square trade handles the warranties that go through them, so they'd know how many systems had to come in based off of certain errors (and, not surprisingly, the RROD is the most overwhelming of hardware failures of any console). Not sure what other companies handle warranties, but they would more than likely come up with the same conclusions, give or take maybe 5%.

heres the PDF pertaining to the whole study:

http://www.squaretrade.com/htm…..y_0809.pdf

so is that a lifetime warranty or were they still under regular store warranty? In that case, Costco would be handling warranties, but not any repairs, which would then have to be reported by them. If the warranty isn't lifetime (or within store's warranty/return policy), the console has a 3 year manufacturer warranty (for RROD) and manufacturer warranties run through such companies as Square Trade due to outsourcing (which a lot of companies do). Technical support is the same way, the big companies have contracts with third parties to handle such cases. I couldn't do a store warranty on my first 360 because it was past the 30 day or whatever return policy, and I couldn't do manufacturer because it was past the one year warranty, but luckily, a month later, Microsoft expanded the warranty for RROD issues to three years, and I then went through that system as well within the next couple years. Since the 360s now use 65nm processing as opposed to 90, the systems don't overheat as much and RROD cases have slowed down quite a bit since last year. 1 in every 4 systems going bad seems perfectly realistic (also note, not all of the defects are caused by RROD) and that number really won't drop significantly until around late 2011, 3 years after the Jasper chipset came out (when both CPU and GPU were 65nm). Going through manufacturer, though, that's going to be long term replacement issues. Usually, if your system is going to brick, it's going to do so within the first month (even though mine took over a year, but my replacement bricked within a month), which is why most store return policies run between 30 and 90 days (of course, extended warranties from the retailer could go as much as 4 years in some cases, in which case, those won't necessarily deal with companies like Square Trade). Also take into account if the system was out of warranty, those won't be reported and the consumer would then have to purchase a new system outright.

yeah I had 1 friend that I know of that had similar hardware failures like myself, but most of my other friends haven't had any problems. It could also be issues with certain manufacturing lines as well. Given the total number of consoles sold over time, 24% is still quite a significant failure rate. If 1 million are sold, that's 240,000 that are portentially defective (a HUGE number). Most people would contact manufacturer though, if the people you know don't within the 3 year warranty, then they're just throwing their money away lol. I had my 360 shipped out and had a replacement unit shipped back within like 3 weeks, which isn't bad, especially since they throw in a free month of Live. But, in any case, I wouldn't doubt that the overall failure rate between in-warranty and out of warranty consoles would be higher than even 35%, but the 24% is just for in-warranty through the manufacturer

when it comes to "stepping up" to the Slim (in quotations due to it losing a couple features), I would really just take into consideration how much PS2 gaming you actually do. If you really don't play it that much, you could just move that to another TV for when you do. If all else fails, PS2s are pretty cheap, so you could have that set up next to the slim, but then you have to have wired controllers and memory cards. Or you can look ridiculous and have both systems connected to the same TV, one being used for PS2 gaming lol (but then, that wouldn't really help the going green process lol). You aren't really gaining anything going with the Slim (except for maybe hard drive size if you still have the original 60GB), so I'd still take into consideration the $150 just to get it repaired (though, a $300 Slim would potentially save you money in the long run). If you do get a Slim, see about getting an extended warranty (like a 4 year). It might cost about $100-$150 or so, but it's better than paying that price to get it fixed a year later anyway (and you would still have 3 years after that of coverage as well, so if the console fails, say, 4 times within a 4 year span, you saved $450).

I have a 40 inch Samsung TV that went bad a couple months after the warranty expired (which was last week lol). It was going to cost me about $300 to have Samsung tech fix it, but I opened the rear panel and found I had 2 blown capacitors, so I'm getting new ones in tomorrow and will be replacing them myself, costing me a mere $9 after shipping and materials lol