I've got a few console death stories, with both Microsoft and Sony consoles.
Okay. So the first console death story I have is with the Playstation 3, back in 2007. I got the $600 monolith of doom for christmas and for a while, it worked great. everything was so damn beautiful: the lush jungles in Uncharted 1, to the expansiveness of the landscape in Assassin's Creed, to the sheer cacophony of onscreen action in the newest Ratchet & Clank. It was AWESOME. But then, in February 2008, Sony released an update that bricked the fucking console. They did nothing to help the customer: the only reason why that $600 didn't turn into $1200 was because it was insured by the local Best Buy. Unfortunately we couldn't replace it with an identical model since those had sold out, so we waited four fucking months to get a replacement. That's right: we waited until June 6th, just in time for Metal Gear Solid 4. So we get the replacement and a couple months later, it bricks yet again. same song and dance, different day. This happened a grand total of four times. Five different consoles. I also lost my saves in the last one. Ouch.
The next one was from when I got my XBox 360. I got it in Christmas 2008, and had it for about ten months. then the Ethernet card malfunctioned. Sent it in, replaced it, yada yada. Then I had that console for about four or five months until it crapped out DURING the motherfucking HALO REACH BETA. I was midgame and then the screen turned green and then POW! red ring. I didn't get a replacement until the beta was over. Then during the summer I went through a two more boxes until I got a nice shiny black model from the mid-cycle refresh. That one has been with me for nearly three years now.
I also went through several PSPs and a PS2. I don't seem to have much luck with these things. Funnily enough I've never ever had to replace one of my Nintendo consoles. Shows you who's got the best build quality, that's for sure.