After a long and anticipated wait, during which Sony put the Xbox One to shame, the day for PlayStation fans to pick up the new console finally came. November 15 was the fated day in the US and Canada, and Sony sold 1 million units in the first 24 hours, a number that dwarfs the amount of units available when the PS3 first came out. It seems that Sony was prepared this time...sort of.
A problem that some newly disappointed PS4 owners discovered was a hardware issue already dubbed “the blue light of death,” reminiscent of the Xbox 360's “red ring of death” and other hardware problems that put that console's failure rate to 54.2%. Lucky for most PS4 and prospective PS4 owners, though, the projected percentage of consumers affected by the blue light of death is only 0.4%, which translates to about 4,000 consoles.
The company quickly released some potential fixes on the PS4 forum, but consumers affected could also either take their console to a Sony store or ship it back to Sony, who would ship them a new or repaired console within a week. This did not stop angry customers from lowering the console's rating on Amazon from a 5 to a 3.9, however.
So say you're the proud new owner of a PS4 and are wondering how you can tell if you have the blue light of death or not. With functional PS4s, a blue light flashes when you first power the console on, but quickly changes to white when the system is up and running. For those with the blue light of death, the light never changes to white, and nothing is displayed on the TV screen.
Although this problem is a major nuisance to those affected, many people say that hardware failures and other issues are a given at any new console launch, and Sony is receiving so much backlash because it's the first of the new generation of consoles, unless you count the Wii U, but who even cares about that console?
Sources:
- http://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-serious-are-the-ps4-s-blue-light-of-death-and-broken-hardware-reports/1100-6416222/
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/sonys-playstation-sells-1-million-units-on-launch-day-but-faces-some-problems/2013/11/18/09095bde-5065-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_launch
- http://consumerist.com/2009/08/17/xbox-360-failure-rate-is-542-percent-game-informer-finds/
- http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sony-customers-report-broken-playstation-4s-flashing-blue/story?id=20936337
--Megan Commings
I thought the xbox one outsold the ps4? I may be wrong though, but xbox one has its share of issues too, with the dead disc drive issue!!! where drives do not read game discs, which xbox has handled but as the same with ps4, consumers are upset.
ReplyDeleteJonathon Muszynski