Many retailers currently offer extended warranties on the consoles they sell to their customers. Not everyone likes them but, for those ‘little accidents’ they can be useful to have, giving ‘peace of mind’ to console owners.

Sony themselves have now set up their “PlayStation Protection Plan” in the US, offering PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners what they call a “simple and cost-effective protection plan” which extends the warranty on the PS3 or PSP for an extra 12 or 24 months and offers direct access to  ”PlayStation support specialists”.

Pricing is as follows for the plans:

PlayStation 3: 12 month extension to the standard 12 months warranty is $49.99 and a 24 month extension is $59.99.
PlayStation Portable: 12 month extension is $29.99 and a 24 month is extension $39.99 or with accidental damage cover included the 12 month plan is $39.99 and the 24 month plan is $49.99.

More details of the Protection Plan can be found on the PlayStation website.