PlayStation 4’s “Blue Light of Death” Plagues Consumers, No Solution aside from a Replaced Console

Yet another piece of electronics is vanquished by the color blue and gets “of death” appended to its current predicament. Some PlayStation 4 consoles completely die right out of the box and give off a blue light. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, but with over 600 one-star reviews on Amazon, it’s likely not an isolated incident.

Aside from reading the Amazon reviews from Sony fans with nothing left to believe in, you can also check out the complaints rolling in on Twitter under #BlueLightofDeath.

I came home to find @johntdrake got me a #PS4 as an early Xmas gift OMG SO EXCITED!!! Until we found out it is bricked :( #BlueLightOfDeath

— Andrea Rene (@andrearene) November 16, 2013

Well, my #PS4 is officially a $453 brick. Seems it’s a #bluelightofdeath …So I got drunk this weekend instead.

— Aonarach (@Aonarach) November 16, 2013

My #ps4 is dead on arrival #BlueLightOfDeath

— Patrick Chimienti (@PChimienti) November 16, 2013

Though a lot of the tweets are commentary, you can easily skim through and find personal accounts like these of customers whose consoles were no more than giant, useless lumps of plastic. There are also plenty of YouTube videos showcasing the problem:

Kotaku reports that, while Sony has published a series of troubleshooting steps to help with the issue, they haven’t heard of anyone having any success fixing their console that way. It seems the only solution at this point is calling Sony’s customer support and taking 15 to 30 days to ship them your console and receive a new one.

Of course, the console wars rage on, and Xbox fans might be quick to poke fun after last generation’s Xbox 360 “red ring of death.” We’d like to remind them that the Xbox One launch hasn’t happened yet, and they might want to save their schadenfreude until they’re happily playing their functioning Xbox Ones. Or, you know, they could just be nice.

If you’ve had (or haven’t had, hopefully) problems with your PS4, let us know how your customer service experience is going in the comments.

(via Kotaku, image via Sony)

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