My PS3 broke down a couple of weeks ago. I was devastasted. The blu ray reader just gave up, right slap-bang in the middle of an online Resistance 2 battle. Why? WHY!? I felt a cold sweat engulfing me as I realised that I was a full two months over my warranty date and pondered what cost my empty wallet was about to face up to.

I called Sony and was pleasantly surprised. The guy told me they would send a courier round with a replacement, free of charge.

“60 gig?”
“Yes, sir”
“Backwards compatibility?”
“Yep.”

Great news! Bad news was that I was going to have to wait two weeks for them to piece together something they don’t sell anymore. I didn’t mind at all. Being out of warranty, I couldn’t exactly complain and providing me with a 60GB console that you can’t get in shops anymore made me feel like Sony were bending over backwards to help me out.

I had a sit down with myself and decided to play Killzone 1 through (it still played DVDs). I never completed it when I first got it, but loved it all the same. Wanted to get in the mood and up-to-date with number 2, you know how it is. Trouble is, the damn thing decided to stop reading any disc at all after a day or two… Not good, but I had my PSP and all kinds of other stuff to be getting on with anyway.



Two Weeks Later… the day they said it would come (in a “pink box”, I may add).
Monday 19th January 2009 – a day I’ll never forget.

So, I take the day off work and spend the Sunday and Monday at my parent’s place – for some reason Sony didn’t recognise my postcode for my current address, so I decided to play it safe. Proper cushty at your folks’ place though, right? Cupboards are full and Sky+ at the ready. So, I settle down around midday and watch ‘This Is England’, bowl of peanuts and a glass of coke to keep me company. I start to get itchy around 1pm, the damn thing isn’t here yet. I phone them up and am reassured that it’s on the way. Ah, the joy.

Ding

That’s the doorbell. I jump up, still in my PJs, wearing a nice Beatles “Help” T-shirt. Symbolic? I don’t know. I answer the door and there she is. A MASSIVE pink crate, probably big enough to house ten PS3s.

Courier: “Playstation”
Me: “Oh, yep”
Courier: “Could you give me your one?”

I go back inside and pick up the carrier bag containing my console. As I walk back out he is kneeling down, pulling my console from the soft foam, moulded into a PS3 shape. I take my cold, dead console from the bag and hold it out to put it into the now empty foam slot. What happened next will stick with me forever.

The guy decides it would be a great idea to try and hold my new PS3 in his left hand and reach towards my one. WTF is he doing? I mean, really? He's acting like he's handing out dishes at Cafe Uno or something.

CRASH!!!

The thing falls from his hand (10inches or so up) and hits the cold, hard stone with a noise that not only wakes my brother up from his slumber (LOL) but sends (I’m quite sure) every bird within half a mile flapping away into the air, frantically.

I reel back, still holding my console.

Courier: “Oh, shit”

I think he is trying to pretend I never saw or heard it. He’s styling this one out. I tell him I’m checking it “because of the fall”. To my absolute dismay, there is a chip of plastic missing (tiny chip though) from the back top corner:

“Ah, mate there’s a chip in it”
“So, you want another”
“Well, what are my options?”
“I’ll lose my job”

I ‘ LL L O S E M Y J O B !?

My heart sinks. What can I do? I’m two months over warranty, the guy made a schoolboy error (these things are heavy champ) and I’ve been two weeks without a fix. So I let him go. I tell him if there are any problems with the thing in the next few weeks I’m replacing it straight away.

He’s lucky that within this imperfect black shiny box, I saw a part of myself. This thing spoke to me, said “give me a chance, I wanna be the one for you”. I’m not perfect, no one is…. So far, she is running like a dream. But that crash…. Eurgh, I shudder with constant flashbacks.

I know you will all say "you are CRAZY!" or "I'd have killed him", but weigh it up a moment, put yourself there on my doorstep… Two men, staring eye-to-eye: one worrying that his income is about to be cancelled, putting his family's security and future plans in jeopardy, the other with half a film to finish watching, a further two weeks wait to contemplate and a heart of gold.

But, why? Just WHY!?