If you are one of the many people who are thinking about picking up a PS4 early, you might want to think twice. IGN has reported that their HDMI jack stopped working after updating their firmware and attempting to download a game. They attempted to replace the HDMI wire and TV and even went so far as to reset the console to factory settings but nothing worked. They noted that “putting slight pressure on the top of the unit” made home screen images flicker, which points toward faulty hardware.
IGN isn’t the only outlet experiencing problems. Kotaku’s first PS4 simply didn’t work at all. Several fans who received their PS4 through early release competitions have reported that their HDMI ports are faulty as well, and some are even reporting that their console “wobbles.” Reddit user Aragon says his system pulses blue when it turns on and won’t even boot up into safe mode. There are also PS4 streams littered around Twitch.TV that show the console erroring on boot up or outputting glitch video feeds, as well as a NeoGAF thread that echoes the same sentiment.
Sony has not exactly been the most helpful with these issues. Most Sony representatives will just turn users away if they are contacted, saying that they can’t give out help until the console officially launches. In addition, what help Sony has given tends to be in shipping boxes, asking users to send their faulty PS4’s back to Sony to investigate. So much for early adoption.
Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida has responded to these reports via Twitter saying, “Be assured we are investigating reported PS4 issues. The number is very small compared to shipped, we believe they are isolated incidents.” On one hand, he does have a point. We count about six or seven complaints and the initial shipment of PS4s is in the thousands, and with the launch of the system last night, more issues are bound to surface.
If you remember, the Xbox 360 and PS3 had similar issues with the Red Ring of Death and Yellow Light of Death respectively. However, these issues were mostly limited to early runs of the consoles. Few RRODs and YLODs were reported after both consoles released their slim editions, and the incidents fell in number after the second and third shipments of said consoles as well. Just another reason to maybe hold off until next year to get your next-gen console.
Now we just have to wait and see if the Xbox One has similar issues. We have heard no reports from people with early access or contest winners about the Xbox One yet, but we are still quite a ways out from the console’s launch. Perhaps it too will have faulty HDMI jacks and video problems, but if we were a dedicated Xbox fan getting an early console, we would be more concerned with water damage, along with drowning and shark bites .
We will bring you more information on the release of the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One as well as updates on whatever hardware problems both consoles have as more information becomes available.
Sources: IGN , Kotaku , NeoGAF , Twitch.TV , Reddit , Twitter , AJC.com