Broken PlayStation 4 Incidents Begin To Surface

A few reports out there have surfaced of broken PlayStation 4 consoles. The first issue was reported by Kotaku editor Stephen Totilo, who claims that one of their first PS4 console received from Sony did not work.

“The first retail PS4 we got from Sony didn’t work.In the past week, my Kotaku colleagues and I have used one pre-release PS4 and three retail PS4s with no problems. I’ve also heard from fellow gaming reporters who’ve used their PS4s with no problems. But the first retail unit that Sony provided me failed to work when I plugged it into a TV in Kotaku’s office. A colleague and I were able to compare it to a second PS4 that did work and we found that the issue was rather simple: the bad unit had a faulty HDMI jack that we couldn’t fully plug a HDMI cable into. It couldn’t make a solid connection and therefore, apparently, couldn’t transmit a stable signal to our TV. We tried different cables and monitors. The issue was with the console. Again, to be clear, the other four units we’ve tested first-hand have worked fine.”

The second claim came from Reddit user Arogon, who was the winner of an early PS4 through a competition run by Sony and Taco Bell.

“When I turn on my console it just sits there pulsing blue,” Arogon explained. “As far as I can tell it is supposed to turn white but it isn’t doing that. There is no signal on my TV either.”

Games site IGN later reported that it had suffered a similar issue with one of its retail PS4 consoles.

“IGN experienced the same issue, but it happened after the console was already working”, it wrote. It may not have contributed to the issue, but ours stopped working the morning after we updated to version 1.50. Furthermore, IGN tried a wide variety of methods to correct the issue: new HDMI cables, new inputs, new TV, putting a disc into the system, connecting it to and from the Internet, and, of course, holding down the power button during boot-up for seven seconds to try to reset things. Nothing worked. Oddly enough, we tried adding light pressure to the top of console and it briefly flickered a few active home menu images on the television.”

Another Reddit user who won a PS4 reports that, after a few login issues, the console is operating as desired. President Shuhei Yoshida from Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios says the company is looking into reports of PS4 hardware issues. However, Sony has made an official statement to clarify the number of units that could be subject to failure.

According to a representative, the correct anticipated percentage of units that will suffer from problems is .4 percent. Based on a projection of five million units sold by end of fiscal year which was March 31, 2014, that accounts for approximately 20,000 units with hardware problems. That is not a good sign for Sony’s reputation since all users expect their PS4 to work as soon as they plug it in, and not return it to be replaced.

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