Console Failures and You

[defunctzombie]

Curiously, did you ever see if the memory card made a difference? Some of those early PS2s stored the DVD player software on the memory card.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

Curiously, did you ever see if the memory card made a difference? Some of those early PS2s stored the DVD player software on the memory card.

Maybe, but it's probably the laser alignment issue. When the laser gets out of alignment certain types of media go first. Usually it's blue PS2 discs (CDs), but for me DVD movies also started giving me trouble before DVD games did. When you realign it you need to have all three types of media on hand to make sure you've hit a spot where it will play all of them.

 

[Neo Yi]

I am 99% sure it was the laser alignment issue. I do recall that was a big hair-puller for me back then, so I'm going to go with what Shawn said.

 

[RandomMe]

My consoles had a few problems, but I had more problems with my PSP. I had to restart it.

 

[Dragnatek]

I have had a few failures and near failures. Lets see there was my Playstation which refused to die. The plastic piece where you put your games, yeah it started to fall apart and I remember repairing it with a sticker so it could still hold games. Eventually I replaced it with a smaller model but that PSX refused to die.

My first Playstation 2 or should I say my brothers first PS2 broke quickly. It started scratching up disks after a year. It destroyed Final Fantasy X. Now my PS2 that I bought in 2004 is still working to this day and going strong.

My wii has problems. It won't play dual layered disks. Fortunately very few Wii games are dual layered, bad news is that includes Xenoblade and Last Story two of the main reasons I wanted a Wii.

I bought a used DS is 2009 with a small crack on the hinge. The crack got bigger and bigger, and by the end the two screens were mainly connected by the wires. It eventually dies.

My PSP also a used system has problem playing UMD games. Sometimes it won't load them, it stops loading in the middle of a game and forces me to wait. The only good thing is the games don't completely freeze so I can put the system in sleep mode and wait twenty minutes to a half hour and continue playing. It's annoying but I can deal with it. It plays downloaded games perfectly too bad some games are not available in the Playstation Store. Still when playing games with long dungeons and limited save points like Valkyrie's Profile it gets frustrating.

 

[SNS]

Xbox 360 (2005 - 2010) - It got the infamous RROD, so I had to get a replacement (not the slim, this was a few weeks before that was announced).
PlayStation 3 (2006 - 2011) - It got the infamous YYLOD. I was able to repair it myself but I had to keep doing this every few months & eventually the fix stopped working. I got the slim as the replacement.
PlayStation 2 (2000) - I don't remember when it happened but some years after I got the PlayStation 3, I started leaving this on standby instead of turning it off completely with the switch in the back of the system. One day the system no longer turned on...

 

[El-Hazard]

Several.

1. Earliest one I can remember was my first Game Boy didn't work and I had to get it replaced.

2. I had a Super Nintendo that just died on me, on the same day I rented EarthBound for the first time.

3. My first PS1 stopped working after a few years, so I had my mom buy one (and a few games) off a friend of hers.

4. Then I got my first PS2, and eventually that stopped reading discs, so I bought a pre-owned slim model that's held up nice.

5. I had a Gamecube that got fried when I accidentally left it plugged in during a lightning storm.
Bought a new one only to find out that all I had to do was replace the power unit.
My memory card data was even still intact.

6. My first original Xbox was doing great until one day it started turning itself on.
Had to resort to unplugging it when not in use. And that was the system where you have to reset the date and time every time it gets unplugged.
But since I have very few Xbox games left to finish, I never replaced it.

7. My first Xbox 360 held out for about three years before it finally red-ringed.
Brother replaced it and it's still fine.

8. I almost had to replace my PS3 when a mandatory update wouldn't finish, and as such wouldn't let me play anything or use any services on it.
But luckily I had a back-up harddrive, so I was able to update everything and it's been working fine since.

Fingers tightly crossed that I don't have any console failures in the foreseeable future.
Preferably never again, but I'm trying to be realistic here.

 

[Punisher]

Looks like my third 360 is about to kick the bucket soon. It's having trouble reading brand new game discs. It's gotten to the point where it takes me almost ten minutes to load up a game, every time. The first three or four tries, the Xbox loads the game, and then the console freezes. Or sometimes, I'll get a message saying that it can't read the disc, and I need to clean the disc with a cloth. I know it's got to be the Xbox itself because the game is brand new. And this isn't the first game it's done that to. It's becoming incredibly frustrating to even play the 360 anymore because of this issue, I have to be prepared every time to restart the console and wait ten minutes to actually get playing.

I feel really burned by Microsoft. This is my third 360. I have consoles that are twenty years old that work with no problems. This entire experience has turned me away from getting an Xbox One. If I ever get one, it won't be at least for three or four years, so that I can be sure any major hardware kinks have been addressed and fixed.

 

[Eternal Argost]

I can't watch DVDs or play games on PS3 now. My SoulCalibur 5 game kept freezing until it stopped working recently. The games aren't scratched and the console isn't dusty.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Wow, reading this thread only makes me realize how absurdly lucky I've been in this area.

 

[Daxdiv]

So far my only recollection are these incidients

Wii: No discs were being read by the system. It wasn't the issue with Brawl, since I am talking about the launch games as well, along with GameCube games.

Nintendo DS: The screen's colors were messed up, so I sent it in to be repaired. Happened around the time Pokémon Diamond and Pearl came out.

Xbox 360: Had 2 different failures. First was the Red Ring of Death. The second, I'm guessing the video card inside the system must have fried or something, since I was playing a game and then noticed the colors change very aruptly. When I figured out it wasn't the game, and the whole system was like that, I had to send it in.

Nintendo 3DS: Right now, both of the shoulder buttons are unresponsive. Was one of the main reasons as to why I watned to upgrade my 3DS into an XL. Might fund to get this fixed after January, since I am mostly spending for Christmas and a wedding coming up soon.

Nintendo 3DS XL: Dropped it and the left shoulder button got broken. Luckily, since I bought this recently, like around September, I was able to use my warranty to get it fixed. They fixed it and also did more stuff to it as well according to the invoice.