I didn't know there was an LE, but I found out that my local gamestop has both 260 and PS3 LE so I'm gunna grab those, ended up giving away my normal PS3 copy to someone who really wanted it, he felt bad so he gave me a copy of Sin & Punishment 2 lol Kharma's a lovely little lady sometimes.

I don't think anyone can say LoS didn't ripoff SOTC, I like it and don't really mind because it was a good idea in the first place.

Mercury Steam is a bunch of proud Spainiards

Just wanted to inform you all of my second experience with Sony customer service. I had to call them to get my old console that was stolen deactivated on the video side, and they were quite helpful and quick. Didn't ask me for anything other than my e-mail, gamertag and phone number. The whole thing took about 10 minutes and no headache what so ever.

I must admit that I was a bit scared at first because I searched about this trying to find a solution and saw a lot of fixes that included faxing all the information to Sony. My hats off to Sony for excellent customer service and knowledgeable staff, unlike some other company I know of *cough* Charter *cough*.

Good to hear. I had to go through them twice. Once for the original PlayStation 2's lens, sent on Monday and I had it back Friday. Most definitely a fast experience, was expecting a two to three week thing. The other was for my TV set, I had a few concerns and wanted a tech to check into things. Despite having a five year warranty, it was literally impossible to get a tech out to my place. Impossible. I actually just gave up, luckily fixed the issue myself. I'll flip a coin and trust it'll be better if I ever had to contact them again, this was years ago.

I've never had a good experience with them, even with the de-activation bit back in January when my old launch PS3 bit the dust. In fact, they never did it and the rep allegedly made a note in case I ever reach the maximum number of activations and need resetting. I've never had accurate answers about queries in general either.

With my TV, I'm not sure if it works any differently in Canada but all I had to do is call an authorized agent and just have a photocopy of the receipt ready. It was a minor non-issue, but he was happy to bill Sony.

Im giving the Yakuza series another shot again. I've play'n through half of both 1, 2 and abit of Kenzan before. Played the demo of 3 and have been waiting for it to drop in price before I picked it up. So I just got it and im gonna beat it and tell you all what I think of the game afterwards. Cause atm, I want to like the games but the fighting mechanics never agreed with me. If I can see past that then im sure theirs a good game to be had. I just have my doubts sometimes. Here I go again though.
I want to like the series. I thought the demo of 4 was an improvement. Im hoping to like 3 so when 4 comes around ill understand the story.

Re: Sony - Exceptionally difficult to deal with here when I had my PS3 console YLOD but there is probably a real good reason for that. Consumer law in NZ allows a Consumer Guarantee Act which states that an item that fails through no cause of physical damage (or dismantling) should be covered by either the store of purchase or manufacturing agent for the expected "life span" of the item. The average console should be expected to have a 5 year life span here, so if you strongly word a letter with them they will fix it.

In my case I pointed out that Sony overseas continues to promote and argue the strength of their console is the future proofing of the machine which is expected to have a long shelf life for them as a sales item, of around 10+ years. And if that's the case then an individual unit shouldn't be failing after 2 and half years.

Of course they get this a lot, so it's not surprising it's difficult for them to deal with it.

That's pretty good and glad it worked out. The problem I personally had was with dimwitted reps, who really don't know much about the policies of the company that are clearly listed online. I was told for example the maximum number of downloads was 5, and when I corrected the rep for the number of activations, he put me on hold to verify

That said, as cynical it may sound, I don't have much confidence in the longevity of any of the current consoles first iterations because of the use of lead-free solder. I know the slim was re-designed to accommodate the shitty nature of it, but the launch era fats had power units that heated up like a pair of 100W lightbulbs.

MS did the same thing eventually, step by step.

Overall, I think there may be a chance that previous gen consoles will stand the test of time better than any of the stuff on the market right now.

I never had an issue with Sony's customer service when my ps3 ylod last year. The system has a 1 year manufactures warrenty, like alot of products in the U.S. So when it came to paying for the replacement I was used to it. I think alot of consumers these days get hung up on wanting products to last forever because alot of times it seems like they do. But with all the technological changes and constant advancement and new parts, its hard to discredit a company when something goes wrong imo. Especially after 1 year.
Im not saying im willing to roll over and let the life expectancy of products to break earlier and earlier, im just recognizing how the industry is always changing and a percentage of people will always get unlucky either sooner or later.

Speaking in broad terms in the electronics market, there is a bigger market and more complex products, so there are bound to be more problems. Of course, the complaints are amplified due to the internet age. Back in the day, colour TV introduction was less than optimal and many of them didn't last very long. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even take the PROD issues seriously because online rants don't really tell anyone much. It's the revision of policies of extended warranties in stores that had me thinking.

This gen, Nintendo naturally had the best product reliability because the chipset wasn't really new. Sony designed the PS3 well, but the transition to lead free solder is an issue that most companies deal with sooner than later and re-design appropriately.

Sony dealt with issues with the PS2 lens for the first 3 years on the market, so they learned from that. I'd credit them and Nintendo for extending the warranty to 1 year from the previous console-standard of 3 months, which MS initially offered until the shit hit the fan.

I have noticed that reliability in general of electronics has improved in recent years (compared to 5 years ago) due to stiff competition and the economic downturn. Sure, companies are looking to cut costs but they're also making sure that they don't pay for it later.

^ It's true. Microsoft's RROD experience is a great example of it... I mean how long were they tainted with this high covered failure rate. Had their original cover been a year to begin with rather than 3 months, I think the impact would have been less because more people would have had consoles fixed earlier and the massive amount of money then later thrown at battling both the problem and the negative PR about it would have been cut down.

I've noticed Sony is now advertising an extended purchase cover on the PSN for all PS3 owners in the USA and Canada. I guess it's better to end up dealing direct with Sony on the issue through it, but personally I'm like stuff paying more money for that. I guess what I detailed above is one good thing about living over here... outweighed by a million other reasons.... but still...