The shortest-living PS3, ever.

Everyone knows what a PS3 is. It is a high-tech, state-of-the-art, next generation entertainment unit that does everything. It even does the dishes.

When I was in Singapore earlier this week, I couldn't resist it any longer and bought a 80G PS3. It was at least one-third cheaper than what I would have to pay in Australia. Pretty much the only thing that it didn't have was Australian Warranty. I mean, who would need local warranty when you are dealing with a high tech, state-of-the-art,  next generation electronic device from market-leader Sony?

I had been quite busy since I came back from my trip and I think I had spent no more than 4 hours in total playing my PS3 in the last few days. Last night I finally got a chance to sit down and spend some quality time with it.

Three minutes into Ghost Recon 2 (I wasn't even shooting anything yet, i was still in the menu), the screen suddenly ask me to put the game disc back into the console. I thought that was strange because the disc was in the console from the beginning and I didn't take it out. Two seconds later the game froze and I have to soft-reboot the unit. After the reboot, the unit didn't recognise any disc that I inserted into its drive: DVD, CD, BD-ROM. Apart from that it's fine, the downloaded game that is already on its hard drive still works fine. It just doesn't read any disc. Looks like the optical drive is fried.

So there you have it: A PS3 with a broken optical drive. I'd say it is still 99% functioning (you only need the optical drive if you really, really want to play real PS3 games). I am going to start an auction here to sell my PS3. It is 100% new (only 3 days old) and 99% functioning. Shall we start it at A$650? Anyone?

Sam