PS3 won't recognize discs in the drive

that is ridiculous... Sony markets this product as a full entertainments system, not just a game console. The blu-ray player capabilities were a huge marketing point, and part of the reason the blu-ray format beat hd-dvd out. Tons of people bought this ONLY to watch movies... there is absolutely no reason anybody should have to refrain from using this device's full capabilities just to keep it from breaking. This problem occurs often enough that Sony really needs to issue some kind of recall or extended warranty program. Microsoft stepped up to the plate for the xbox 360, Sony should as well.

Not really. If you have no interest in using it as a game console, go right ahead, but I'm just pointing out a very fundamental fact that is very often overlooked.

The drive in the PS3 is unique in that it is the ONLY one that can read PS3 game discs. Meanwhile, standalone players will continue coming down in price and can easily be replaced. Given that this would be considered normal wear and tear, good luck getting a warranty claim honored. There's always Sony's $150 no questions asked repair program, but there's bound to be some decent blu-ray players that are cheaper than that.

Also, an interesting statistic is that while blu-ray may have "won" the format war, more people STILL own HD-DVD players and media. Of course the both of them were a solution in desperate search of a problem, because a couple years in, neither of them managed to make any kind of significant dent in the regular DVD sales. Most people just don't seem to care about the improved quality you can get. And personally, I hate the way they seem to post-process blu-ray movies to try and bring out things in the foreground. It makes it look like a video game, and destroys the lucidity of the whole thing.

Sony's movie and music division is the one I blame for the lackluster uptake of the PS3. Bluray was a solution in desperate search of a problem, and still is. It drove up the costs of the system to absurd levels, and it really made it a difficult product to market. Is it a movie player, a game console, or something else?

And finally, a company will only issue a recall when they figure that the alternative will cost them even more. That's why Microsoft issued that extended warranty, because it was cheaper than what they were facing from the class action lawsuit brought against them. Had they simply not cut so many corners to be the first onto the market... Well, I guess it's kind of pointless to think about now.

Before claiming something "ridiculous" you should maybe first take the time to properly understand what is being said.

I agree the PS3 is piece of crap myPS3 didthe exact same thing but I wasn't playing music,blue-rays, or dvd's just games.I still have my ps2 from 2001 and psone from 1997 and they work fine. At first I was going to go and buy another PS3, but why I had it for only less than three years and it already went bad, that's terrible. And then as thefinal insult sony wants me to ship my piece of crap PS3 unit back to them and pay $150 bucks for them to fix it **** that.

There a a lot of complaints on the playstation forums about this. A lot of people including myself believe that it's the 2.53 update that caused this. The older models are affected the most. Adding insult to injury Sony is asking $149+taxes for them to repair it and if you do notice that the firmware after repairs is back to the old 2.52. My unit was working fine last Thursday without giving any signs of malfunction or deteriorating in performance. Friday morning a mandatory update was necessary in order to play online. After the reboot that was it. It won't read any type of disc but everything else is functioning. Sony won't admit the mistake in the firmware. I guess I'm just stuck with $500 60gb paper weight. A lot of people are not happy. Check out playstation.com and go to the forums specially the thread about the 2.53 update.

Last time I looked I didn't see much on the topic but now that you mention it, right after I did the update was when the drive started to act up and I'm pretty certain that was the last update it did and got. I'll check when I get home... Appreciate the heads up!

I used the sony web site for the flat rate repair. I filled in the form on Friday, the box arrived on Monday. I followed the directions to the letter with EXACTING DETAIL so there would be no screwups because I didn't follow instructions.

I had the PS3 in their box and down to the local UPS store by noon. One week later, the next Monday I had a shiny PS3 and it works super.

I have no complaints about the service.

But are you saying you want free repair outside of warranty? Some try that.
Bob

I guess after seeing thousands of postings I just think this is totally unfair that we have to pay for the fact that they put out a poor product.

MSN stepped to the plate with Xbox, Toyota waited until people died before they finally stepped up, I am just tired of these larger companies letting consumers like us pay for their mistakes. I sent a letter to NBC to see if they will to a news article on it maybe on Dateline, Today Show, MSNBC ... anything.

We watch a lot of movies on ours so the posting above concerns me.

When did you get yours fixed and how expensive was it?

That my unit was repaired so quickly and without any fuss? What I didn't tell you was that my PS3 was also an abused unit. The unit's top lid was cracked, the drive didn't read well and would lock up after about 15 minutes. It was choked with dust and dust bunnies from it's prior owner leaving it on the carpet for over a year.

This unit was bought because I could get it fixed at the flat rate. I bought a defective second hand unit for cheap and then used the Sony flat rate system to my advantage.

So I agree. Totally unfair of me.
Bob

Our unit is about 16 months old. It's taken care of like a baby. We use it rarely because we had a baby a year ago. I paid $500 and I'm not happy that something that I took care of lasted such a short time.

You sent yours to Sony, correct? What did it cost to repair?

I think Sony's web site varies by country. Try their site at http://us.playstation.com/support/answer/index.htm?a_id=106

Other countries listed so you can click a few times and see what today's price is.

This issue of out of warranty repairs is one hot topic. Look at HDTV repair rates! Yikes. Lots of folk feeling blue.
Bob

Not the same thing. Microsoft (MS, MSN is the Microsoft Network, a subdivision of MS) was facing failure rates significantly higher than Sony with the 360. Some estimates from the people who do the Square Trade warranties estimated it at as high as 33%, so one in every 3 systems sold. Their estimates for Sony and Nintendo failures were around 5% each.

Microsoft was also facing huge amounts of negative publicity, lawsuits, and angry retail partners who were having to process all these returns.

Any time a company is aware of some issue like this, they will do the math and figure out whether they think it is cheaper to do a recall or take their chances with what may come. Microsoft clearly opted for the latter, and it ended up being the wrong decision. And the Toyota thing is completely different, but of course it's easy to say this or that should have been done with the perspective of hindsight to guide you.

Look at it this way. When the PS3 first came out, it was the cheapest Blu-Ray player out there, by a long shot. Sony was subsidizing part of the cost, and selling each unit at a loss. It's probably only been about now that the PS3 is starting to break even. Companies like Sony and Microsoft initially sell the hardware at a loss, hoping to make the money up on the back end with games. So as much as people complain about how expensive the PS3 was/is, it should have cost probably about 2X as much, maybe more.

And finally... Life isn't fair. Anyone who told you otherwise was lying. Sometimes a device will fail early, while your buddy who was literally next in line after you in the store to buy, has one that channels the spirit of the energizer bunny.

We're largely to blame too. We want things cheaper, and we want them to market faster. Sooner or later, something has to give. Quality control is now done by statistical sampling rather than inspecting every unit. You might test 100 systems out of every 1000 that comes off the assembly line. If those 100 systems check out, the whole lot of 1000 is sent out, though everyone knows full well there's a chance at least some of those will be defective. It's a calculated risk.

Now, if everyone wants to start paying an extra 100-200% more, and wait an extra 12-24 months for a device to come to market, then companies could probably justify having every unit rolling off the line tested. Somehow, I don't think that sort of thing would fly with many people. We want things yesterday, and we want them dirt cheap. Which is what companies give us, so complaining about what companies have to do in order to give us what we want is a bit tacky to say the least.

I'm not arguing with you about life not being fair, we all know that is true. All I am saying is regardless $500 is a lot to drop on something that lasts 16 months and I know a lot more consumers agree with that statement.

I'm a VP of Operations so trust me I get the idea. I just think there's a point to which you need to support your customer. You do realize your supporting a GIANT like SONY and not the average customer.

Look at the HDTV market with 500 and up buck units with 1 year warranties.

The ire is already there and growing. Are the makers are sending a clear signal the product isn't expected to last that long?

"It should last longer" versus the warranty period discussion has been done quite a few times. Maybe that credit card that doubles the warranty is a good thing. Got that?
Bob

And that point comes when it's cheaper for a company like Sony to perform some kind of recall, compared to doing nothing.

Besides, a company like Sony has many different business units with competing interests. The movie arm of Sony has been dragging down the electronics divisions of the company for ages now, by making them support all these various copy protection schemes, and decreeing that the PS3 would have a bluray drive. The first thing they should probably do, is separate the entertainment and electronics divisions of their company, then maybe the electronics division would be able to offer better service to customers, without the giant albatross of the movie division dragging the rest of the company down.

There are numerous class action lawsuits against Sony, particularly for the earliest versions of the PS3, yes, the ones that people paid four to six hundred dollars for. First, the took away the "install other OS", and they were slapped with a class action, now, it's just "coincidence" that hundreds of original owners such as myself updated the firmware, and all the sudden no discs can be played either?

So today I updated to the latest firmware, and my drive quit working all of a sudden. It seems like that's a common theme, even a year after others first started seeing it with older firmware versions. Does anybody know why changing the firmware would kill the drive? (And please, no "life isn't fair" posts.) Is there a way to revert to the previous firmware version? I don't even know which one I'm on--why is that so difficult to determine (it seems to me it should tell you when you go to System Update)? Do you know how to get in on these class action lawsuits? Thanks for any advice.

Is that most don't call in such failures. But let me clue you into what not to say on the phone. Do not threaten legal action. Companies will mark that in your file and then it is no longer a tech support problem. They are letting the legal path play out.

And I've seen this one too often. My friend in the biz will swap in a new drive on such an unit and it works. Swap in the old drive and it fails. This does not bode well that the firmware update killed it and does not bode well for any class lawsuit.
Bob

Yesterday my 3 year old ps3 60gb did not recognise discs anymore. Nit sure what could have caused it. Was already updated to latest firmware. Surprisingly was trying out the new ps move when it occurred.

Had extended warranty purchased with only 10 days left on it. Called warranty guys and they said I had to call Sony first for trouble shooting. Calling Sony now but line us busy. Will keep u guys posted.

CD/DVD/BD drives only last a few years. Yours hit nearly 3. Good luck on the call.

I got my first ps3 about 2 years ago and had only owned for about 11 or 12 months when the console wouldn't recognize the disc that i had just put in it. And now my father's that I had been using has stopped reading the discs. This one is about 1 and a quarter years old and read the discs perfectly before the newest update but stopped reading discs after I turned it on to play when I was done eating lunch about half an hour ago. I was extremley worried that I did it. but after reading the other posts I think that it was a common failure and that SONY has just made the system to quickly or it was cheaply made. How much would it cost to get it fixed, and how can i figure out if my warranty has ended or not?

I look at my receipt.
As to cost I used the Sony web pages. last time was 150 flat rate shipping included which I thought was quite a nice deal.
Bob

But your post formatting is so poor that I lost track about 5 lines in.

Since you didn't break it up a little I'll share that I use the flat rate Sony repair (here it's 150) and it's great.
Bob

sorry about this, i didnt proofread my post before i posted it so i am ammending it. I tried to edit it after I posted it but couldn't so I have to repost it again but it will be shorter.
i got a ps3 40 gb for 90 bucks and the problem with it was the blu-ray drive wont read any type of disk, all the solutions i have tried for the blu-ray drive has not worked. and it has the latest firmware on it. first i took the ps3 apart and checked the connectors and the thin ribbon cable, i took it off and then put it back on then i did the corrupted data fix for it by putting the ps3 in standby mode (red light on) then pressing the power button and holding it down until it powers back off, then pressing the powerbutton down until the ps3 beeps twice very fast and after it beeps 2 times fast let go of the button quickly, if you didnt release the button fast evough it will just go back into standby mode, just repeat step if that happens. now it will tell you to connect the controller in the usb slot and press the round button in the middle of the controller, a "hidden" menu pops up with 5 options and you select the 3rd option (fix corrupted data) and it will say the data is corrupt and will attemp to fix it. let it fix it and restart. this didnt work for me so i repeated the procdure but instead of option 3 I chose option 5 (restore to factory settings). you will lose ALL of your info pn the ps3 so if you want to keep your game saves and settings and downloaded games backup your files and save them to a memory card or stick (mine dosent have the media card slots so I would have used the usb port where the controller connects for charging). after pressing the middle button on the controller it will look like it did when you bought it when it was brand new and never used. you have to re-enter the current date time and time zone and after that it will start just like it did when you bought it brand new. After I did all that I still have the same problem, all I see is the disk in the upper righthand corner spinning when a disk is inserted and it just spins. That didnt work so I so then replaced the entire bluray drive with my other one that is the same model drive that i know works. I just took the bad one out and put the other one in and reconnected it but i didnt swap out the circuit board that is on the outside of the blue-ray drive, i put the unit back together but left out the screws in case i have to take apart again powered up the unit and it still has the same problem. I read that you must use the origonal control circuit because it is married to the drive, is this true? i didnt want to do that unless i have to, can you confirm that? the parts are very delicate and that is why i needed more info before i tried that. any suggestions would be appriciated. sorry I didnt proof-read before posting previous post.

Again the formatting is so poor that I get lost at about line 5.

Try this. Use a few parapraphs but sum it up without the long details to what I'm guess is this -> "I want to repair my PS3. Does anyone have a shop manual?"
Bob