...in which your author actually has something good to say.
I'm all for bashing large, faceless, corporations- they are an easy target in the way that the old Soviet Bloc used to be. You're not likely to hear to many people loudly supporting them and the chances of "blowback" on a personal level are pretty slim.
However, I like to think of myself as a pretty fair person, so when a corporation does something good it seems right to give them credit.
I bought a PS3 (the expensive one*...80MB) last Christmas with the rationale that a) it would serve as my DVD player (and a Blu-Ray player for that matter) and I would get to continue to enjoy my racing and soccer video games.
Everything was great until the middle of the summer when I was playing a game and there was a loud "click" followed by no picture or sound. Great. Just great. My initial rage turned into a long bout of procrastination: was it still under warranty? If not, how expensive would it be to get it fixed if it wasn't? How much of a hassle would it be to send it back to Sony? How long would I have to wait to get it back? Should I just by a cheap DVD player and deal with not having a PS3?
None of these were questions I really wanted to deal with so I watched DVDs on my laptop and went without my games. All the while, the dead PS3 just sat there as reminder of my best laid plans ganging a glee...
Finally, I gave up and called customer support. Granted I had to ask the service rep to repeat almost everything he said because I couldn't understand him, but he did eventually lead me through all of the trouble shooting. In the end, however, I had to send the console back to Sony.
They sent me a prepaid box, I sent it to them, they sent it back.
Total time: Less than a week. AND they sent me a new console. I know that's probably easiest for them- and good luck to the person who buys my "reconditioned" unit on E-Bay- but nevertheless, I appreciate that I'm starting out with a brand new unit, not one that's already demonstrated its faults.
Sure, I'll have to set everything back up, I'll probably loose all my progress on my games, but I'm willing to deal with that.
So, Sony, thanks.
*fine, fine, if this post is about being "fair," all PS3s are expensive- damn expensive!
