Oops, I almost typed up a real response with some actual numbers before I checked your previous comments on other threads to see you're just trolling and real discussion is pointless. My bad!

I wasn't insulting you by saying you care for your electronics, tool. I was implying that you ARE NOT part of the unwashed masses that smash their own feces in to the keypads of the cell phones.

I'm just a computer engineer that repairs small electronics as a job, what the hell would I know? If anything, I should be mad at you for not being my customer. I guess all I can tell you is I SEE poorly cared for electronic devices ALL DAY LONG EVERY DAY, and I'm sure what passes through my hands is 0.00000000000000001% of the total devices in need of service.

Jerk.

You are the anomaly. I RARELY see anyone take the slightest bit of care of their smaller electronics, no matter the cost. It sounds absurd, but is observably true. There's a reason there are several thousand of each current revision of portable game system that are destroyed by poor care (broken in half, smashed to bits, scratched to the point of lunacy) on eBay at any given time. Then imagine how many were under warranty and were returned.

And technology costs more the more you shrink it.

THANK YOU SONY!!!!!

I fix video games for a living, and Sony has made great plans to keep me in business. This thing looks like it could quite possibly be the most fragile system ever. Adults can't use sliders without breaking them, and Sony wants to give them to teenagers and children that will throw them in backpacks with textbooks.

Taking clamshell durability versus slider durability, then comparing to the rate of user destruction of clamshell systems would imply that without a carrying case or protective hard cover used constantly for storage, these things are just simply doomed. I don't see how a single one can survive on its own. I imagine the fish that are presents for the little girl in Finding Nemo.

I hope they've already started working on the logistics of handling millions of warranty returns and repairs at once. Microsoft may be able to provide some advice on that front.

RE: AC below commenting on flex ribbons wearing out: I don't think I've seen more than one or two (out of several thousand) ribbons in a clamshell system that have just "worn out." They do break easily, but only once the actual case or hinges are broken, or if someone was tampering with the internals. Even the few that were "worn out" appeared to have worn out because there was a ton of dirt and debris inside the areas where the moved around, adding to the wear. They are simply not the fault point on their own or through normal use.

I don't think that's the case. If you are doing the x-clamp replacement thing and heating it up and all that, and the repair seems to not be working or holding, I think it is because the heatsink is bigger. It's harder to force the console to overheat to the point of melting solder. If you are actually reballing the GPU, then I don't know what to tell you.

I repair all generations of video game consoles for a living, and have repaired several thousand consoles. Allow me to touch several bases quickly:

E74 is not "on the rise", it has stayed as steady as ever. 3 red rings of death are declining with the new designs (they were pushing close to 100% failure rate within 3 years for the first generation), so other problems are finally allowed to surface since the consoles actually stay running long enough now.

New generation consoles are ALL going to have MANY more problems than old consoles. It's because of 3 things. They all run hotter since they have behemoth (comparatively) processors. Second, they have TONS more moving parts. Finally, components are smaller and made to less stringent standards (and there are tons more on each board).

The most complicated repair that really ever needs done to cartridge based systems is replacing a fuse. Almost all "broken" systems just need the game connectors cleaned. The processors usually don't even have a heat sink on them because they don't even get warm. The only heat sinks in the things would be on the 7805's. Also, they didn't use custom processors. Older machines had chips like Z80's or 68000's for brains. Obviously established architectures. Then we start adding moving parts, and you actually introduce wear in to the equation where there was no wear before. That was the problem with the NES blinking. The game connector actually had to move around, so it wore out. That's why the SNES and N64 are so much more reliable. They have no moving parts, robust components, and more cooling power than they need. Exactly the opposite of today's designs. New console designs are inherently recipes for disaster. Cheaper components, tons of moving parts, and not enough cooling.

MS could add more cooling. A better fan, or added fans, and a better designed interior for airflow would completely solve the heat issues that kill these things. However, it would require almost completely redesigning case and laying out a new board with different locations of all the parts, both on the board and around the board (meaning even the faceplate, plastic buttons, and drive size would need dealt with). Good luck presenting that to your boss when your product is turning profits just fine right now.

And to anyone saying they never have their disc drives in their computers go bad, try running a program from the CD for EVERY SINGLE SECOND your computer is on, and it probably won't make it to the end of the year. And open and close the drive a dozen times a day.