I\'ve always taken pretty good care of all of the systems I\'ve owned since the pong machine, but most (not all) have had their share of problems. Problems that cause consoles to act up are nothing new, and people shouldn\'t act like console malfunctions are new or that the PS2 is junk just because some people have problems. Here\'s a list of things that anyone who has been gaming for long may remember:
NES:
A couple of common problems. Just about everyone should remember these. The dreaded "insert the cartridge and get a black screen" problem. This is the one that everybody tried to fix by blowing air into the cartridge opening, or into the cartridge slot on the NES and re-inserting the cartridge until it finally worked (usually after about 5 tries).
Then there was the blinking title screen that would happen after a cartridge was inserted. Basically it was like the game would just keep resetting itself before going to the select/start menu, and you had to keep taking the cartridge out and inserting it again until it worked.
Just about everyone I knew had this happen eventually on their NES\', even those who took good care of them.
Sega Genesis:
Not too many problems, at least from my experience, but there were a few times that games would randomly lock up and distort the graphics, although it was pretty rare for this to happen.
Sega Saturn:
I had 2 Saturns. The first one quit reading games at all after about a year, but it would still play music CDs. I kept the lense clean, but it happened anyway. I had a friend who had a saturn that wouldn\'t spin up to speed properly when the disc lid was closed, so he rigged the console so that he could remove the lid and start the disc spinning, then when he put the lid back on, it would load the game fine most of the time.
I don\'t know how common these were, but that\'s my experience.
PSX:
Just about everyone knows about the disc read errors that could be resolved by turning the console upside down.
I\'m not saying any of these consoles were junk, it\'s just that when you use electronics with moving parts, lenses, and cartridge slots, they are susceptible to wearing out/getting dirty.
And, taking good care of a system and keeping it clean will certainly help to prolong the system\'s life and to prevent some of the problems inherent to any electronics.
:alien:
