I've had my PS2 for about 2 years now. I've never dropped it,hit it,i never did anything bad to it. Whenever i turn it on i makes weird noises, and will not read some games. At first I thought. Mabye I happened to get a bad PS2, mabye most people don't have the problems with their's that I do with mine? I sune found out that it happens to most PS2 owners. Three of my friends who all also owned, own a PS2 had problems with there's. 1 of my friends (mr_gamezombie) had three PS2's because they kept braking on him. Witch brings me to my next point, mabye sony makes them un-reliable on purpose? So you have to keep buying a new one, or sending it to them to repair it. Another one of my friends (ice_cold_killa) only had one PS2, but it was in bad shape. When u tried to play a game it kept freezing in the process of going threw the previews, but that wasent the worst part. When we tried to play some of my games on his, it scratched my games so badly that when i got home, my playstation wouldn't read the games. This last case wasn't as bad as the first 2. This guys (hobo_in_trainin) Playstation stopped reading disks only 3 months after he purchased the system. After I let him borrow my GTASA for the weekend(this was before it stopped reading disks). The game came back so incredibly scratched that my playstation wouldn't read it. So in total four people went threw 6 PS2's in about 3 years.(the last two haven't even had there's for a year). In conclusion if your just getting into games and are deciding between a PS2 or an Xbox, buy the Xbox. I've had mine for about a year now and it works like it did when it was bran-new. My PS2 on the other hand, started acting up about half year after i bought it. So go with the relaible system.