We’re now a couple of days into the PlayStation 4’s lifecycle and it’s not all been positive news from the United States. The largely positive professional reviews have been interspersed with claims of units failing and some simply dead before they’ve even been powered on for the first time. Normally anyone with an ounce of common sense would put that down to simple statistics – you can’t make as many PS4s as Sony has without there being some duds, after all.
But, as with all good hardware launches there are some reports that could point to something a little more worrisome going on. Following on from the news that Reddit is awash with people complaining of faulty PS4 units, TheVerge has noted that reviews of the PS4 on Amazon paint a rather disturbing picture. In fact, according to their numbers, a full 40% of Amazon’s PS4 reviews are of the 1-star variety, with buyers complaining that their machines are unusable. Which isn’t a good thing at all, really.
While on the face of it that 40% is the kind of figure that would leave any public relations department in a cold sweat. However, it’s worth noting that things may not be quite as bad as they first seem.
As is the case with any review system of this nature, people only tend to take the time to write a review if they are experiencing problems. It’s the same on Reddit. People who’s consoles are working fine are too busy playing Killzone or Knack, and those who’s new machines are dead on arrival want to do nothing more than vent their frustration somewhere. And where better to do that than the internet?
Sony, for its part, claims that failures are currently below half a percent and that it is looking into reports of failed machines regardless. It’s still far too early to make a proper judgment on whether Sony has a real issue here or not, and until we start to see proper figures we’re happy to give Sony the benefit of the doubt. Unless our own PS4s are DOA of course. Then we’ll be off to Reddit, Twitter and anywhere else we can write text in order to vent our spleens.
Just like any other self respecting Internet user would.
(Source: Reddit) (via: TheVerge)
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