A friend called me Friday afternoon and said he was having PS3 issues. His system would cut on, but the television was not displaying any video footage from the system. I asked him a series of questions (did he do a hard-reset, did he check/unplug the cables, did he unplug the television, etc.), seeing what all he had tried. After realizing he had done pretty much everything suggested on the PlayStation 3 forums, he mentioned he had even already taken it to Game Stop, where they tested it and told him they thought it was fried and/or a chip in it had stopped working.
I replied something like, "But your television still works right? And no other electronics are messed up?", trying to make sure it wasn't a lightning strike that hadn't been mentioned yet. I asked if he had the box still, and he said he was actually looking for the PS3 box as we were talking. I told him I would check back with him later that night, to see if he had made any progress.
After I sent a general text of, "Did you fix it?", later that night, he replied with two text messages that shed a little more light on the situation. How did he go about "fixing" his PlayStation 3, and what was the last thing he was doing before his PlayStation 3 stopped working? Brew yourself some coffee, and read the rest below!
The Brew
The image above shows the two text messages my friend sent me about what he had been doing, before his PlayStation 3 stopped working. If you can't see the image the first text said, "I had joined Playstation Plus and was downloading Borderlands when it stopped at 67% saying I had a corrupted file."
His second text reads, "Then I tried it again and left it on over 12 hours to give it a second chance to download the game. Came home to find it dead."
Saturday, after my friend attempted another system reset and unplugging and re-plugging cables, he sent me another text that asked if I thought a local game store could repair it. I replied just this afternoon that the local game store he referenced was now closed, but that he should call Sony and I mentioned the rumors about the new PS3 model, thinking he may have wanted to wait for any new system that might be announced.
How did he reply? He texted back, "I already got a new one. Called Sony. Couldn't help." Game Stop took his old, broken, PS3 Slim model and gave him $90 for it, and after he traded in a few games he had sitting around, he was able to get a new PlayStation 3 Slim for $121.
Caffeinated Thoughts
What is one reason for the post? Well first, this is not the first time I know of somebody either doing an update, or this instance downloading a game, and their PS3 system stops working. Brad from WhoBurnedMyToast had this issue last March with the PS3 update Version 3.60 killing his PS3 system.
What baffles me is how Sony was contacted and denied anything was wrong on their side, and simply told them it was "hardware failure", in both instances. If you have customers that are doing updates and/or game downloads, and the system gets a fatal error during these downloads/updates, is that not a programming issue on Sony's side that should be addressed? Or, at the very least somehow easily explained to customers that call in to help them prevent it from happening again in the future?
Second reason, if you are a PlayStation Plus member and you attempt to download Borderlands now that it is "free" and get a "corrupted file" message during the download, you might want to contact Sony or find out a solution before attempting it again. I wouldn't want a "free" game download to cost me the price of a new PlayStation 3 console because Sony doesn't acknowledge the issue, and/or doesn't address it to customers that call them for support.
If the only way to "fix" my friend's PlayStation 3 system that got a corrupted file during a download is by buying a new one, that's a pretty steep price for a game that was supposed to be free, especially considering he was paying for PlayStation Plus service.
Questions
If you own a PS3 Slim model, and are a PlayStation Plus member, have you downloaded Borderlands and not had any issues? Or, have you experienced something similar to what my friend did? (if you do have Borderlands now, I own the retail version and you can find my PSN name HERE)
Do any of you know how to fix the "corrupted file" issue my friend experienced, to prevent it from totally killing a PlayStation 3 system?
If you don't own a PS3 system, you can see PS3 related items below:
