Sony acknowledges 0.4% failure rate for initial PS4 shipments

Although PlayStation 4 won't be available to the public en masse until later tonight, there are plenty of people out there with systems, media and Taco Bell winners included. However, out of the thousands of systems out there, some have issues, which Sony has officially acknowledged.

32

Although PlayStation 4 won't be available to the public en masse until later tonight, there are plenty of people out there with systems, media and Taco Bell winners included. However, out of the thousands of systems out there, some have issues, which Sony has officially acknowledged.

"A handful of people have reported issues with their PlayStation 4 systems," a Sony spokesperson confirmed. "This is within our expectations for a new product introduction, and the vast majority of PS4 feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We are closely monitoring for additional reports, but we think these are isolated incidents and are on track for a great launch."

Speaking to IGN, Sony says that "the number of affected systems represents less than .4% of shipped units to date, which is within our expectations for a new product introduction." According to the rep, "there have been several problems reported, which leads us to believe there isn't a singular problem that could impact a broader percentage of systems."

Unfortunately for Sony, one of the people affected by a broken PS4 happened to work for IGN. Apparently, the system would turn on, however would not output a signal to the television. If you're amongst the unfortunate 0.4% that experience problems tomorrow, note Sony's support number: 1-800-345-SONY.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 14, 2013 2:30 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Sony acknowledges 0.4% failure rate for initial PS4 shipments.

    Although PlayStation 4 won't be available to the public en masse until later tonight, there are plenty of people out there with systems, media and Taco Bell winners included. However, out of the thousands of systems out there, some have issues, which Sony has officially acknowledged.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 2:31 PM

      0.4% is lols to get upset about. Seriously.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 2:36 PM

      Wow, talk about a headline designed entirely for clicks.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 3:07 PM

        yeah, how dare they report facts and an actual response from Sony.

        ps: your PS4 fanboyism is blatant and obvious. looking through your post history, I don't think you've ever made a comment that wasn't a thinly veiled bashing of MS or an attempt at subtle praise of Sony.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 12:54 AM

        Stupid facts getting in the way of your loyalty to Skub.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 2:37 PM

      Isn't that a below average failure rate?

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 6:11 PM

        If it was over a 6 month period, yeah. I don't know if it's good or bad for "out of the box" failures. I don't think 1 out of a thousand not working at all is terrific, but this is new tech. I bet it's higher for most new cars. Something will shake loose in the first week for 1/2 of 1% of most vehicles.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 9:36 PM

          1 out of a thousand is probably fairly reasonable for tech products, I'd be surprised if the failure or even DOA rate for hard drives or memory modules was that low.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 6:13 PM

        this isn't a failure rate, it's a DOA rate

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 6:14 PM

          essentially this only tells us how thorough their QA process is

          • reply
            November 14, 2013 6:14 PM

            and by QA i mean quality control. as in physically inspecting samples of outgoing consoles

            • reply
              November 15, 2013 1:42 PM

              4 sigma isn't terrible but it's not great either. I'm not sure this is outside of acceptable ranges though.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 2:44 PM

      what was RROD rate? 101%?

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 2:55 PM

        For me it was even higher than that. It hit literally everyone I knew personally with a 360, and it hit one guy twice. That's not even counting the shack.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 3:05 PM

          I had four or five shit out on me.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 4:00 PM

          Higher than 100%. And even higher again than 101%. Dear god!

          I had probably 3-4 fails myself. The fact that I can't remember the exact number is telling.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 4:21 PM

          I had one. Fucking system made it to my first Street Fighter 4 match and died in seconds. I don't think I ever played that game. :(

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 4:58 PM

          2 out of 3 for me

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 6:12 PM

          My bro went through xbox 360s like hotcakes. 7.

          • reply
            November 15, 2013 1:21 AM

            Did warrenty get him new ones or did he buy new? You'd think that at some point he would learn and give up.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 6:55 PM

          mine happened after like 4 or 5 years. I bought a PS3 and new XBOX with the Costco refund. The new 360 outlasted the PS3.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 10:15 PM

          I went through 3 but only paid for one so I can't complain. I can complain about my PS1/PS2/PS3 that died on me and I had to pay to get the drive fixed on every one.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 10:23 PM

          2 of 3 for me. The 3rd one has lasted for 4 or 5 years though.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 11:11 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          November 15, 2013 12:22 AM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          November 15, 2013 1:26 AM

          Same here, of 10 or so people I know who had launch 360s they all failed. My launch ps3 failed too, though a friend's is still going.

          • reply
            November 15, 2013 7:24 AM

            Yeah, the way my PS3Fat screams and howls due to heat, that thing launch unit is still trucking along.

        • reply
          November 15, 2013 7:23 AM

          Yeah, it hit me 6 times in a row. To be fair, a couple of those were on "repaired" units, but I went through 4 unique xboxes before I finally got a stable 5th.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 4:04 PM

        it was definitely above 30% which was a number that retailers brought up. its anecdotal but i don't know a single dude amongst my friends whose 360 didnt croak.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 4:20 PM

        i had 2 xboxes that didnt have one. the one had some video issues but neither were launch so i dont think it matters

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 4:38 PM

        7 total dead Xbox 360s here

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 4:47 PM

        though to be fair that's over time, while this .04 is immediately. Not directly comparable. That said the 360 sure seemed like a RRODy POS

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 5:07 PM

        I dunno, but my first 360 RROD when I turned it on the very first time.

        I think I'm on my 3rd 360 now.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 11:29 PM

        Not even close to that around here. I only know of 2 of 12 people I know with 360s that had one failed.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 1:00 AM

        I actually lucked out, mine took about 6 years to RROD.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 3:56 AM

        for some reason my original 360 still works (loudly). i guess i didnt play it enough?

        • reply
          November 15, 2013 7:37 AM

          Same. Launch month device, zero issues. Although, CoD Ghosts runs much louder than any other game for some reason.

          • reply
            November 15, 2013 7:52 AM

            we should donate ours to the Smithsonian

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 7:47 AM

        I had one failure over 8 years...

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 2:57 PM

      does it really matter? I recently returned 2 of the new model kindles because they weren't up to par before I got a perfect one. it's pretty much how brand new electronics can go.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 4:03 PM

        New anything. I'm sure most high end dishwashing machines suffer from 0.5% failure rates.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 4:23 PM

      "I can't comment on failure rates, because it's just not something - it's a moving target. What this consumer should worry about is the way that we've treated him. Y'know, things break, and if we've treated him well and fixed his problem, that's something that we're focused on right now. I'm not going to comment on individual failure rates because I'm shipping in 36 countries and it's a complex business." -- Peter Moore, May 2007, in an interview with Mike Antonucci of the San Jose Mercury

      http://www.shacknews.com/article/46898/moore-on-xbox-360-folding
      http://www.1up.com/news/peter-moore-360-failure-rates

      Yes, the context of that was way different, but it seems like Sony's deciding that acknowledging a 4-out-of-1000 failure rate on launch day is far better than mounting a "fortress" PR strategy.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 4:25 PM

      that's....incredibly low.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 4:45 PM

      How many units do you think they shipped? 500,000? 1,000,000? I'd hate to be one of the 2,000-4,000 people opening my PS4 tomorrow realizing I was one of the 0.4%.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 9:31 PM

        They had 1,000,000 pre-orders, so I'm guessing it's pretty close to that.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 4:45 PM

      I don't trust Sony to come up with this number any more than I did Microsoft.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 4:53 PM

      I wouldn't be surprised if you see similar failure rate reports in the lead-up to the Xbox One launch. It's still too early to rate how this hardware holds up over a longer period of time.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 6:01 PM

      So, about 1 out of every 200. That's pretty good, considering I lose 6 or 7 dvds out of 100.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 6:04 PM

      Sounds good now let's hope it stays that way, but its still early.

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 6:14 PM

      The only problem I have is their wording: .4% of units shipped. Well, millions of units have shipped, but only a couple thousand have been plugged in and turned on. Are they clumsily saying that they mean of the units given out as prizes only .4% went bad? Or are they saying "we shipped millions and thousands have been used and .4% of the millions have gone bad and we haven't even turned on the vast majority of these things"?

      Because that might be bad.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 6:48 PM

        They can extrapolate fail rate from a sample.

        • reply
          November 14, 2013 9:33 PM

          This is likely what they did, though the accuracy of said extrapolation could be fairly variable depending on production facility and component batches.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 6:56 PM

        I'm pretty sure each one went through a test, but honestly, shipping is rough. That's where the .4% comes from. With the 360 it was way higher because they forgot to remove the damn plastic from the heatsink. What Sony is saying, I think, is that at the production facility, things went smooth, except for the wobble.

      • reply
        November 14, 2013 11:44 PM

        Yeah, the failure rates after a few months of use are way more relevant.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 1:38 AM

        We and they have no idea of the failure rate at the moment so it seems weird that they've said it's 0.4% especially as it's likely to be more than that (between 1% and 3% will more likely be seen as acceptable by either MS or Sony).

    • reply
      November 14, 2013 7:00 PM

      Well assuming they shipped a million, I hope I'm not one of the 4,000 with a busted console.

    • reply
      November 15, 2013 1:02 AM

      I'm tempted to check out Neogaf or Reddit to see how the Sony Defense Squad people are handling this news, but that would require me to read Neogaf or Reddit.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 1:03 AM

        On a more serious note, has there been any word yet on what exactly it is that is going wrong with these systems?

        • reply
          November 15, 2013 7:09 AM

          I am not sure what is causing it, but my friend's console is stuck at a blinking blue light. He called Sony and they told him his console was a brick and it would be two weeks for a replacement.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 7:47 AM

        [deleted]

    • reply
      November 15, 2013 7:27 AM

      I feel this number is a bit disingenuous. I mean, 0.4% on the minuscule number that were shipped ahead of today, that number could very easily grow from today going forward.

      • reply
        November 15, 2013 8:19 AM

        true, but it was smart to report something small while it is still accurate and not yet big enough to be too worrying.

        • reply
          November 15, 2013 8:24 AM

          Oh, don't get me wrong. I think they made the right move to acknowledge it.

    • reply
      November 15, 2013 1:13 PM

      Sony and MS really have swapped positions this gen. It will be so funny if the PS4 is the new RROD system too (not in a good way).

    • reply
      November 15, 2013 10:17 PM

      this is why I'm never an early adopter.

Hello, Meet Lola