Sony denies allegedly high 40GB PlayStation 3 failure rate

PS3 News | "Sloppy journalism," says SCEE boss.

Recently, Dutch website Gamed.nl had been running a story purporting that the new 40GB model of the PlayStation 3 has a high failure rate. Today, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe hit back, accusing the site of sloppy journalistic practises.

"We are very proud of the quality and reliability of PLAYSTATION 3 and are disappointed that such extremely sloppy journalism has resulted in this totally inaccurate story," said David Reeves, President, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. "Since launching the 40GB PS3, we have experienced a fantastic jump in sales and the failure rates have remained at the very low level that we not only strive for, but have been achieving since the launch of PS3."

Did the Dutch site hit a nerve, or were they making the story up to increase their traffic? One must admit that anxiety about potential hardware failure is high. Especially with the Microsoft's recent warranty extensions and admissions regarding less than favourable failure rates. PALGN will have more on this story as it happens.

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18 Comments

Spanca

4 years ago

So one would assume that he calls their journalism sloppy for backing their claim with a loose statement like "high failure rates", yet his response is a very firm, very accurate, well supported, "no, they're low failure rates". Brilliant.

Skiller

4 years ago

10% failure rates would be high, but compaired to microsofts 30+% they are low. Without a point of comparrison high or low means nothing.

Personally I havn't heard of any PS3 failures beyond user stupidity (like placing one next to a heater) so I'm skeptical of PS3 having high failure rates.

BovineDeath

4 years ago

My original Playstation and my PSP were both defective, MS has a much higher failure rate with 360's, but their turnaround time for replacement, based on my experiences, is 3-4 times quicker.It must be a problem with small hard drives and problematic consoles, the 40gb PS3 and the 20gb 360.
Let's be honest though, I'm glad I got my 360 when I did, failures are a problem when you buy consoles on release. As the design for both PS3 and 360 improves (such as smaller, cooler CPU's), so does reliability. You could wait for a falcon 360 or redesigned PS3, but think of all the gaming time you would miss out on.

evil_kenshin

4 years ago

the thing with the whole 40% thing is that its only happening in one specific place at one specific online store, not everywhere. Obviously something is fishy with the numbers (ontop of that it is an online retailer that is claiming this, so 40% won't mean much in terms of numbers, heck it could be referencing to bad postage handling for all thats known)

TheAnswer

4 years ago

BovineDeath wrote

You could wait for a redesigned PS3, but think of all the gaming time you would miss out on.

Well by the quality of most games available so far for the PS3, you wont be missing much gaming time

Although it's a shame if the 40gb PS3s are having problems, because that's all US PAL gamers can get in stores now

Crestfallen

4 years ago

so why does anyone care what 'gamed.dl' even says?

Karai Pantsu

4 years ago

^ Well, Sony apparently thought it needed a reply... which suggests to me two things. A) They're pretty stuck for things to do over at SCEE (possible really), or B) there is indeed some truth to the matter.

Of course, if this failure rate was really all that high then we'd be hearing more about it than one report from a single online retailer. Chances are they just got a bad batch of stock, I'd reckon.

RhysDeschain

4 years ago

There's nothing wrong with the 40GB. I work at an EB and we've sold like 50 of the things since they came out, and not a single one has come back defective.
360's, on the other hand... seriously, at the very least we get 3 a week.

BovineDeath

4 years ago

RhysDeschain wrote

That's because there are enough quality games on 360 to leave it switched on for prolonged periods, the PS3 spends most of it's time on standby.

Crestfallen

4 years ago

BovineDeath wrote

RhysDeschain wrote

That's because there are enough quality games on 360 to leave it switched on for prolonged periods, the PS3 spends most of it's time on standby.

lolopolooza.

(seriously though, everyone sick of the same, stupid, opinion based, smart ass comments).

Skiller

4 years ago

BovineDeath wrote

That's because there are enough quality games on 360 to leave it switched on for prolonged periods, the PS3 spends most of it's time on standby.

LOL, as much as I prefer the PS3 you just can't argue with that... unless you have a blu-ray movie marathon, but that won't generate too much heat anyway.

RhysDeschain

4 years ago

I've used my PS3 pretty much every day since March, whether its playing (free) online Resistance/Motorstorm, watching DVDs or movies I've put on my HDD (going thru season 1 of heroes atm).
And now that I have COD4 and GH3, its been on pretty much constantly over the last 2 days and hasn't missed a beat, and will get a crap load more use once I get Ratchet, Assassins Creed and Haze by the end of the month.
My 360, on the other hand, was getting a lot of use when I picked up Orange box, but constant freezing/disc read errors has made me give up.
I'm honestly so, SO sick of f*cking fanboys.

Windburn

4 years ago

Karai Pantsu wrote

Err...I don't get this line of thinking. How else were they supposed to reply to an article (assumably) without foundation?

We all know how these big companies work- if something is getting attention (and that site obviously was), then they need to reply to it. It's only sensible...I don't see anything impliedly sinister at work here? Nor do I see anything wrong with them purporting "low-failure rates" (it's markedly distinguished and hence meaningfully opposite to "high-failure rates"). The proof is in the pudding for Sony.

Nothing to see here, I honestly don't think there's a conspiracy at work, or how one could be read into.

Karai Pantsu

4 years ago

Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places, but doing my rounds of gaming sites today I didn't see the news piece anywhere else. For all I know this has been on every gaming site around and I've just missed it, but it seemed odd to me that they'd bother making a statement like that for something (seemingly) so small and localized.

Fly

4 years ago

Karai Pantsu wrote

Or C) bad publicity of any type in apparent electrical defectiveness needs to be nipped in the arse because silence pretty much assumes guilt as much as saying "Yup we boned it" does.

It's a case of damned if you and damned if you don't when there are only supposed faults with any product. After all, you would not like it if you released a product, one store out of the however many thousands then went out and said "this product is ****, it does this, validating the claim is no no trust me!" So I think it's an adequate reaction given the circumstances as they stand now.

Karai Pantsu

4 years ago

Thats a fair point, and true enough - I suppose that even if the readership isn't all the huge (not that I'd have any idea what their readership is) that story could potentially affect the choices of a great many consumers.

Maybe they're only guilty of being on the ball?

Frozencry

4 years ago

PS3s? Failing?

lol.

I've only ever seen one come back at work. Ever. And that's because the guy dropped it as he was walking out.

And even if this retailer was claiming high failure rates, they probably got some bad batch.

Windburn

4 years ago

Karai Pantsu wrote

I was just presuming that it was getting enough attention that Sony thought it unwarranted. I've no idea really what their readership is either, just seems like a standard company response to me.

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