Many PS4 units dead on arrival

http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-4-Launch-Edition/product-reviews/B00BGA9WK2/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

by manojlds • 13 years ago

197 130 13 years ago

amazon.com

obsurveyor2• 13 years ago

Manufacturing defect with the HDMI port is causing damage to HDMI cables. Amazon should really send an email out about it to people who ordered, there is an easy fix.

jonny_eh• 13 years ago

What's the fix?

caw• 13 years ago

Kotaku documented it, push down the HDMI pin with something.

agumonkey• 13 years ago

Was it better on previous models ? I wonder Sony isn't suffering from off-sourcing issues. Instead of in-house easily controlled circuitry, the cheaper off-the-shelf approach might cause higher rates of failures.

abritishguy• 13 years ago

There may well be widespread issues but this link just shows that some people have issues which given the volume of PS4s was kind of a given.

minimaxir2• 13 years ago

I read a comment earlier that made a good point that unlike the console launches of the previous generation in 2004-2006, we now have access to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to vocalize and demonstrate our complaints worldwide.

It makes the vocal minority much more vocal.

barista3• 13 years ago

If you clicked on the link above, you will see that nearly 40% of the Amazon reviews are 1*. There is a good chance that most of those people received a dead PS4. Agree that not everybody who received a good PS4 left a positive review but this certainly does not make it looks like a minority.

hmottestad• 13 years ago

We know that at least 323 received a broken PS4. At least 492 received a working PS4.

I would guess that 1/10 would write a review when the PS4 is broken and 1/1000 would write a review regardless.

Also we don't know if these are real reviews or just 323 Microsoft employees who were given money to order the PS4 and then post a bad review :P

chucknelson• 13 years ago

Definitely reaching there - you can't assume a large majority of people who ordered from Amazon are leaving reviews. You already know that people without a working console will no doubt go leave a review, so the sample is significantly skewed.

We won't know if this is a real problem until Sony says something.

Disclosure: I ordered my PS4 from Amazon in June, received it yesterday, it works fine...and I have no reason to write a review about it.

frogpelt• 13 years ago

The people who received working PS4s are playing them.

anonymfus3• 13 years ago

There are also other possible reasons for negative reviews. For many people who used only Xbox before just look of interface of PS could be a shock.

Bahamut• 13 years ago

Those of us who got a console in good condition most likely don't post. I got a launch console from Amazon & even applied the update, and it worked like a charm. I've no complaints so far (minus the horrid launch lineup).

ilamont• 13 years ago

As I recall, RROD complaints were quite strident after the Xbox 360 came out, on blogs, gaming sites, comment sections of news articles, and the early social sites (Facebook was big among the college crowd at that time, and Friendster, MySpace, Friendfeed, etc. were active discussion areas as well). Most gamers were aware of the issue. Microsoft's return policy and eventual fixes helped change public perception.

Recoil42• 13 years ago

You make it sound as if user-submitted content didn't exist before 2006. There were still forums at that time. Gamespot, IGN, and GameFAQs all had forums. NeoGAF existed, as did Joystiq, Kotaku, and 1UP, and they were all just as news-savvy as they are today.

A lot of things have changed since 2006, there's no denying it, but the gaming industry has always been ahead of the curve, and the social circles are much the same today as they have been for the last fifteen years.

yelnatz• 13 years ago

At least you know right away that they're dead.

It'd be more annoying 6 months down the road.

minimaxir2• 13 years ago

Or worse, the Xbox 360 RROD issue, which was an inevitable ticking time bomb that could blow at any time.

barista3• 13 years ago

Why worse? Weren't the rrod Xboxes replaced by Microsoft? PS4 has not made any public announcement that I know of.

spaux2• 13 years ago

Idk, I've never had that happen, while some people have had it happen over and over. From my perspective, it doesn't seem any more inevitable than the console becoming obsolete.

sleepybrett• 13 years ago

How is it inevitable, my launch xbox360 has been running nearly continuously since it hit my porch on launch day.

simias• 13 years ago

The problem with those reviews is those whose console is working are not complaining. Are there any hard numbers on the proportion of dead consoles? Have Sony commented on this issue?

floatingatoll• 13 years ago

As of right now, there are 323 1-star reviews.

Sony sold "81,639" PS3 consoles on that unit's launch day.

So if Amazon shipped 81,639 PS4 consoles, this would be a failure rate of 4.0 units per 1000, or 0.4%.

Microsoft noted at one point during the Xbox 360 launch that the industry standard failure rate was between 3 and 5%.

Presuming that same 3-5% is the failure rate for the PS4, and that 100% of DOA customers posted a 1-star comment, Amazon sold between 6,460 and 10,766 PS4 units.

I would hope the failure rate is closer to 0.4% than to 4.0%, but I can't even hazard a guess at Amazon's sales volume, so this is where the hard numbers stop.

(ps. I didn't check my math closely and I'm walking out the door, feel free to correct me in replies and I'll edit later to reflect.)

spaux2• 13 years ago

I'm more upset by the way they are handling it, it looks like they aren't going to replace them, but try to fix them. Anyone who's sent an RROD xbox (I haven't) knows the pain that will come with that. You'll see your PS4 again in a few weeks.

jlgreco6• 13 years ago

Re: 'Industry standard' error rate.

I admittedly haven't worked in manufacturing at anything even resembling that scale, but I did spend a summer working for a company that assembled, sold, and installed PCs to local small businesses and (particularly) school districts. A 4-5% failure rate, at the point of installation, would have been absolutely inconceivable in that job.

Sure, there were lots of failures, most caused by assembly errors, some caused by damage during assembly, some due to component failures, but the vast majority were caught before the trucks were loaded. One guy with a rolling swivel chair and several industrial-sized KVM switches can verify that 500 (what you might expect for several computer labs across a single school district, for school districts the size we were dealing with) or so PCs will more or less work in really just a few minutes. I would assert that this sort of manual sanity checking is the sort of operation that is embarrassingly parallelizable too. Two people can check a batch of 1000 just as fast as one person can check 500. 20 people should be able to do 10,000.

And this was a small operation. Were we larger, it may have made sense to look into more automation.

Between those checks, and when they were hauled into schools and plugged in? Nothing much about a tractor trailer ride is going to make a PC go DOA.

So I guess my question is, what sort of QA are they doing at the factory to get a 4-5% DOA rate? Or if the QA is fine, what the hell is happening during the shipping? Are the devices overly fragile? If they are being damaged during shipping, could the same damage occur in the home?

lucisferre• 13 years ago

You're also assuming everyone with a dead unit bothered to post a review

kosei• 13 years ago

Also, no way that 100% of bad orders came in and have a review. The old rubric was that for every vocal complaining customer (forums, reviews, etc) there are 7-10 in the wings not complaining. So I would say that you can't really draw conclusions simply based on the reviews, unless you want to inflate them by an order of magnitude.

Negitivefrags• 13 years ago

I'm quite surprised you came to that number given this announcement by sony.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/PS4-Failure-Rate-0-4-Says-S...

thetrb2• 13 years ago

If it were just the industry standard failure rate then we should have seen a similar pattern of bad reviews for the other recent console launches. I don't know if that happened or not, but I think you're making it a bit too easy just blaming it on the standard failure rate.

philliphaydon• 13 years ago

Looking at Amazon and the internet, it looks like its FAR more than xbox360 fail rate.

VLM2• 13 years ago

"Presuming ... that 100% of DOA customers posted a 1-star comment"

Compare the stats on Dec 24th to Dec 26th, I bet they'll be an interesting change.

Christmas is only like 5 weeks away; its not like they released in June or something. A very large fraction of PS4 shipped probably are covered in gift wrapping paper right now.

Bonus points if they had the sense to ship a one month warranty five weeks before christmas... it might be bad, but it can't be that bad, or can it?

vonskippy• 13 years ago

So rushing to stand on the cutting edge might result in bloody feet - whoda thunk it?

JoachimSchipper• 13 years ago

I don't think something as super-mass-market as a gaming console qualifies as "cutting edge". (You could make an argument for the PS3's Cell processor, I suppose, but that's hardly relevant here.)

mtsmithhn• 13 years ago

Don't they do burn-in tests on consoles so they know it works before it ships?

thetrb2• 13 years ago

I find it interesting that as of now with 516 5 star reviews and 332 1 star reviews (and very few 2, 3 or 4 star reviews) the average still shows up as 3.5 stars. It's interesting since the lowest value possible is 1, so more realistically it's not 3.5/5 but 2.5/4. I'm wondering if this makes a psychological difference and if less people would buy something on amazon if they changed their rating system to go from 0 - 4 stars.

idProQuo• 13 years ago

This has always bothered me, both on Amazon and the iTunes app store. No lie, when I published my first app, one of the comments was "I'd rate this zero stars if I could." and my first thought was actually "wait, why can't you?"

Overall, I think YouTube was on the ball by switching to a "Thumbs up, Thumbs down" rating system. "Out of five star" rating systems are always sabotaged by the fact that most people think in absolutes: Either something is the bee's knees or it's fried shit on a biscuit. Given that most people vote this way, up/down vote systems are better at giving an honest impression of how people feel about something.

brownbat2• 13 years ago

I wonder if a five star rating system could secretly count only the 2 and 4 star reviews without telling anyone, sort of filter out anyone passionate enough to try to game things...

hga2• 13 years ago

While you both have a point, I'm not sure it makes a difference in practice.

OK, granted, I've been an Amazon.com customer since 1997 or so, but to me a 3.5 star rating is like writing BEWARE! in flaming letters across the sky. I never buy something that poorly rated before thoroughly investigating what's behind it. E.g. Kindle version's content is messed up I discount since I don't play in that ecosystem except for freebies.

While there are plenty of mostly bi-modal distributions (5 or 1 stars), for lots of things there are carefully chosen ratings in-between, often telling you why it lost a star or 2. Even ones edited some time after with additional commentary and often an adjusted score.

So I'd say it gets the specific job done, which is quite different than YouTube's where the cost of a wrong choice is very very small. I find the reviews invaluable, to the point where there's a lot of stuff I won't buy unless it has enough quality reviews for me to make an informed judgement.

mcpherrinm• 13 years ago

I find the 5 star system on Amazon useful. I don't always look at the average rating, but rather the distribution graph of ratings.

For example, one common shape looks like this:

   5 stars: |||||||||||
   4 stars: ||||||||
   3 stars: ||||
   2 stars: ||
   1 star:  |||||||

There's way more 1 star than 2 or 3. That usually indicates the product shows up DOA for a lot of people, or is otherwise probabilistically totally unsuitable for some group of people.

If the number of star ratings follows a more normal curve like the following, then I'm more confident in the quality of the product, even if both have an average 4 star rating:

   5 stars: |||||||
   4 stars: ||||||||
   3 stars: ||||
   2 stars: ||
   1 star:  |

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

Netflix does a great job by showing hint text of "Hated it" for 1 star. It certainly helps calibrate people, rather than having individuals come up with their own meaning of what 1-5 means.

ekianjo• 13 years ago

up/down systens are stupid since they are so binary. It only remotely works to give you an actual picture of what people think about it. Having a five scale score is very logical, since it's symetric (and therefore not biased like the 6 scores rating you suggest if you could rate without stars), and you give a degree of satisfaction and not just up or down. It's way superior to tell you if the product is exceptional or just "meh".

Of course you have to look at the ratings distribution and not just the average. The average tells you almost nothing.

obsurveyor2• 13 years ago

It's possible that Amazon Verified Purchases are weighted higher than just a random person reviewing a product.

gigq2• 13 years ago

There appears to be multiple issues going on that are probably all being filed under the console being bricked. HDMI seems to be causing problems where the console won't show a picture but everything internally is still working. There is also a safe mode you can go into that is fixing the issue for some. And finally there are some that are really just bricked which is probably accurate to the 0.4% rate that Sony claimed.

Also FWIW I received one from Amazon and everything worked fine out of the box.

gigq2• 13 years ago

From an Amazon review:

You can return it to Amazon or Call Sony @ 1(800)345-7669 to schedule a replacement. Mine is broken like everyone elses.

If your console light turns white (and doesn't get stuck at pulsating blue), it could be the HDMI cable or connection issue. Fix with a pin (see Kotaku's article).

If it stays blue and pulsates, try safe mode (turn off system completely, then hold down power for 10 sec and wait till you hear beeps). From here Sony can help you troubleshoot if you wanted to call in. If it wont even boot to safe mode, it's bricked. You can try to troubleshoot on your own if you're adventurous: 1. Hold down power button until the unit powers off and the light goes out. This took about 10 seconds. 2. From power off, enter Safe Mode by holding down the power button until you hear beeps. Release power button after the second beep. The Safe Mode menu will appear with a list of options. 3. Select Option 4 to restore PS4 to factory defaults. Once it's done, the system will restart. 4. In our case, after the reboot, the PS4 automatically entered Safe Mode. This time, they had us select Option 6 to Initialize the PS4. Note that by doing this, you will lose profiles and settings so just be aware that you are basically starting over. Once it's done, the system will restart. 5. When the PS4 comes back up, it will take you through the initial setup again as if it's being booted for the first time.

If you can't get the PS4 to boot into safe mode, it's not your HDMI port. it's an internal issue and you'll have to send it to Sony to be fixed.

pgrote• 13 years ago

This is the article relating to the pin:

http://kotaku.com/tips-for-using-the-playstation-4-146522878...

"A thin piece of metal in the port got raised when we put an HDMI cable in—at least that's what we think happened. A Sony official fixed the unit by pushing the metal down with a pin."

andrewfong• 13 years ago

That's just how Xbox people think.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s17e07-black-f...

aspensmonster• 13 years ago

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

whalesalad• 13 years ago

Apparently it's an overheating issue[0]. The 'red line of death' is not a sign that your PS4 is dead, but a sign that it needs to shut down to cool off.

If that is happening immediately on boot, then hopefully the temp sensor or overall temp system is flawed and can be fixed either by a Sony patch or really quickly in their manufacturing process. Hard to believe something like that slipped through the cracks.

Reminds me of Dave Baggett's recent story[1] about how when you jiggled a controller stick during save, cross-talk on the motherboard would end up causing your memory card to become completely erased. I'm no EE but I wonder if there is something really strange at play here ... like perhaps old wiring in your home. I only say this because I can't imagine a really straightforward reason for this to be happening, unless they have a bad batch of temp sensors?

Fortunately iFixit has taken apart the PS4 already, so we can take a look inside the chassis[2]. There's a lot of talk there on the 'revolutionary' cooling system. There's a giant fan/heatsink combination for the CPU, and the exhaust air seems to flow over the PSU to cool it passively. There's another fan beneath the motherboard which looks pretty small.

Could also be a case of left-over tape or manufacturing material, like we saw with some of the Macbooks coming off the assembly line. There was a piece of plastic/tape coviering the exhaust vent that caused the fans to quickly go full speed and the system to get real hot. I can't find a reference to it anywhere though.

In other news, I'm anxiously awaiting my Xbox One pre-order and hope that it doesn't have any of the same issues :)

0. http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps4/basic/partnam...

1. http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/M...

2. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/PlayStation+4+Teardown/19493

lostlogin3• 13 years ago

I laughed at this due to the bad home wiring thing. I agree this may be possible, however its what my ISP would always say regarding crap speeds. In a fit of rage I paid someone to cat 6 the house - everything we own is brand new. The way we are running it, it is one wire from the side of the house to the router, no joins, shortest possible run, away from all power cables and makes crossings at appropriate angles. No change to connection speed. Credit to them I suppose as they backed down fast after the next use of the "home wiring" line was met with me asking if they wanted the paperwork on the specs of the new wiring that had made zero discernible difference.

nitroburn2• 13 years ago

Why would you do all that and not just connect something directly to the router? Could have saved quite a bit of money and hassle.

Lagged2Death2• 13 years ago

Apparently it's an overheating issue[0]. The 'red line of death' is not a sign that your PS4 is dead, but a sign that it needs to shut down to cool off.

The Amazon reviews are complaining of a blinking blue "light of death," which I don't see described in the manual you linked to. "PS4 blue light of death" returns over 2 million Google results already.

I'm no EE but I wonder if there is something really strange at play here ... like perhaps old wiring in your home.

I really don't think so.

threeseed3• 13 years ago

"PS4 blue light of death" returns 101 results.

If you mean searching without the quotes then that is just stupid since Google will return results that match only one of the search terms.

easytiger2• 13 years ago

Only two of those reviews are Verified Purchases. That looks fishy to me.

_pmf_• 13 years ago

If that is happening immediately on boot, then hopefully the temp sensor or overall temp system is flawed and can be fixed either by a Sony patch or really quickly in their manufacturing process.

Which does not change the fact that it is dead on arrival for the customer.

robmcm• 13 years ago

If this is the ps4 launch imagine the xbox one...

kmfrk• 13 years ago

Amazon's packaging also seems to leave something to be desired: http://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/1qrawl/this_is_how_my_b....

anonymfus3• 13 years ago

Official Amazon packaging video from that Reddit thread shows problem with lack of cushioning on bottom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSHX-iHJEWM

wnevets• 13 years ago

doesnt this happen release cycle ?

jsz0• 13 years ago

If the failure rate was as high as the Amazon reviews suggest it seems like there would be more news about this even from the mainstream non-tech media by now. Lots of people get pretty fanatical about video game brands so I personally wouldn't trust any of the Amazon reviews good or bad. Remember Amazon allows anyone to write a review of any product -- purchased or not.

IvyMike• 13 years ago

there would be more news about this even from the mainstream non-tech media by now.

"By now"? It's one day after release on a weekend.

wgx• 13 years ago

MS PR in action?

They've got previous: http://m.slashdot.org/story/181735

mikevm• 13 years ago

There are some rumors claiming that interns at Foxconn sabotaged a few PS4s: http://corruptedcartridge.com/ps4-sabotaged-news/

skc• 13 years ago

Seems like the fact they sold 1 million units in 24 hours in NA alone should put these DOA failures into perspective. It's a tiny, tiny number of consoles not working vs those that are.

Many PS4 units dead on arrival

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