14 DAY TRIAL // Sony's been hit by PS3 issues again it seems, as a couple of retail sources are reporting that the console's failure rates are pretty high. Games Mania, a Belgian games retailer is part of the PS3 distributors and mentioned that the consoles sold pretty well, but about 40 per cent of them were returned because of hardware issues that prevented the devices from reading Blu-ray (or any other) disks.
We're not sure yet if we're dealing with a single retailer's problem or a general issue, but it seems that Sony has its own "Red Ring of Death" to face now. Taking into consideration that this is the first time we've heard about problems like this, we can only suppose that the malfunctions only happened in Belgium, so we shouldn't criticize the 40GB device yet. In case you're looking for bugs and hardware malfunctions of the PS3 you might want to know that the console was made using low-cost technologies and it doesn't feature as many cooling vents as its predecessors.
Have you ever experienced disk reading issues on your 40GB PS3 so far? It's weird that Sony decided to use less cooling vents, since the console tends to overheat after a long gaming session. Microsoft did the opposite thing, increasing the number of cooling parts on the 360 in order to prevent the Red Ring of Death and other overheating problems from happening. Well, it's only logical that sacrifices were made in order to cut costs and offer the public a cheaper PS3, in an attempt to compete with the acclaimed Xbox 360 or the best-selling Wii console.
Since this version of Sony's gaming device may have the above-mentioned issues imagine what would happen if the company pulled out a PS3 slim, without a proper ventilation system... The failure rates would be sky high and Sony would once again lose billions.