Sony has revealed that it has sold more than 1 million units of its next gen console – the PS4, during the first 24 hours of its launch. However, as in the past, a lot of buyers have reported issues with their new consoles.
IGN earlier reported that multiple users and a handful of gaming/tech publications that were given the PS4 ahead of its launch on Friday, received bricked systems or systems that bricked shortly after its first use.
In most of the cases, the cause of the problem seems to be the HDMI jack. Kokatu also reported that they were able to isolate the issue to the HDMI connection. According to them, the HDMI port was the issue and not the console. The reason being a metal piece not flush with the bottom of the port, which eventually kept the HDMI cord from being plugged all the way.
THE FIX: Press the metal piece down a little so that it is no longer sticking up (please make sure you do this very, very carefully). The cause of the problem seems to be a manufacturing issue.
There were also a few complaints regarding the PS4’s DualShock 4 controllers not being bundled with an accompanying charging USB cord.
“You would think you would get a USB cord to connect to the PS4 to charge … right?” said Kirsten Acuna of Business Insider. “Wrong … it tells you to use the same cord that came with the PS4 to charge both controllers.” Acuna also called the PS4 network’s avatar selection “awful,” although the PS3 network avatar selection was extremely limited as well.
A number of users have also been complaining on Amazon reviews, PlayStation forum posts, Twitter and YouTube that their new console is booting up with the ‘Blue light of death’, (BLOD), a flickering and pulsating blue light that suggests that the console has bricked itself (perhaps as a homage to the Windows BSOD or to Tobias Fünke).
According to Amazon reviews, a few users said their console was DOA on arrival or died while the console was in use. “Sadly, the console was DOA on arrival. Blue pulsing light, no signal on T.V, tried the fixes that Sony released, did not work. Sending the console back to Amazon. Disappointed”, reported Yosef Alsaif.
Jake Zula another disappointed buyer said, “Unfortunately, I’m among the unlucky ones whose PS4 is bricked. At least I got to play it for a few hours first.”
At the time of writing out of a total of 2,107 customer reviews, 591 customers gave it a single star rating, mostly related to the BLOD issue, which means that over 28 percent of users are facing issues with their new console.
Here’s one more user who complained on Amazon that correlates to the experience of some other users, as reported by Mashable:
“I also got a defective console right out of the box. I just get the blue flashing/pulsing light on the PS4 and never turns white; no display or sound. Very disappointing in this whole mess. I don’t think I’ve ever had a piece of electronics fail right out of the box. I tried the different methods that I found online to get it to work, but they didn’t do anything. I can’t even get it to boot into the safe mode. Getting my refund and going to try to get one at a local store, if any are in stock (sic).”
This is what Sony had to say about the issue:
“A handful of people have reported issues with their PlayStation 4 systems,” a Sony spokesperson told Mashable. “This is within our expectations for a new product introduction, and the vast majority of PS4 feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We are closely monitoring for additional reports, but we think these are isolated incidents.”
This might be not the start that Sony would have hoped for, which won the hearts of gamers with its pre-launch marketing campaign. We hope Sony can fix the issue before its India launch. We’ll keep you updated for more so, stay tuned.