Yes Virginia, There Is A Sony Claus

"OK, sir, that's $200 + tax for your brand new PlayStation 2. Now would you like a 2-year extended warranty for an additional $15 (or thereabouts)?"

Ordinarily, despite pressure from Jerry Lundegaard-esque salesmen ("yeah, but that TrueCoat...") I consider myself allergic to extended warranties. But in this case, given the stories I'd read about disc read errors and other such issues, I zagged where I usually zigged, and sprang for the extra protection.

Fast forward 23 months later, on the eve of the warranty's expiration (not literally the evening before. about 3 weeks. fyi)...

After pulling yeoman duty for almost 2 years, my PS2 suddenly decided that it had had enough of all the fancy multiplayer action, as the 2nd controller port up 'n died on me.

The reason we knew right away was because were were playing Sly vs. Carmelita 2-player on the Sly 3 demo disc (gotta love playable E3 schwag) when it happened. Suddenly, Sly was kicking a defenseless Carmelita's ass ("Daddy, you said a bad word!") ...er, tushy all over Venice. My kids and I were none too pleased.

So I packed it up, brought it into Best Buy, waited in line a few minutes, and walked out the door with a brand new slimline PS2. And since the new PS2 was $50 cheaper than when I bought mine, I walked out with some walking-around-money as well.


Before


After

Best.
Extended.
Warranty.
Experience.
Ever!