The PS4 hardware issues have already ruined Sony’s “perfect day” as thousands of gamers discovered a disturbing new trend in this generation’s console war. An HDMI connection problem has earned itself an interesting nickname.
Gamers are calling it the “blue ring of death,” a pointedly sarcastic reference to a similar issue which plagued the Xbox 360 . Microsoft’s current console (for a few more days, anyway) has had the unfortunate luck of overheating and eventually being rendered unusable as it displays three red lights on the console’s face, a phenomenon known as the “red ring of death.”
Sony gamers are facing the same problem of having to send their brand new console back to Sony in order to get the issue fixed. Technically, the PS4 hardware issue only happened to less than one percent of consoles sold, but at a million total, that’s still a large number, an estimated 4,000 units.
The day Sony launched the PlayStation 4, Microsoft decided to play nice and sent the internet a note congratulating Sony on their launch . At face value, it looks like Microsoft is simply stepping out of their competitive nature and showing the world that they’re not out to knock Sony around. After Sony’s tendency in the last few months to poke fun at Microsoft for blunder after blunder, the note was like a slap in the face for gamers who faced the PS4 hardware issues.
Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb and Shuhei Yoshida even exchanged friendly chit chat on Twitter , something nobody expected to see.
@majornelson @PlayStation @amboyes Thanks Larry, your turn next week! ?
— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) November 15, 2013
The internet has been buzzing ever since, with Microsoft fanboys slamming Sony for everything they can find, and Sony having to keep a lid on their responses. Sony is in a potentially nasty position right now because of how their launch turned out. If the Xbox One launches without a problem, there could be quite a reversal of attitudes among gamers everywhere who previously favored the PlayStation 4.
As we count down to the Xbox One release date, an unfortunate few thousand PlayStation 4 gamers are disappointed in Sony for releasing “broken” consoles. Even more are facing the problem of the mandatory update glitching their console out.
The PS4 hardware issues could be the result of actions Sony took in response to overwhelming pre-order numbers. With an unexpected volume of gamers to please, Sony was hard-pressed to get the consoles made and out the door, even leading to alleged slave labor behind closed doors. In this case, Sony may be a victim of their own marketing success.
As the Xbox One release date nears, have the PS4 hardware issues changed your mind toward the consoles as the internet buzzes about the “blue ring of death”?