Sony has slammed a report on the BBC’s consumer show, Watchdog, which claimed the PS3 is dogged by technical failures. 

It denied that the Sony PS3 suffers from a technical fault known as the “yellow light of death” (clearly a cousin of the Xbox 360’s red ring of death). 
In an episode screened on Thursday night, Watchdog interviewed Playstation  repair companies who claimed the console displayed a high number of faults due to faulty soldering.
Sony said of the item: “It is unfair to suggest that from an installed base of 2.5m that the numbers [Watchdog] mentions somehow are evidence of a ‘manufacturing defect.” 

Ray Maguire, senior vice president and managing director of Sony UK, said the ‘yellow light of death’ refers to a non-specific fault indicator that can be activated for a range of reasons. 

The BBC is standing by the report, stating that it was produced as a result of more than 150 viewers contacting Watchdog to complain about Sony PS3 problems. 

Watchdog broadcast Sony’s response and claims that a further 265 PS3 owners contacted the show after the report was shown. 

On the Watchdog blog, the programme team attacked Sony’s statement saying: “Sony adds that the yellow light could indicate a problem caused by any one of a ‘range of issues that may inevitably affect any complex item of consumer electronics’. 

So if there isn’t one single thing that’s causing thousands of machines to stop working, why does it appear that one single repair appears to get them working again?”

What do you think? Are Sony right to say that Watchdog was unfairly harsh on the PS3? Or have you experience the ‘yellow light of death’? Let us know in the comments.