I think I might be contacting the developers in question for every single game I plan to buy to get it agreed in writing before I buy their game. It is better to be safe than left with a pile of useless disks. If everyone did that they might find themselves overwhelmed with mail and have to deal with the issue before they launch a game.

PS Plus: The Binding of Isaac, Don't Starve to be offered for free on PS4

Launch window indie games bound for Instant Game Collection, most likely in the US only

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/43 ... plus-subs/

I wonder what they'll offer over here.

There are some reports of early PS4 consoles bricking with the 1.50 firmware update.

Wouldn't surprise me, Sony are notorious for it.

Actually, it's just that the internet has no sense of proportion. No manufacturing process even with good QC is perfect. If you roll out a couple of million units in one lump, a few of them are going to turn out to be duds. Unfortunately, the people who buy a console on day one are also the people who, should they get one that's a dud, are most likely to jump on every internet forum they can find and make a noise about it. Which is then taken up by the more vehement portions of the no-clue forum hangers and suddenly something like a 1% failure rate is a 'crisis'.

(NOTE: I haven't mentioned the platform here, because I fully expect the same thing to happen on both. It's a function of mass manufacturing, not which badge is glued to the front)

Some PS4s and Xbox Ones will fail fairly early in their lifespan (it's called 'The bathtub curve'). Those people are unlucky. But in the grand scheme of things, failures in the first few weeks signify nothing about the long term reliability of a device.

The same applies to many things like OSes etc. It just seems awkward for those hit by the product failure.

press release from Sony...



Not entirely sure counting shipped units rather than activated ones is a great idea, but it does suggest that at least so far they think it's within manufacturing defect margins rather than a general issue.

Isn't the big North American launch today? I believe (could be wrong) that there aren't that many activated PS4s out in the wild yet.

It was overnight UK time - the big launch events have already happened and the midnight queuers will already have them but the mass of customers won't yet.

I agree that the 'shipped rather than used' thing is a mistake but apparently there were 4000 given out a week early as part of the competition and 7 of them have failed, plus one press source has had a failure. Say they've sent out 1,000 to the press - not unfeasible in a country the size of the US - a failure rate of 8 in 5000 isn't actually something to worry about overall, even if it does indeed suck if you're one of the eight. I mean, that's what, less that a 0.2% failure rate?

It is a low failure rate. Though are those 4000 that were given out actually active? If not then the failure rate might be considerably higher. As it is still very early days it would not be indicative of the quality of the final product. In a few weeks once the machines are activated then it would be more accurate representation.

I think if you're entering a competition where the prize is 'get a PS4 a week before everyone else' there's a fair chance you're someone who is interested in playing with your PS4. OK, so say 50% of those PS4s are still sat in their boxes. That's a failure rate of 0.32% then. Crisis!

If they are competition prizes then I suspect that the numbers being used will be closer to all of them. If I had a prize like that, I would be using as much as possible especially if it was prelaunch. So that would lower the failure rate to the lower bounds.

Sadly predictable - PSN problems under load from PS4 launch

Looks like the problem with initial PS4's may actually be to do with defective HMDI port pins

PS4 update triggers 'stability issues', claims EA [Update]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/43 ... claims-ea/