PS3 Yellow Light of Death?!!!

[cutmymilk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRyRxKlo9-o&feature=player_embedded#t=20

Thanks to UK Resistance for the link.

No idea what they are on about tbh. Haven't heard of this being a big problem til now.

[Matt]

There does seem to be a bit of news floating around regarding this issue. I only know one PS3 owner who has had their machine die, and that was after extensive building work done in their place which left their PS3 covered in over an inch of sawdust and plaster!

[Brats]

Remember that thread from a few weeks ago about the BBC licence fee? All the anti-fee side needed to do was say the word 'watchdog' and they would have instantly won.

Worst. "Journalism". Ever.

[cutmymilk]

Yeah, it's really bad. Especially considering their competition is the 360 LOL!!

[JP]

It's certainly an issue but I'd really be wary of that programme for facts to be honest. There unfortunately didn't really seem to be any sort of research into what they were talking about which is a shame.

I'm not too sure what their aim was with the "article"? It wasn't clear whether it was that there was a inherent problem in the PS3, whether they think that Sony are charging too much for out of warranty repairs or that they feel that a better repair job is done by people in the back of a van?

It's a shame really that as technology gets ore complicated t inherently means that there are more things that can and will go wrong with it. Is there an acceptable level for such faults? There probably is but I have no idea what that would be.

I think this whole subject of hardware failures could certainly do with some proper research but I can't imagine any of the big three would be happy giving out honest numbers. I know Sony's response was that half a percent had problems but I can't imagine that covers all failures to be honest. Maybe it does, I really don't know.

Perhaps a more interesting & relevant article from Watchdog would be how the once fantastic BBC is increasingly manage to churn out insubstantial crap as Watchdog on such a regular basis? I think license fees are something that really need to be investigated in detail at the moment, there's a thread on here somewhere and I personally no longer feel that I get even close to what I pay for from them now that they are churning of some of the most dreadful commercial pap available on terrestrial TV which I'm forced to fund just to watch the 90 odd minutes a week that I am interested in.

[Pilotwings]

My nephews PS3 has died twice.

[belmondo]

Interesting Digital Foundry article about PS3 and 360 hardware failure:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-system-failure-article

[Charlie]

£128 for a repair only covered for a paltry 3 months? lol That's pretty insulting.

[KusoGaki]

Why didn't the guy who thought he lost his photos just take out the hard drive??

[doodledude]

Well my launch PS3 died about 2 weeks ago and had exactly the same problem as featured on Watchdog. Had to pay £128 to get a refurb. If it dies like mine did you don't get a chance to backup properly as its unusable, so you can't just put the hard disk into a new machine without formatting it first.
I had game saves from about 6 weeks ago saved on an external drive but some games you can't backup like rock band and sfiv which is really rubbish.

[JP]

I'm not really convinced this is any more relevant to the problem than the Watchdog sketch but it's come to light now that the consumers on the show were instructed to "embellish" the truth by the producers.

Following the airing of Watchdog's special on the PS3's 'Yellow Light of Death,' the BBC show is being accused of making consumers affected by the problem embellish their stories.

Last week the BBC1 consumer show Watchdog featured a story on failing PlayStation 3 consoles, referring to the populist 'Yellow Light of Death' description of the problem (itself a play on the Xbox 360's 'Red Rings of Death') in an arguably sensationalist segment.

Before the show aired, Sony's UK boss Ray Maguire revealed that the PS3's failure rate affected "less than one half of one percent of units." With around 2.5 million PS3s sold in the UK, this puts those failed at under 12,500.

Considering the failure rate for electronics is around 1 per cent, and further that another particular console, the Xbox 360, originally had a failure rate of anywhere between 30 and 50 per cent, the PS3's effort is not terribly shabby. Watchdog disagreed.

Watchdog then pointed to Sony's fee for repair outside of the console's one-year warranty; ?128, which is admittedly pricey for a piece of equipment that should last for a considerable amount of time. One of our guest writers was well aware of the problem, after his PS3 failed with the fabled YLoD. His console was luckily replaced free of charge, even though it was out of warranty (with no interference from our part.)

The rest of the show was filled of unresearched and sensational claims, failing to explain that the YLoD was simply a sign of any number of problems in the console, and that the problem was generally limited to some 60GB models. Though the consumer programme has previously covered the Xbox 360's RRoD, there was no mention that a 0.5 per cent failure rate was well below Microsoft's console and generally better than the industry standard.

Presenter Anne Robinson also made mention of "trapped gas" in the console as a problem, with a further inaccuracy that the console costs ?400.

A further stint saw the programme set up a free PS3 repair service outside Sony HQ, with four out of the eleven consoles "fixed" failing soon after, and the inaccurate impression that independent stores would repair the console for free.

The show has already been criticised as unfair, unprofessional and sensational, but now it seems that some of the consumers interviewed were prodded to embellish their stories by the BBC programme.

In an interview with TheSixthAxis, one of the programme's consumer group members responded to the question "Were you told to embellish your story of how your PS3 YLoD?d?" with a "categorical yes."

The consumer further added that they didn't think Watchdog did a good job at reporting the problem:

"No, it lacked vital info on things like models that were affected, any decent explanation as to what had happened to the console, and they only aired the brief story of what had happened to one of the people on the show, when the three of us had different circumstances as to what happened in each instance."

But he did believe that the show's choice to cover the issue was a positive:

"All that said I think they have helped people like myself get the problem recognised on a large scale, via a platform which Joe Public has greater access to, where as forums will generally only be accessed by people with a direct interest in the site."

Watchdog received 700,000 less viewers during the show than one week earlier, as reported by the Guardian.

gamezine.co.uk
I'm really not convinced that a site called TheSixthAxis is going to be independent but the show didn't seem to do any research on the subject but I'm even less convinced that the show was completely honest in what they were presenting.

[Matt]

The idea of "trapped gas" makes me giggle. Seriously, it's ****ing stupid. If there's a genuine issue with the PS3, we need to hear about it, but with proper research and journalism. Not this kind of bull****.

Though I don't believe the 0.5% claimed failure rate; wasn't there a poll on here a while back showing something like 10% among site users? That sounds a lot more realistic.

[Darwock]

Trapped gas! lol! I have that problem sometimes, but I don't think my PS3 does

[Brad]

The 0.5% is failures that result in a yellow light. I had a PS3 die but didn't have the yellow light (the blu-ray diode died I think). Sony are saying that firstly there are a number of things that can go wrong that cause a yellow light but secondly, that yellow light errors only cause 0.5% of failed PS3s and this is well below the threshold where any kind of inherent design flaw should be suggested.

[JU!]

Seems Watch dog blew this out of proportion. I thought mostly when peoples PS3`s did fail the light went red correct me if I`m wrong. Never heard of the yellow light prob. I used to love watch dog but seems a bit petty, as I gather most PS3`s don`t fail. 360`s on the other hand. A good thing is though mostly Microsoft and Sony repair free of charge I think if it`s a known problem e.g. most common Blu Ray drive goin bust. Never heard of indie games shops fixing machines before good idea if your Japanese/U.S PS3 dies.