One of the great things about new technology is the excitement leading up to opening the box the first time. You feel the weight of the box in your hand, knowing that there's something good and geeky deep inside its cardboard surroundings.
I remember last year when my Xbox 360 arrived, that my heart was beating a mile a minute, it arrived at my job and I couldn't really open it till I got home, but by this point there were already stories going around about "three red lights of death," among others. I slightly panicked. This little guy had made the journey from China, to L.A., to a myriad of destinations before it wound up at my little door.
Even when you set it up, you think to yourself that it won't work, can't work. You hear about the problems all over the web. It would be just your luck. The elation you feel when the power comes on, the signal comes up, and the main menu opens, is beyond compare.
I always imagined the opposite reaction would be a like a devastating solid kick to the balls.
Today, at 11:10 this morning (Eastern time), Bobby Blackwolf pinged me with the following IM:
Bobby B: So you ready for this?
Bobby B: My PS3 = Dead on Arrival
I was floored. Bobby was looking forward to pulling an all-night Resistance marathon, he had admonished Andy and me to finish the live show on time as he wanted to get to his GameStop to pick up his PS3 as soon as possible. I was happy for him. I really do believe that the PS3 is a good machine, and I wish ZERO malice on anyone who does get one.
To hear this was heartbreaking. I hope this is just a blip and not a sign of things to come. On a positive side, it appears that Sony is being very good about it. By 2:30 in the morning, Bobby had called support and Sony had promised a coffin was on its way for his PS3.
They promised a 3-to-5 business day turnaround. Not bad at all, and nice to see that Sony was assuredly on the ball with this one.
Bobby's issue was video output. As in he was getting none. Not from the composite cables included with the box, not from the component cables he had from his PS2. He didn;t have an HDMI cable, but what's the point of that? If AV out isn't working, why settle for a 90 percent working system?
Sadly, Bobby's isn't the first story I'm hearing. But this is the internet age, so take some of those with a grain of salt. Just because someone says it's a "widespread problem" on a message board does not make it so.
I wish you luck Bobby. Hopefully it comes back soon, and hopefully no one else has any issues. Keep your eyes open folks.
UPDATE: Bobby reminded me that his Launch Day PS2 was also DOA (drive wouldn't spin). He returned it and had a new one sent, and THAT one was broken as well (drive would spin, but wasn't reading the disc). The third one was the charm. Maybe this is just a case of Blackwolf Bad Luck.
UPDATE 2: Sony called Bobby back!; Twice! First to confirm the issue and go over notes of his case. The second time they walked him through the removal and reinsertion of the hard drive. No luck, unfortunately. The supervisor pointed out that this is the first time he has heard of this issue. Congrats Bobby for the bad luck! On the plus side, it's awesome to see/hear that Sony's support is pretty on the ball for a launch day. Kudos to them!
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This brings back aweful memories for me. I got the 3-red-lights of death on my 360 after about one month of heavy use. The death of my Xbox was timed perfectly with my X-mas vacation, so in short, I got to sit around all week with no games to play. I feel your pain Bobby.
Shit happens.
I remember my PS1 had to be played upside down for it to work properly. How cool is that? XD
He didn't mention the "three beeps of death" did he? He let the all-games people listen to it dying. I feel bad though, especially to a person like him. A rich little brat with a DOA system though...awesome.
Couple of things:
The three beeps are not related. That's what the system always does when you press the eject button without a disc in the drive.
I find the "rich little brat" comment funny, though - I'm 29 and I worked hard for my financial stability. I'm not a kid living with my parents.
Bobby,
He wasn't calling YOU a brat - he said that he feels bad for you because he knows you're a good guy
He was saying it'll be funny when a wealthy child has their father pay mexicans to stand in line for him, and the system is DOA
:0
Gotcha.
Just a tad jumpy today. ;P
Can't blame Bobby for being jumpy.. he had visions of 1950's alien invasions in his head, instead he's gonna have to stick to the wall and blind fire for coverage. :)
too funny. The ps3 = all hype, and delivers nothing. People should just have some patience and wait until they work out a lot of the inevitable bugs before plunking down 600 clams (or 3k on ebay) for something. They get what they deserve. Good luck getting an RMA! rofl. My 360 works fine, btw.
AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! $ONY SUCKERS!!!!!!!
I resent the "Mexican" comment I'm one and I would not stand in line for anyone except for my own system. I definitely feel sorry for that guy, It really sucks to wait for so long and then to find out that I still have to wait.
Good luck on your next unit
I hope it was an employee of the vending store throwing it against a wall and going 'eat that, fanboy faggot'. Cause that's something I'd do.
I'm currently ALSO sending in my SECOND 360 (I just got my launch day one repaired a few weeks ago) due to graphical glitches during Gears of War. So the 360 ain't perfect either. Wish it was, though...Sneak King's comin out.
I tried to play the PS3 at Best Buy yesterday near my house and the video wouldn't work on that one either.
That huge digg link is annoying as fuck.
the ps3 at my best buy was doing fine aside from all of its major flaws. and the power was going out every 10 minutes, so someone had to come back every 1 minutes to turn it back on. good times.
Ya, they're on the ball. They get to expect less than 200,000 people calling. Not bad. Keep it up, customer support! You were fully prepared for tons of calls! *end sarcasm*
Jesus, when you guys discover women, you're going to flip out.
hasn't anyone learned from sony's history of trying to lock consumers into their proprietary formats?? you'll never stop paying for your mistake...watch and see...on the upside, sony is dying.
Good Luck on ur next unit there Mr Bobby & hope things work out for the better. :)
Cyph3r
Hopefully this knocks some sense into people before they waste their money on a console that is a cancer to the gaming (and movie) industry, especially when it has no appealing games.
Are you sure it's DOA? When I first plugged mine in, it displayed no video and I started to panic, but I plugged it into the back (where my PS2 was plugged in) instead of the front (where my Xbox was plugged in), turned my DVD/VCR combo (which it is hooked up to) on and off and then it displayed.
Yeah, I've tried it with two different cables (PS2 component and the composite that came with the system) on two different TV's (one HDTV, one SDTV.) On the SDTV with composite, I did see a white flash when I turned on and off the console, but nothing else, even after doing a "hard reset" of the system. The same composite cables that came with the PS3 work fine in my PS2.
I never thought that my DOA console would make the front page of Digg. If I did, we would have posted the story on All Games Radio. Damn you, Hawkes!!! ;P
Man, that sucks. I feel sorry for your friend. Hopefully it is a legite 3-5 days. That's probably equal to amount of time that most had to wait in line to get the unit.
the ps3 at my best buy was doing fine aside from all of its major flaws. and the power was going out every 10 minutes, so someone had to come back every 1 minutes to turn it back on. good times
Hey the same thing happened me, I had the same exact vision, but when I went to play resistance, nothing popped in the movie nothing, tried ps2 games, and dvd's nothing, I to am awaiting a box to ship mine for a quick swap, and they also told me it was the first case reported sounds very familiar, we will see in the future if this is a trend.
waited in line at wal-mart for 38 hours...could've went home with a 20 gig(I was 4th in line) but decided to take the #1 raincheck for a 60gig in 3 weeks...stupid? greedy?
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