Kitamura understands the needs of gamers. Being keen game enthusiasts ourselves, we know how frustrating it is when things go wrong. You're in the middle of an important race on Forza, or fragging your mates on Call Of Duty, and the console decides to die on you! Fear not, we're here to ease the pain, and get you back in the game as quick as possible!

We have many years professional and personal repair experience with consoles, including:

• Sony's Playstation, PS2, PS3 and Playstation Portable (FAT, Slim, PSP Go & Vita models)
• Microsoft's Xbox, and the new Xbox360
• Nintendo's N64, Wii, Gameboy Color/Advance, and DS/DS Lite/DSi

We can also repair many brands of retro consoles, such as:

• Amstrad CPC series
• Sega Master System/Megadrive & GameCube
• SNES
• Sinclair Machines

And many more! Get in touch with your requirements, and we'll work something out to suit your budget.

The repairs we carry out on consoles include:

• Motherboard Repair/Replacement
• Xbox360 RRoD (Red Ring of Death) Repair - We actually REPAIR RRoD errors, and not temporarily fix them, like "market traders" using "towel tricks" that make matters worse due to deliberate excessive overheating. We will re-ball or replace damaged chips using professional vacuum rework equipment
• Xbox360 DVD Drive AES Key Recovery - We also replace drives, recovering the existing AES Key
• CPU Diagnostics/Replacement
• Optical Drive Repair (Blu-Ray/DVD/HD-DVD etc)
• Power Supply Diagnostics/Repair/Replacement
• Hard Drive Repair/Replacement (Xbox360/PS3)
• Data Recovery

Specific Xbox 1 & Xbox 360 repairs we provide:

The following specialized repairs are carried out by us to the Xbox 360:

• DVD Drive Laser Replacement

If your Xbox has suddenly stopped reading discs, whether it be game discs, music discs or picture discs, the likelihood is that either your laser needs replacing, or the drive circuit board has become defective. 99% of the time the laser has worn out, as they are extremely precise optical devices. If you bring your console in to us we can perform a diagnostic. We can replace the laser for you, within usually 1 Hour including 30 mins testing if we have the part in stock. The Xbox 360 contains different drives and lasers, so we can determine the type if you bring it in to us, we can then give an approximate turnaround time.

If your PCB is deemed defective in our diagnostic, we normally replace the whole drive as it is more cost effective than sourcing just a main control board. See DVD Drive Replacement below for more information.

This service is great value at just £20 including parts, labour and extensive testing!

• DVD Drive replacement

The DVD drive in a 360 is electronically married to the console motherboard via what is known as an encryption, or "drive" key, it is a randomly generated hash key based on components in the system. Replacing the DVD drive requires the encryption (AES) key from the old drive to be flashed into the firmware chip of the new drive. Without this key, the console is unable to play games. It will only read DVD's and Audio CD's. We have the knowledge and equipment to perform this repair to Microsoft specifications, and can be done on ALL 360 drive makes (Samsung, BenQ, Liteon and Hitachi). We can also swap drive makes for you, if there's one you prefer, for example you want a BenQ instead of a Samsung.

Note: If your old drive control board is completely inoperative, key recovery is still possible, but requires soldering/desoldering and programming work to be carried out. Specialist vacuum rework equipment is used to a factory standard, by our qualified electronics technician. The price is still the same, regardless!

We offer this service at a very competitive price of just £50, including parts, full testing and 12 month warranty!

• Xbox 360 Power Supply Repair

Is your power supply light turning red, but the console works with a friends? We can diagnose and repair many 360 power supply faults, as with Sony's PS3. We replace defective components with high quality Japanese ones, that are proven to be more reliable than the original. Many 360 PSU faults are caused by a fan failure, the little cooling fan fails, overheating the supply, causing component failure.

This service is a flat fee of £10 regardless of how many components we replace, saving you money buying a new supply. This is because we purchase components in bulk, passing savings on to you! All repairs are carried out by NiC EiC qualified engineers.

• Red Ring of Death & E74 Errors

The Red Ring of Death and E74 errors are the most common faults with earlier consoles manufactured in 2006 - 2007. The errors are caused by heat. The graphics processor and CPU are soldered in by BGA (Ball Grid Array) methods, which are lots of tiny solder balls on the underside of the chip. With the heat, these balls break, and cause intermittent electrical contact, resulting in the chips either failing completely, or the connections to break excessively. BGA chips are manufactured with sets of stress relieving balls, that do not cause failure. When more of these balls break outside the tolerance, the errors start, requiring urgent attention to prevent expensive damage.

The E74 and other errors are also caused by capacitor failure. The capacitors in the 360 run very hot, and over time dry out, often quicker than they should, causing voltage fluctuations, and system failure. The capacitors have even been known to burst, leaking electrolyte onto the motherboard, which causes corrosion. We replace all Microsoft's unbranded capacitors with high quality Japanese manufactured Rubycon ones, that last a lot longer, and tolerate heat better.

Following the recent price drop of the consoles, Microsoft's extended warranty, and the cost involved in this type of work, we no longer perform this service to consoles under warranty, as Microsoft replace all faulty consoles with new ones.

Specific PS3 repairs

We perform the following specialized repairs to PS3 consoles, to a Sony standard:

• YLOD (Yellow Light of Death) error

This error, as with the 360 RRoD, is caused by excessive heat. This fault occurs in much the same way, with solder balls breaking, causing intermittent circuit contact. It is also known as the Traffic Light error, as the lights are known to go from green, yellow, to red, in no specific fashion, depending on the failure.

We use vacuum rework equipment to safely and professionally re-ball chips and components, replacing them if necessary. The repairs are carried to a strict, factory approved set of guidelines, that will ensure your console is safe to use, and that you are not at any risk from 3rd party cowboy damage.

We're so confident, we offer a FULL 12 month warranty on the repair!!

• Power Supply repair

The PS3's power supplies are known to fail in several ways. They either fail completely, giving no Standby light, they can fail gradually, causing lockups, shutdowns, and can also be a contributing cause of the YLOD fault.

We will repair components with higher-quality-than-original components, and give the system a strenuous 2 hour stress test, to ensure you stay in the game for longer! As with all our console PSU repairs, we will do the whole job including a thorough testing period.

Price: £10 including labour and an hours stress test!

• Blu-Ray Drive replacement

Like the Xbox 360, the drive in the PS3 cannot just be straight swapped, so if the control board on your drive has failed, and you simply have the drive swapped, it will not load ANY discs, whether they are PS3 games, DVD's or audio discs. They are electronically married like the Xbox, and need to be re-married by an engineer with the correct tools and software.

We can successfully re-marry your drive, and supply a new drive if needed. The repairs are carried out to a strict, factory approved set of guidelines using Sony tools, that will ensure your console is safe to use, and that you are not at any risk from 3rd party cowboy damage.

We're so confident, we offer a FULL 12 month warranty on the repair!!

Price: £50 including drive, or £30 if you supply your own new one.

• Power Supply repair

The PS3's power supplies are known to fail in several ways. They either fail completely, giving no Standby light, they can fail gradually, causing lockups, shutdowns, and can also be a contributing cause of the YLOD fault.

We will repair components with higher-quality-than-original components, and give the system a strenuous 2 hour stress test, to ensure you stay in the game for longer!

As with all our console PSU repairs, we will do the whole job, including testing (heck, we love games, and getting paid to play them testing repairs!) all for just £10, including labour!

No other maintenance and repair company offers such a competitive service

Free carriage* Fast response Free repair quotation* No obligation Guaranteed repairs

You won't find a better offer in the UK