I got a PS2 at launch and have used it a lot. I have about 40 games for it and have completed about 75% of them. For a while, it was also my primary DVD player. Needless to say, the damn thing is always on its dying breath. My gaming area is immaculate, so dust is not allowed, but disc read errors still occur constantly. Usually when I start a game up for the first time, it won't work until I run the DVD cleaner a couple of times. That is usually enough to get it working until I finish that game up. Still even then, my PS2 will usually sit at the browser screen for up to a minute before it recognizes that there is a disc inserted. If I were a religious man, I would constantly be praying that my PS2 lives until PS3 is released, and that PS3 will be backwards compatible. I refuse to buy another PS2, but that's easy to say when I can still get my current one to work. If it did break, I'd probably just end up helping Sony inflate it's sales numbers once again, but that won't happen, as I'm determined to keep my launch model on life support until PS3 releases.
I think that there must be some kind problem with Sony's shipping methods. If the Japanese PS2's are proving to be more reliable, then it's likely that the packaging does not adequately protect the PS2's from damage. Either that, or the PS2 just wasn't built to handle the rigors of international travel.
