Holiday Season Jinx!... Unlucky gamer--

I must have done something mildly bad in a previous life because I find myself hosed by bad luck (or timing) on the eve of the "holiday game-release storm" once again. Let me set the stage.

Last year I was eagerly anticipating the upcoming holiday releases on the 360, last year was a good year for that console and the holiday release schedule put the PS3 to shame (with the exception of Uncharted of course). I was ready to "finish the fight", start a new NHL season, and get poned in a modern warfare theatre, movie downloads arrived to Canada... I was ready for the weather to turn cold and my console to entertain me until my drunken family did at Christmas... Then, the dreaded 3 red lights of death. The murder of my hopes and beliefs in the superiority of the MS machine.... grrr. I travel quite a bit for work and my console conked out the day before I was to hit the road for 4 weeks. Add-in a few customer service mishaps and some shipping errors and I was without my 360 until mid-December.

But I did not depair fellow gamers. I turned to the newest version of an old favourite. My PS3... ahh... reliable. No known widespread defect, and the emerging front runner of next-gen consoles. This is it. This is what I was going to hang my holiday gaming hat on for next year... The playstation won't let me down.

Fast-forward to the cusp of holiday gaming rage 08. I am ready for a VERY promising library of games that will surely empty my pockets and fill my hard-drive before I realize it's December 24th and i haven't bought any Christmas presents yet... But alas, it's not to be. Just 4 days ago (4 long grueling days) my PS3 60 GB beauty has failed me. The holiday season will pass me by again. This process may take a while again as I am currently residing in Mexico and the only service is across those borders to the North... Good-bye yellow-brick road. My fall-out dreams have fell-out. I have no force to unleash. My Hockey team will remain on the bench and have a late start to the season once again... I am locked-out...

Next year I am buying a ping-pong table... :cry:

Alas the warranty on my PS3 expired about 4 weeks ago. I reside in Mexico temporarily and the console was purchased and is registered in Canada this complicates and extends the return process. Just as last year my absence from the continent delayed the replacement process from MS (which incidentally, was one of the worst customer service experiences I have had to date). I don't put much faith in these warranty and out-of-warranty repair services, nor do I have much faith in most courier companies to get my console to and from an address in North America (in a timely fashion). I may just buy a new one...

Well, I have done the investigation and here is the scoop...

Cost to have SONY repair my defective out of warranty console. $149.00 plus applicable taxes according to the "ship-from" location. Cost to ship it to a friend's US address from Mexico and back (once the repair is complete) $350.00. SONY does not have a service center in Mexico and will only ship to/from US or Canada locations for their service depots... So... It is going to cost me over $500 to have my console repaired. the console that clearly has a defect or engineering flaw. The console that I already paid over $600 for just over 1 year ago.

Does this seem fair to anyone in this thread? Why don't they have a service center that handles Mexico? What do Mexican consumers do when their consoles break down?

I also challenge somebody at SCEA to tell me why they cannot justify absorbing this cost to make sure a customer remains satisfied barely 1 year after making an investment in their platform. I mean really... how many people but a console in Canada, move to Mexico and then need to have it sent in for service? 100 per year would be a very high estimate, so that would equate to an anual liability of $35,000. I think SONY could afford that? Consider the revenue they would get back in that same year for 100 customers. 100 customers spend an average of $600/yr on games (10 games), $150/yr on blu-ray movies (5 movies), and $250/yr on downloadable content (game add-ons, movie rentals and whole games). That is approximately $100,000 in revenue. I am not suggeting SONY gets all of that revenue, but consider that a repaired console has an average life-span of 3 years and all of a sudden that $35,000 liability investment (whihc is a tax write-off by the way) has paid off 10 fold...

really...? They really want me to pay the $500? I think I might just be putting my collection of games, blu-rays and peripherals up on Craig's List instead...

Ping-Pong anyone?