More than two years after South African industry groups began pressing for right-to-repair rules in consumer electronics – the EU has adopted a binding directive and six US states have enacted their own laws – Pretoria has yet to act.
“The right-to-repair movement isn’t that big yet in South Africa. I know in the UK it’s very big, the US is also very big,” said Shaun Potgieter, founder of Boksburg, Johannesburg-based Console Service Centre. “I’ve never even seen anything here. There’s no real movement on it.”
Potgieter’s workshop specialises in PlayStation and Xbox repairs. Over the past 12 months he and his team have completed more than a thousand console repairs. Forty-three percent were of Sony’s PlayStation 5 and most of those came in with the same fault: a failed HDMI integrated circuit on the motherboard.
Most international gaming console manufacturers do not have local repair capacity on the ground. The repair pathway open to most South Africans is a refurbished swap, which often means they lose the data on their original machines, including game progress and rewards like trophies.
Although cheaper than getting a new machine, the cost of a refurbished swap through official channels is about R6 500. Repairs are much cheaper, typically falling at the lower end of a R700 to R3 000 range. According to Potgieter, the Console Service Centre has been forced to scrap many a machine simply because the part needed for the fix was impossible to source. The cost of a new console is around R12 000.
Plugging the gap
In the absence of local manufacturer presence, right-to-repair laws would plug the gap for local consumers by empowering repair shops like Console Service Centre with the knowledge, tools and parts to diagnose console errors and apply the appropriate fixes. This includes diagnostic machines, how to interpret the fault codes they give out and schematic diagrams that aid in understanding the various circuits on the motherboard.
“In the new PS5s, they changed the HDMI port on the motherboard to an HDMI IC chip and now we can’t get the chip. And if you can get it, our importers charge us R3 500 just for that chip… Without the right to repair, it gets very difficult to source parts. And where you do, it becomes very expensive,” said Potgieter.
Read: Microsoft could send 240 million PCs to an early grave
TechCentral was not able to immediately get commentary from Microsoft or Sony on the matter. But by Potgieter’s own admission, some of the factors leading manufacturers towards less modular designs stem from positive intent.
Integrated hardware components decrease the distance electrons must travel when a computation is performed, leading to better efficiency and lower power demands. The need to limit piracy is also a strong driver towards closed, non-modular hardware designs.
“I can understand why they aren’t giving out too much [information] because they are scared guys will exploit it and chip the machine so they can play games for free,” said Potgieter.
Despite the lack of progress on electronic goods, the right-to-repair concept is not without precedent in South Africa. At the urging of the local chapter of the Right to Repair Campaign, the Competition Commission in July 2021 enacted guidelines that sought to open up the vehicle aftermarket value chain, giving consumers more choice over where they have their vehicles repaired. No equivalent framework exists for consumer electronics.
Read: Pressure on South Africa to introduce ‘right to repair’ rules
While Pretoria has stayed still, much of the rest of the world has moved. The EU’s Right to Repair Directive – formally Directive (EU) 2024/1799 – was adopted on 13 June 2024, with member states required to transpose it into national law by 31 July 2026. Six US states have enacted broad consumer-electronics right-to-repair laws: New York (in effect July 2023), Minnesota (July 2024), California (July 2024), Oregon (January 2025), Colorado (January 2026) and Washington, where the law was signed in May 2025.
Nix, nada
No South African department or regulator has matched any of this:
- The Competition Commission, which ran the 2021 automotive process, has not opened an equivalent inquiry for consumer electronics.
- The department of trade, industry & competition has no consumer electronics repairability process in its 2025/2026 annual performance plan.
- The department of communications & digital technologies has made no public commitment.
- The National Consumer Commission, which administers the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), has not signalled any move beyond the existing CPA framework – a framework that gives consumers a six-month implied warranty under sections 20 and 56 but imposes no obligation on manufacturers to provide spare parts, schematics, diagnostic tools or repair documentation to independent repairers.
The result, according to Console Service Centre, is a market in which manufacturers face no regulatory pressure to share schematics, diagnostic software, error-code databases or affordable spare parts with independents – even as new-device prices climb and household budgets tighten.
AI tools have helped some on the diagnostic end. Potgieter said he has built an AI-powered tool that assists in diagnosing faults and interpreting fault codes on a console’s motherboard. He is also part of a global group of fellow repairers who share their knowledge with each other to make fault finding easier. But these workarounds are second-best to direct manufacturer support.
“I think what would help a lot is parts. The other is the software they use; they can actually look up error codes and know exactly what the problem is. That also allows you to put the console in system mode where it shows you everything that’s wrong with it,” said Potgieter. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media