Your rights as a console owner

Not exactly sure if this is the proper place to put this, and I hope this won't be seen as advertising because I just want to make sure that anyone that needs to know or that might need to know this information in any future time does so.

Recently my PS3, which was an original 60GB, broke down on me due to YLOD. I've had numerous friends with the issue and have known many friends over the net that have had the same problem. A lot of those know their stuff about handyworks and about DIY and have fixed their PS3s with their own work and a number of items. It's all down to how the PS3 (or at least the older versions) are put together and how poorly they are done so.

But I'm not much of a handyman myself and didn't want to take up the job myself incase I ended up worsening the console in trying to fix it. I contacted the store I bought it in, and brought my receipt along with me even if the purchase was over 3 years ago and asked my rights. They immediately, with a suspicious and quite ridiculous speed I might say, told me about only having a 1 year warranty and warned me off to Sony, saying they had no business with any of Sony's "deals" which they made for people that have had this problem with their PS3s beaking down.

I contacted Sony who were also very quick to note that I had nothing to cover myself in regards to monetary value. Sony said that I could either go straight to them, or to a local store and pay them €160 to have my PS3 "fixed", which would never actually be fixed, but would instead be taken in, and I would be given a "newerW 60GB model with "newer better parts". Along with this I would be given a pretty poor and pathetic 3-month warranty.

I was annoyed and irritated because I thought I was getting ripped off. I had paid €600 for this console just 3 years ago and it had never lived up to what it was supposed to with all of the freezes, disconnections of necessary accessories and other problems, and didn't even last a decent amount of time, especially when you think of the price. It's clearly faulty, everyone knows of the problems particularly with the PS3 early versions and having your console shut down mid-game, and in the process getting your game-disk stuck in the console. So I had a look about on websites for my national consumer agency and asked around about my rights as a consumer and if I should be covered in this case. I came upon some EU legislation that noted something very similar to what we in Ireland have (and what the UK have) called the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act, which states a number of things in regards to your rights as a consumer, the main ones which related to this case were as follows:

"Consumer goods must be in conformity with the contract of sale.

(they are in conformity if):

* they comply with the description given by the seller and possess the qualities of the product which the seller has held out to the consumer as a sample or model;
* they are fit for the purposes for which goods of the same type are normally used;
* they are fit for any particular purpose for which the consumer requires them and which was made known to the seller at the time of conclusion of the contract, and accepted by the seller;
* their quality and performance are satisfactory, given the nature of the goods and taking into account the public statements made about them by the seller, the producer or his representative."