Badle's Journal: Sony PSP woes

This is my first article on Slashdot, so please forgive me if its not up to the usual standards..

Anyways, I'm posting to let people know how Sony is still screwing its customers. I have been a fan of Sony electronics for years. My first purchase being one of their Net Mini Disc players back when they were first coming out. I loved how I could rip my CD collection & have 3 or 4 discs with lots of songs on it. My latest purchases now being their PS3 & the PSP.

Sadly my dismay with them comes with the PSP & the PS3.

I was happy to read that I could hook my PSP to the PS3 and download old PS1 games to play on my portable. Having enjoyed many hours of gaming on their systems in the past I was very excited. I hooked my PSP up to the PS3 and proceeded to let the system do its thing updating. This is when everything went wrong. I was about 75% done updating when the unit went black. (and yes my PSP was plugged in at the time) I left it for awhile & went to get some supper. Came back after supper and still no picture. I unplugged the unit, and tried turning it off & on. Still black. I pulled out the battery turned it off & on, then put the battery in (I figured that this would reset the unit, as most electronics when they lock up taking the power away generally fixes the problem) Still nothing. So I searched online at Sony's website for trouble shooting. Their site said to try pulling the battery out & leaving it for awhile. So I did. A day later I popped the battery back in & still nothing. Frustrated I called Sony. Their operator came online & had me try again cycling the power, plugging it in, taking out the battery, & unhooking the power. Nothing. So they say that I need to send my unit in for repair. When I asked them why it doesn't turn on, they said they didn't know, only that my PSP is damaged & that they can fix it for $120. I said WTF?! This is my baby, what about warranty. They had me dig out my receipt and then said nope, your 3 months off warranty, so we will need $120 to repair your PSP. This is when I got upset & asked to speak to a manager. I explained what I had done, hooking my PSP up to the PS3, and they said that it probably died during an update, and that because I am 3 months off warranty I would need to pay $120 to have it fixed. This chokes me up, because my PSP was working fine until I plugged it into their PS3. And following their own instructions (make sure the unit is fully charged, and plugged in before updating) the unit died. As far as I'm concerned I did nothing wrong other than follow their own instructions and ended up with a dead PSP. Yet they still want money from a long time customer. WTF!? Is it me, or does this seem like a defect in their design of the unit & just another way to screw users as they have been doing with their DRM bullsh*t?

Anyways, needless to say I'm not paying them to fix my PSP, I'm probably going to return my PS3, and If I do anything with the PSP I will have a local electronics shop see if they can repair it, as I have heard from friends that for $60 I can get it fixed up with a new motherboard.

Anyone one else who has ran into similar troubles please feel free to comment on how they were treated when talking to Sony. I myself as you can read, am very pissed off at them. If my Sony Net MD, & Trinitron TV weren't so old, I would be taking them back as well.