Blackout, your friend lied. Nearly all products have some form of warranty, but especially these expensive electronic items. In fact, I could look in my PS3 box to find my warranty card right now if you need proof. So tell your friend to do some research before answering.
Oh, and unlike the 360, recent stress tests by the PS3 community has shown that the PS3 is a very well made piece of hardware, so it's unlikely you'll need to use your warranty either. They put it in a sauna and ran it for a long time and it ran fine, they froze it, and the system did have trouble, mainly because the disc drive motor froze up, once it thawed there were no problems. There were other tests too, and in the end the PS3 came out fine.
Meanwhile, my 360 which has mostly been sitting on the table starting having a GPU overheat issue which causes it to freeze up after 1-4 hours of play depending on the game.
h0mi - Besides the optical output, which is in the PS3, after setting the PS3 to HDMI output, it'll then give you an option to choose where the audio comes out from. I think there's an option to pass it through normal composite cables.