Ability to play games lost

Hey guys, my wee cousin just told me today that in May his PS3 lost bluray functionality/ability to play games, and when i checked he had 3.30 FW installed... from what i've read/googled allot of people have experienced the same problem, so im guessing its software and not hardware problem... it cant all be coincidental hardware failure... any chance there's been a solution released to fix this?

Also i've tried restoring the PS3 and updated to latest FW 3.55, still hasnt fixed it

PS. im out of warrenty so sonny isnt goin to fix it

Cheers for any help

Most likely hardware