Let me start this off by openly stating that, unfortunately, none of us here at the Geek own a Playstation 3. That being said, we’re not secretly Nintendo/Microsoft/N-Gage fanboys, we’re just waiting for a compelling reason to drop the entire bankroll. We’re no fools though; if we’re going to buy a Playstation 3, we’d want the real deal — full backwards compatibility (aka: the ability to play ALL of our favorite Playstation 2 games). Savvy geeks reading this post may be loudly exclaiming, “Then you’ll want the 60gb version, but that doesn’t exist anymore!” And we know this.

Regardless, buying one at this point made us wonder out loud: What happens if it breaks? Even with a GameStop extended warranty, who’s to say they would have the stock to replace it equally? Furthermore, if I had bought a 60gb system at launch (same situation, same retailer, new system this time), what would they do to remedy the situation? We put that question to a number of different GameStop employees… and their answers might shock you.

For the sake of our sources, we’re not naming any names. We blind-called three separate GameStop locations (Stamford, Ct., Waterbury, Ct. and Philadelphia, Pa.) and asked two specific questions:

1.) What would GameStop do if I purchased a used 60gb Playstation 3 with a warranty and it broke?
2.) What would GameStop do if I purchased a new 60gb Playstation 3 with a warranty and it broke?

Across the board, the question of what GameStop would do about my broken used 60gb Playstation 3 was answered exactly the same: “We’d find you another and replace it.” That’s fair — the used iteration of this model is most certainly still available in the world for sale. Our second question, however, proved to be far more vexxing for our friends at GameStop. First up: Philadelphia, Pa. Our dialog went as follows:

Geek: What would GameStop do if I purchased a new 60gb Playstation 3 with a warranty and it broke?
GameStop: “You’d have to take a refurbished one.”
Geek: “So you wouldn’t give me the 170 dollar difference?”
GameStop: “No, you’d lose the money.”

Oh my! That’s alotta dimp! Unsurprisingly, GameStop locations in the ‘burbs had a slightly different take on the situation. Next up, my hometown: Stamford, Ct.:

Geek: What would GameStop do if I purchased a new 60gb Playstation 3 with a warranty and it broke?
GameStop: “You’d have to speak to a manager. It would need to be put through corporate.”
Geek: “They’d get me another new 60gb PS3?”
GameStop: “Yes.”
Geek: “Do you know where they get them?”
GameStop: “No, I’m sorry, you’d have to ask the manager.”

Hmmm, sounds a bit like an employee without enough information. At our final store location, Waterbury, Ct., the employee was about as helpful as she could possibly have been — called two other locations looking for a new 60gb PS3 system that her computer said might be in stock, called her manager at home — and was super friendly on top of that. (Note: The further into the woods your GameStop is located, the friendlier/more helpful the employees are.) Eventually, she came up with a fairly solid answer (emphasis on “fairly”) after speaking with her manager:

Geek: What would GameStop do if I purchased a new 60gb Playstation 3 with a warranty and it broke?
GameStop: “We have someone that we e-mail in the company when something like that happens.”

On top of that, she explained that the person she would contact would then send her store a refurbished Playstation 3 — still not getting a new one back. When asked what GameStop would do about the $170 discrepancy between the new 60gb Playstation 3 price of $600 and the refurbished 60gb Playstation 3 price of $430, I was referred to a manager who works at a later time (read as: tomorrow).

So, final verdict? The 60gb Playstation 3 that launched as the most expensive system of the current generation (again, $600), the one with a Playstion 2 built into it and thus allowing for full backwards compatibility — if you break it, it’s gone, never to return exactly the same. Le sigh.