it's like a computer, the PS3 would take in air and exaust it out. Thus, if the area is insanly dusty, then I'd imagine that it would be pulling all that dust inside if he rarely cleaned out his entertainment center (where he says he keeps the PS3). He also said that he ran Folding@Home a lot too, so I'd imagine that his PS3 would be sucking up lots of air. So if dust causes parts to overheat and such, using Folding@Home which produces a fair bit of heat causing the fans to work harder to keep the system cool. I want to guess that is where the problem is.

Thus is why I'd like to see the inside because that is probably where the warranty would really be voided, if dust actually killed his PS3.

---

As for that last paragraph, I'm just going to ignore it because both you and I talked about opening up a PC to clean them out and because I talked about cleaning the outside and the environment where it is stored. 

yeah those K pics are pretty bad--but i just dont trust sony to be all Sue us to get the pics...then hey look how dirt your machie is ohhhh yeah we told the world your messy

Yes, I am waiting until 2008 when the price of the PS3 will finally drop.  But the PS3 is dominating the market so much I should preorder it now.  :)

 Sony is as biased as it comes.  So is Nintendo, and so is Microsoft.  When it comes to helping or hurting their sales I don't expect any of them to be honest with me.  I think that a manager at Sony had god syndrome.  Thus this guy isn't getting his PS3 fixed. 

1) I am a computer tech and for those people who say that they are techs and have never seen dust that bad, inside or out: You must lead a very sheltered life as a tech. This is nothing.

2) The tech who said this dust was hazardous to his health is being ridiculous. If you can't handle dusty computer equipment you have no business doing warranty work on people's computer equipment. IT WILL BE DUSTY. I'm mildly allergic to dust mites, by the way. I deal with it and so can he.

3) The dust on the outside of the computer is totally irrelevant. The dust on the inside is what matters, and the warranty strongly discourages any but the most determined of clean freaks from doing anything about it.

4) Unless they can prove that the environment he had the PS3 in caused massive, life-choking dust bunnies (I have seen these in PCs clogging CPU fans, looking and feeling like wads of black felt), or that the amount of dust is beyond what their PS3 could reasonably be expected to handle, they have no case as far as neglect. This picture does nothing in that direction.

wow. I'm glad I purchase NO Sony products.

I don't care what some of you say above, MS has done pretty darn well with their pos 360.

Nintendo FTW!!!!