This complaint is hollow. What's the failure rate on the PS1? The PS2? You can't quantify this, it's simply based on the number of complaints people read online or hear in person. Consider the actual number though. These people are vocal b/c they have had a loss. I lost my PS2, thus I complain. But there are over 90M PS2s sold. If there was a considerable failure rate, you would have tens of millions of PS2s broken. You're talking about 10% failure means as many broken PS2s as total DCs sold. This simply cannot be the case.
I'd bet dollars to donuts the PS line is perfectly in line with every other piece of electronics you can buy. The reason so many complain is the sheer volume that have been sold, and thus you hear a vocal group who complain. How about everyone who's never had a PS break on them start making regular posts about it? It would be a flood. The same with the Xbox. There are HDD and DVD complaints all the time. Is that representative of an epidemic? No. Just that you're more likely to make a post about your system breaking than you are to proclaim to the world that it still works. And it goes on through history. With the exception of the SNES, the top selling system has always had the most failure complaints. Yet there's never an issue with the BBB or any other consumer rights agency. No class-action suits involved. I've had my 2600 break, my NES break, my PS break and my PS2 break. With so many sold, probabilty says something's gotta give. But the number is almost certainly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
So yes, the PS3 will have the same reliability problems the PS1 and PS2 had...none. PEACE.
