If I didn't love you so much, I'd leave you in a dumpster

No, I'm not talking about my son or my wife. I'm talking about my Playstation 3. The device that has brought me endless hours of pleasure. The device that provides an escape from work, family, dishes, and exercise. The device that I one day hope to use as a way of bonding with my son (it already is used this way to some degree). In short, I love my PS3 and I don't know what I'd do without it.

But apparently, I'm finding out. It decided that its done working now. The system will no longer load any PS3 games or Blu-ray movies. Currently, it still loads DVDs and Ps2 games, but not always. I noticed that games would freeze every once in a while the last couple of weeks, but usually I just waited a minute and the game would unfreeze and I could continue playing. Then one night, I decided to sit down and watch Quantum of Solace on Blu-ray, which I had gotten for my birthday. About 30 minutes into the movie, it froze. I waited for about 15 minutes and nothing happened, so I reset the system. I started watching the movie again, only to have it freeze again about 5 minutes later. At first, I thought it was just the movie (in hindsight, I wish it was), but then I tried some other discs and they didn't work either. Then, it stopped loading games and movies altogether.

I did some research and some people recommended buying a special touchless Blu-ray cleaning disc to cleanse the laser. Of course, after running around for an hour, I found that these discs cannot be found in any stores. So, I had to order it from Amazon and wait. This, of course, sucked, because I had to wait for the cleaning disc to be delivered, which meant multiple days without the use of the system. The wait was pretty short and I got the disc about 3 days later. I immediately stuck it in the PS3 and was encouraged when the disc loaded immediately. After the disc finished its cleaning cycle, I tried loading a PS3 game. Nothing. I tried a Blu-ray movie. Nothing. The only positive thing to come out of the cleaning was that DVDs now seemed to load without any trouble. Obviously, I wasn't too happy. I spent $20 to get the disc and it didn't work. But I'm not really that upset. I didn't expect it to fix the problem, but I'd rather spend $20 to fix the problem instead of sending it to Sony for service and find out that I only needed to clean it.

So, when cleaning the Blu-ray laser failed, I had only one option left. Send it to Sony for service. This is where I get more upset. My PS3 is just barely over a year old (a year and 3 months, I believe). There is a one year warranty on the machine. So, its just out of warranty. Which means that in order to have Sony repair it, I have to pay them $150. Regardless of what's wrong, I have to pay them that rate. This, of course, is completely ridiculous, considering the fact that I paid $500 for the device in the first place, only to have it break just after the warranty ended.

Before sending it in, though, I tried going through the support articles on the Sony website to try to fix the issue. Most of the suggestions, though, are things like restore the factory settings, etc, which have no bearing on whether or not the system will load discs. Oh, and then there's my favorite suggestion, which is "try another disc", coupled with "try the disc on another PS3", like I didn't think to try more than one game/movie. What kind of idiot do they think I am??

Well, after getting no help from the website, I decided it probably needs to be sent in for service. But first, I decided to try to call and talk to a Sony rep to see if they had any other ideas I could try before paying them to fix it. So, I called in and I get D'Qwon or something like that helping me out. I described the problem and he didn't even make a single troubleshooting suggestion (not even "restore the factory settings", which seems like all support reps would be required to do). Instead, he said that I need to send it in and asked me for my name and email address. Then, he must have come to the "Problem Description" box and had me describe the issues again. Except he wasn't really listening. I told him that Blu-rays (games and movies) never load and that DVDs (PS2 games and movies) load sometimes. To which he said "so nothing is working". I said no, DVDs sometimes work. To which he again replied "so nothing is working". At thing point, I just threw my hands up and said "sure".

Now, my favorite part of this whole experience. After calling their support, do you know what they do??? They send me an email with a link to fill out an online form to get it serviced. I already knew about this form and decided against filling it out, just in case their service people had any other ideas for what I could try. The link in the email just redirects me to this page, where I just fill out the information needed to get it serviced. So, what's the point of even having a call center? It was a complete waste of my time.

In any case, Sony is currently sending me a special box to ship my PS3 in and supposedly, I'll have it back in less than 2 weeks. That's if they decide they want to fix it. The terms I agreed to for service basically say (in my words) that if they determine that it is not to their liking to fix my PS3, they'll send it back to me. Even if they do fix it, they may or may not send me back my PS3. They can replace it with a crappy refurbished one. They better not. I want my PS3 back, not some grubby piece of crap that somebody else ran into the ground.

Of course, before I can send it to them, I need to back up all of the vital information on the system, like game save data. This is not as simple as it sounds. I won't get into that whole mess, but I basically have to wipe out part of my computer's external HDD for a couple of weeks to back up my data, so I can put it back (supposedly) on my PS3 when I get it back. Terrible.

In any case, I do love my PS3. Its the device that brings me endless joy, etc. But its also the device that cost me $500 originally. Another $150 a year later. Raised the price on the games and movies that I use it for. And makes me want to take a baseball bat to it, Office Space style. I'm sure that after a couple of days of having it working again, all will be forgiven.