Today is launch day for PS4, today I have spent around 14 hours dealing with my broken Players Edition PlayStation 4 .. being told my issues were insignificant and being made to feel as insignificant as those issues...
This not the article I expected to write, but today did give me a chance to look at the PS4 and Sony .. from the perspective of gamers who having secured their launch day consoles find they are in possession of what amounts to a pile of junk ... a dead on arrival console ..
The experience allowed me to evaluate and study Sony's Customer care department too .. as well as raise questions about their quality control and attitude to anyone challenging that quality control...
Is Sony living off past reputations of quality? That's a £349 question...What was the last Sony product you bought that did not fail? What was the last product you bought that failed on starting up?
I purchased the £450 Players Edition of the PS4 : took many pretty pictures and then discovered there was a screw loose inside the console ... which several hours of talking to Sony staff , removing the hard drive .. which comes off in a very cool way I might add .. still could not reveal ...
here is how to test for a loose screw rattling in your launch day PlayStation 4...
At this point I spent several hours trying to get through to Sony , on launch day to get a replacement .. so much time was spent .. the replacement is set to arrive 4 days after launch .. which kind of scuppers all the work and play I had planned for the PS4 .. including getting head tracking working with Kill Zone Shadowfall...and hmd testing
I was told I would get a call back from a manager .. which I did several hours later. Apparently my console was deemed functional though obviously flawed and we went over the same issues I went over several hours ago for another hour or so .. so this is Sony Customer care .. apparently I had not suffered sufficient grief for any form of compensation ...
So I went back to testing the console : which had by now shredded my £55 worth KillZone Shadowfall Blu Ray .. because as well as the loose screw rattling around the entire Blu Ray drive was FUBAR : as you can hear and see in the following video ...
I would much have preferred to be talking games ... or the consoles features, but I think it is most important for those at Sony to listen to some negative feedback ... I am not here to sell PS4s after all... that's the job of the less mavericky liberal gaming media ...
I can see people holding off buying both the Xbox ONE and PS4 , there may be an initial bump .. but it will taper off towards Christmas .. and with Sony treating core gamers this way .. it was obvious talking to Sony Customer care that I am not the only one in this situation and the delay in getting my replacement suggests many collections and deliveries with functioning consoles are being made .. with the likes of MCV reporting "official" lines on replacing consoles..
It takes hours to get through , the staff are not suffiiciently empowered to solve individual problems , talking to a manager did not expedite my replacement and
frankly Sony are on their way out if their quality control continues in this manner .. opening up the hard disk cover reveals that FOX CONN logo .. familiar to so many of us .. and that does not inspire confidence in these enlightened times ..
Economies of scale are all well and good, but having product destroy itself and take out expensive games in the process is not a good business model, nor is making people who actually work and play on these devices wait 4 days after launch day, people who have pre ordered more than half a year in advance..
Picking up the PS4 I was surprised how light the whole box was , including the camera and extra joypad .. normally I would say this is the better design, in fact I am sure I have done, joking as you will see in my Xbox ONE review how that machine looks and weighs like an old VHS machine .. the thing is .. the ONE works , is as solid as a tank .. and although some people have reported Blu Ray drive problems ( maybe Sony supplied those too right?) the big M have at least offered people who missed out on the launch day due to faulty machines a game at least ... Sony do not seem to care , I am in fact supposed to feel lucky that I am getting a replacement .. complete and utter nonsense ..
When you buy something you expect it to work , no one would buy a 2nd hand console with a broken blu ray drive and a rattling screw inside .. no one would sell it even ..
My launch day Player's edition PS4 not only has a screw loose inside, a blu ray drive that cannot read discs ( therefore I can play online according to Sony this makes a functional console) it actually destroys discs ... very expensive PS4 game discs ... how is this not significant enough for compensation ? Care to answer Mr Yoshida or House san?
So what can we deduce? Sony have severe and significant quality control, production issues ( an entire Blu Ray drive does not come apart in transit ..it has to be flawed at the point of console design or construction) and customer care issues .. with staff clearly overwhelmed .. and that signals a larger number of console failures than Sony expected ... not the normal amount some in the media are using to mitigate this Sony FUBAR event.
I also have no time for console manufacturers trying to blame retailers or delivery firms for the damage .. there is not outer damage to my console as you can see in the videos above (more to follow) ... I don't think there is any damage .. I think there is a design or manufacture flaw, in the Blu Ray drive assembly. one that Sony should take heed of..
We can also start to wonder if the PS4 overall has design flaws .. it is the first Sony console I have had that runs louder than it's rival Microsoft console .. now that is a change for the books... The heat exhausts right over the cables .. so you cook your HDMI , Ethernet optical cables .. There is no vent I can see over the hard disk or topside fan .. it runs significantly hotter than the Xbox ONE .. to the touch ..
The next gen console war has only just begun, a long time ago I joked about the battle between the Microsoft XBox One VHS machine vs the Sony PS4 Betamax ..
In the history of tech, there are instances where the better hardware fails ... just like Betamax.. is Sony about to not learn from history and fail again ?
Well that is up to them and how they deal with the poor quality control and inconvenience they are causing to their customers ..
Later today I will attempt to contact Sony Customer care again to see if the console having destroyed my KillZone disc and the blu ray drive being the cause actually qualifies for anything other than what comes across as a condescending replacement ...at their own pace ..which keeps changing .. depending on how much you complain ( in the wrong direction)
Boy I must sound like a totally biased Xbox fan boy..... fascinating... absolutely fascinating..
Well Mr Yoshida and House .. over to you .. come back Kaz..... 4 the playahs .....if only 4 the playahs ...
and next up:
Sony PlayStation 4 Launch FUBAR update : DOA replacements delayed by overwhelmed courier and tech support : Or how I learned to stop worrying about the Console War and love the Xbox One ...
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