I have a fat 60gb PS3 that has never given me any problems, except with the old Netflix disc (and those were defective anyway). Now, all of a sudden, it seems that it won't read anything on Blu Ray, neither games nor moves. CD and DVD seem fine, as I can still play PSX and PS2 games without problems.

The first issue was Sunday afternoon when I tried to boot Portal 2 to finish up co-op. It sat in an endless loop on the "updating trophies" message on the title screen, PS button was unresponsive, power button was unresponsive, and I had to do a hard shutdown. After that, the best I can get is the preview icon on the XMB, and that's only after an unplugged cold boot. If I launch a game, it just goes to a black screen, but once, I got THIS;



Cleaned out the system with compressed air, Portal 2 booted and loaded co-op save once yesterday morning, hadn't touched it since, now it's back to either blank screen or no XMB disc icon whatsoever. Did a system factory restore, no improvement.

I have a feeling that the Blu Ray laser is burned out. If that's the case, does anyone know if Sony would replace it without charging something crazy? If I have to spend $150 on out-of-warranty service, I'd rather just save up for a slim. Is there anything else I should try?