This week’s PlayStation Plus feature isn’t a game but a discounted 2-year extended protection plan for PlayStation 3 owners. PlayStation 3 systems already come with a 1-year manufacturer warranty effective when purchased but this plan will add an additional 2-year manufacturer warranty which includes primarily the same protection offered in the original manufacturer warranty and starts as soon as the original warranty expires.

Accident-prone PS3 and PSP owners are probably rejoicing over Sony’s latest PlayStation Protection Plan announcement. Yes, there is now an official protection plan available through Sony that will cover your video game systems after the one-year warranty each system comes with expires. It’s going to cost you though.

The Sony Protection Plan is actually more like three mini-plans that all fall under the same blanket term. There’s one specific PS3 plan, and two PSP plans. The PS3 plan, which is $44.99 for one year and $59.99 for two years, and offers the same features as the manufacturer’s warranty, only for one or two years more. If you buy the plan and something goes wrong with your PS3, you pay nothing to send it off to Sony to have it repaired. You can only buy it if your system’s one-year manufacturer’s warranty hasn’t expired yet.

There are two PSP plans, with one slightly more specialized (and expensive) than the other…

Looks like it is still costing Microsoft more than expected to spend beating Sony and Nintendo to the shelves. Microsoft has announced it is extending the warranty for the Xbox 360 to three years, costing the company approximately $1 billion.

Besides appeasing Xbox 360 console owners who have been annoyed by repairs and the infamous red ring of death (RROD), the announcement comes in time to get a bit of extra pre-E3 coverage.

In a statement issued by Microsoft, the decision to extend the warranty came …

GameIndustry wrote an interesting article regarding the unapologetically surprising success of Microsoft’s XBox 360 and how at this juncture, in it’s battle to succeed over Sony, it’s dominance may be undermined by what they so eloquently describe as the “problem of hardware reliability and customer service, an area in which the Xbox 360 has a more »