CAD has it covered
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20131115
:-), now where's that joke icon....
Some of the thousands of early adopters who shelled out for Sony's PlayStation 4 console, launched today in the US, have already reported mysterious system failures. The entertainment giant's support forums are littered with threads, some more than a dozen pages long, devoted to problems users are experiencing with their new …
Working in manufacturing here's a list of things that could have caused problems.
Components: Order limited "high quality" parts as samples for testing purposes, upon completion of tests and entering production a large quantity is needed quickly. This leads many component manufacturers to speed up their own lines which leads to defects, running out of the high quality foil and dropping to a lower quality, skipping QC on certain products or lowering QC standards to "good enough" etc.
The line: The line is sensitive, printing machines have to be balanced, pick and place machines definately have to be balanced etc etc etc (even the ovens can be sensitive) sudden influx of new products leads to a re-arranging of the line meaning the once perfectly calibrated machines are now not calibrated in the slightest.
Not to mention inspection, it's a new console so they don't know what's likely to go wrong so a small scale general inspection is performed, later on when they know what the issues with the console are, they know to focus inspection on the hdmi port, or the cooling system, or the disk drive mount etc etc.
This is why I'm waiitng until march to buy, too many people suffered RROD and too many are now suffering the pulsing blue dick punch of sadness. I don't doubt XBone will have its share of launch blues too.
Components, Line and Inspection. Also shipping times and logistics.
On this sort of scale they'll have surface shipped those consoles months ago to get them to retailers ready for launch, and obviously will have been loaded with whatever firmware version was available at the time. The "brand new" OS build will be completely obsolete now.
Given how they're going head to head with Microsoft for Christmas with launch dates pretty much on top of each other (unlike the 360/PS3 launches 12 months apart). Hardly surprising that they shipped as soon as the firmware was "good enough" (and as late as they could whilst guaranteeing delivery for Christmas), and then carried on bug-fixing whilst the hardware was in transit, which is how they've got updates ready to roll out 3 days after the NA launch.
"When Microsoft released its Xbox 360 console, an infamous hardware condition branded the 'Red Ring of Death' sparked outcry"
Those faults mostly took a year plus to emerge - and were related to long term heat related damage to the BGA type GPU chip mountings....There were no major issues at launch like this.
Absolutely. Though the launch PS3 we bought very early on, within weeks of release whilst abroad, before it was released in the UK, is till with us today, though if Sony think I'm going to rush out and buy a PS4, disposing of software library at the drop of a hat, or keep both, well they're wrong.
Xbox 360, the current one is the 5th (or is it 6th? lost count) one. Having said that it's Kinect sibling is now in it's second year, no issues there. Again, Xbox 1? Nah, too many unfinished Xbox 360 games too.
A year down the line, We'll see if there's any compelling game that necessitates a purchase, in the mean time, my PC with a Radeon 7870 and a 30" 2560x1600 monitor made it the choice machine to play Skyrim and the Dragon Age series on.
Lol, you sound as butthurt as these guys over at gamespot
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/ps4-enjoy-your-blod-overwhelming-complaints-says-a-30930909/
I'm sure the failure rate isn't that bad in truth, but oh my, how I shall laugh at my friends should it be proved to be true.
same as being poor and living in your council house with no heating, -15c will wipe your tv memory of all scanned channels, and you PC bios settings if you can get your CPU to work
the cold is suppose to "as a wife tale" get rid of static off new PCB, only second class deliveries break in the post when it comes to motherboards and GFX cards, but thats down to royalmail playing football with your parcels
you put the console in your fridge and let the PCB get cold, and the cold is "suppose" remove all the static, and there is alot less chance of a chip blowing when you first turn the power on
most people do not have frost free freezers, and would just replace static with condensation or a full water drop
Both the PS4 and XBox One are mediocre devices - equivalent to a mid range gaming PC.
Halfway through their lives they will be equivalent to a low end gaming PC - one with whatever Intel provides for graphics at that time.
Meanwhile, PC users will be buying games at 75% off on Steam sales, and downloading free mods for them, including enhanced textures (for their 4K displays), additional models and new quests for RPGs, etc.
I would squabble that the PC was rubbish for 'proper games' until the 2000's and even then, the Dreamcast (equivalent to a low end PC using your criteria) wiped the floor with the PC with the likes of Soul Caliber and Sonic Adventure to name a couple.
Amiga was the future when the PC still had green screens and mono bleep bleep sound, hell the SNES and PS1 did arcade games and platformers better than a PC costing 5 times the price.
Slowly though, the PC has become more like consoles with it's custom gaming chips and controllers, TV outs that are compatible with mass consumer large screens and finally as a PC gamer youre no longer hunched over a desk. All this with an increase in production volume and prices have plummeted givingPC gamers a lot more to be smug about.
The PC's transformation now gives the gamer more choice, albeit at a higher price and maintenance. The savvy console owner though, will never pay RRP for a game. There are several websites that will get you at least 30% off RRP if you stay tuned.
A mid range PC might only have 1-2Gb of video card memory, all of which is separated from the CPU. It doesn't matter how fast the bus is, it is quite significantly different on these new consoles. If a PS4 game used 3Gb of geometry, texture and physics data, all being worked through the GPU every frame, then an average PC wouldn't cope, it would have to chug along while waiting for memory transfers to complete.
> A mid range PC might only have 1-2Gb of video card memory
...and the console doesn't have ANY dedicated graphics memory. PCs have dedicated graphics memory because of performance, and the consoles have shared memory because of cost. If you get an XBone or PS4 today, it's already slower than a decent gaming PC, and the more demanding the game the bigger the difference gets.
> ...and the console doesn't have ANY dedicated graphics memory. PCs have dedicated graphics memory because of performance, and the consoles have shared memory because of cost.
Oh my, Please tell me I'm misreading this? Someone needs to go and do some research on the Unified Memory Architecture being used in both consoles - hint, it's not the same as dynamic shared memory used on low end PC's. Another hint - AMD are actually working hard at introducing the technology to PC's because it will enable serious performance gains.
Also, most previous consoles have had "dedicated" graphics memory. The PS3 has 256mb for graphics and 256mb for system, for example - although this probably analogous to PC's shared memory..
> it's not the same as dynamic shared memory used on low end PC'
No, and neither is it magic. PS4 has half the bandwidth of a decent PC graphics card.
> AMD are actually working hard at introducing the technology to PC's because it will enable serious performance gains.
No because it's cheap and the future is mobile devices, where low price and "good enough" is what AMD is aiming for.
> most previous consoles have had "dedicated" graphics memory
And that's relevant in a discussion about PS4 and XBone.
No current game would use 3GB of texture per frame. With the PS4 all the texture data does still come over the shared memory bus. Every time for every frame. There is no local cache. The average PC with a $150 GPU completely outclasses the PS4 even with only 1GB of video card memory...
Microsoft took a different approach with a very fast (200GB/s) on GPU local cache and advanced texture tiling compression - both of which the PS4 doesn't have...
200GByte/s is just marketing bull. AMD APU Jaguar on both PS4 and XBoxOne don't have that memory bandwidth. The hardware is so cheap. The marketing people just lie quoting the burst rate theoretical maximum transfer rate.. which in real world usage could happen 1% of the time on average.
Expensive Core i7 and Xeon Intel workstations and servers using Quad-Channel DDR3 1600MHz and 1866MHz have real sustained 51.2GByte/s to 59.7GByte/s bandwidth. And that is true sustained bandwidth not theoretical burst rate.
Pc gaming and console gaming are 2 different worlds, stop comparing them, they serve different purposes for different demographics.
Try playing party games with your family on a pc, see how far you get....
Try playing an mmo on a console, see how far you get.....
I personally find battlefield on ps3 a far more immersive experience than on pc, primarily due to the superior control system. Downvote me all you like but for me a controller wins hands down.
"...for different demographics."
Hmmm... I didn't realize one must choose one or the other. Or is this just the result of the financial constraints that some poor unfortunates find themselves in, and then they cover their sad circumstances with PC vs Console fanboism as a cover.
You might have a point, if not for the fact that fanboyism extends to things that are often free of any significant cost.
Vi vs Emacs, for instance.
Or Everton vs Liverpool (or United vs City)
Salad cream vs Mayonnaise...
The list goes on and on. It's not the cost that drives it.
Vociferous, id rather use something specifically designed for the sole purpose of playing games than a kb that I'm only using because its on the desk already..... A gaming keyboard still retains the basic idea that its a device used for typing, the clue is that all the buttons have these things on called letters. Try typing with a dual shock......
I'm waiting for something new to come along In the way if UID, kb just doesn't cut it. A mouse was designed initially to make selections on a screen right? A keyboard was designed with typing in mind right? Not natural fluid movement within a 3d game space.
Kb and mouse works in some instances, eg rts, but not fps no matter what anyone says...
'but not fps no matter what anyone says...'
You would be incorrect - FPS with a kb/mouse has precision not seen in console games. I've known some over the years who were artists at Quake, Counter Strike, etc. Single bullet headshots, not spray&pray like consoles. Wish I could still play them at the house, unfortunately a 700-800 ping over satellite puts you at a severe disadvantage - thus I have an incredible investment in Everquest, something I've played since 2001.
;)
"The clinical use of a keyboard/ mouse whilst under the premise you're a soldier on the battle field is what some people find off putting. A totally uninvolving experience."
Ironically the military is moving closer and closer every day to that kind of reality on the battlefield. (see drones, etc)
> Ironically the military is moving closer and closer every day to that kind of reality on the battlefield
“A left mouse push fires it. Kinda crazy really. We actually asked for a great big red button, but they wouldn't give us one.”
-- Crewman on the Royal Navy submarine HMS Splendid explains how cruise missiles are fired, from the BBC documentary 'Fighting The War'.
> rather use something specifically designed for the sole purpose of playing games than a kb that I'm only using because its on the desk already
Because you think a controller is better suited for gaming? It's not. Hand controllers are much slower and less precise than mouse+keyboard. The slowness and poor accuracy of hand controls is the reason game pace has become slower, games more "quicktime-eventy", and games now cheat for the player with auto-aim.
"A mouse was designed initially to make selections on a screen right? A keyboard was designed with typing in mind right? Not natural fluid movement within a 3d game space."
If you want to take that approach, then I fairly must point out that video games were initially designed with use of a mouse and keyboard in mind.
Just as software has been repurposed for controllers, mice and keyboards have been repurposed for gaming. Heck, there is a mouse with what, 16 buttons on it now? I personally used a game pad/paw/whatever you want to call it instead of a keyboard anyway.
"Downvote me all you like but for me a controller wins hands down."
Can't you just plug a controller in to your PC?
I really don't get why this "steambox" transition is taking so long. I've been toying with the idea of building a gaming PC that I plug in to my 60 inch TV with both a mouse/keyboard and a controller.
I don't know why that solution hasn't become more popular.
With all the virtual machines these days, you'd think it would be easy to essentially dual boot a PC to emulate an xbox1 and ps4. (copyright/patents aside of course).
"Both the PS4 and XBox One are mediocre devices - equivalent to a mid range gaming PC."
A pretty silly comparison because a midrange gaming PC would also cost a lot more money than a console. Second, games can be optimized on consoles with explicit knowledge of their performance characteristics, memory, CPU / GPU budget, IO and so on. That means like for like comparisons are tricky and would probably come out in a console's favour any way.
"Not silly - console hardware costs are usually subsidised - you pay more for the games instead..."
The subsidy if one exists at all, would hardly cover the difference in cost. And given that you can buy games second hand (and sell them), unlike most PC games these days, it is hard to compare the model of sale either. So yes it is a silly comparison.
But frankly this whole thread is silly - both the PC and consoles have their place in this world. Watching its fanbois on one side or another up or down vote is cretinous in the extreme.
"Second, games can be optimized on consoles"
A good point of course, but if I refuse to buy Apple products which gain the same benefit, why not treat consoles the same way?
We get upset about Apple's walled garden, but when will we rise up and tear down the walls of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo?
The Steambox can't come fast enough, IMO.
> Both the PS4 and XBox One are mediocre devices - - -
Yes, all true. Not to mention that at the end of the console's life they'll have been bypassed by most cellphones.
But performance is not the point of consoles, it's cost and ease of use. Something like 80% of consoles and console games are bought by parents for their kids.
"cost"? you mean the games that are 25% more expensive and for which 30%, 50%, 75% sales are completely unheard of? (just look at Steam or any bargain bin in local supermarket to see the PC situation)
"ease of use"? you mean the HDD installs or the 2GB patches you need to download so that you can finish them?
Consoles were cheaper and easier to use, but that ended sometime around PS2 and original xbox era. Now consoles are just underpowered PCs with all the problems plaguing PCs with few extras throws in for good measure. So excuse me while I replay Skyrim with mods, the one I bought for 4 quid. On a PC that is cheaper than PS4.
I find it hilarious that people are rushing out to buy two consoles that are not only internally identical to (feeble) PCs, but internally identical to each other! While remaining totally incompatible with each other, with the PC, and even with their own previous generations. ROFLMAO was never a more appropriate acronym.
Sure, there are (very) minor differences (cache memory). And there is some (minor) benefit to faster memory access (offset by the meagre 8GB allocation of unified memory - my PC has 18, and it's trailing edge). But the fact remains, the Xbone and PS4 COULD have been released as competing OSes running on stock PC hardware. Of course, nobody would have given them a second look. As pieces of laughably inadequate, completely redundant hardware, they're a litmus test for the gullibility of the gaming fan.
"Both the PS4 and XBox One are mediocre devices - equivalent to a mid range gaming PC."
And yet they are priced at a fraction of the cost and remain the standard news games are developed for until they are replaced 5 or 6 years later. Show me a PC that remains the standard all PC games are developed for 1/2 a decade after the model is released, priced at $200-$300 and can still play the latest games on the day it's successor is released.
"And yet they are priced at a fraction of the cost and remain the standard news games are developed for..."
Let me stop you right there.
First, you need to own TWO feeble, nearly-identical systems in order to own "the standard(s) new games are developed for." Otherwise, you will miss exactly half the exclusive titles. Second, in order to get the full experience (e.g. multiplayer, or Netflix) you have to play for online access - for the entire life of the system. Third, you WILL need to upgrade the internal storage almost immediately. Add that all up, and a nice mid-range PC starts too look like a pretty good bargain.
Moreover, with 65 million users, Steam is a comparable market to either the Xbox 360 or PS4, and therefor just as important a "standard" for game development - and literally INFINITELY more attractive to developers right now than either the Xbone or PS4, which are starting with an installed base of roughly ZERO. If those new gizmos don't sell like hotcakes this Christmas, everyone who does buy one is going to be a very sad little kiddy next year.
WHilst in public they are pretending to play nice, with tweets congratulating Sony, in the back room, they are playing as dirty as ever, manufacturing FUD like it's going out of fashion.
If they spent as much energy in their engineering as they do in their FUD campaigns against their competitors products then they might not be in their current mess of trying to flog an overpriced and underspec pile of junk that's twice the size of the PS4, half as powerful and twice as loud.
I remember back 2000ish when the PS2 first launched, particularly an episode of Watchdog which featured some launch PS2s with power supplies that blew up instantly on being switched on. Later, you had the 360 with the infamous RROD fixed in later production runs and an internal redesign (haven't heard of it happening to anyone I know since circa 2008). I'm sure I remember launch PS3s with iffy BluRay drives too.
Sounds like the same thing again. Poor testing foisted upon early adopting guinea pigs, while anyone who waits gets the fixed version once they chase the gremlins out of the production process.
Previously the console releases have always taken a step or two ahead of the PC, but this time at release they are so far behind it's a joke, no TRUE 1080p 60fps gaming, as usual no multi-monitor support and no 4k support!
I already have close to a 4k resolution when using Eyefinity, I can play at 5960 x1080 at over 60 fps on the all the latest games for example BF4.
So MS & PS think they can sell me a box for £350-500 a box which can't do half that stuff and is already obsolete?
I'm going to pass!
In that case Hoe, Sky TV boxes, DVD players, Bluray players, any future Nintendo consoles are obsolete due to the fact that some mugs will have well over a grand to spend on a 'do everything better' desktop PC.
I'm certain if MS, Sony or Nintendo were working to a $1500 dollar price point with no profit margin built in, the consoles would wipe the floor with your setup.
and your rig cost £400??? for that sort of performance your looking at £1,500 or thereabouts... so using your logic your kit should be capable of preforming 4 times the PS4/XBONe or in other words you have overpaid twice for your kit...
oh, and does your pc fit under the TV in a footprint the size of a phone book and only consume a few hundred watts??
the PS4/XBONE arnt supposed to be the worlds most powerful machines... they are supposed to be a sensible amount of power, built to a sensible price to produce a good experience on home TV setups for the next 5 or so years till the replacement is leaked... Im sure that even you would rather play Battlefield 4 or COD Ghosts on an Xbox360 or PS4 than a £400 8 year old PC...
I look at the front page and think there's a new article, but no it's just a new headline. So far it's been:
"Got your new PS4? Enjoy those BLUE SCREAMS of DEATH, warn gamers"
"PlayStation 4: Blinking BLUE LIGHT OF DEATH frags some gamers"
"Sony's new PlayStation 4: So AMAZING except for ONE little thing..."
.
I'm going to start taking bets on wether the article gets a new headline before Monday.
I never understood the mentality of preordering a games console. At best you get to enjoy playing a paltry selection of game titles for the 6 months to a year that it takes for more decent titles to appear. At worst you get to enjoy a paltry selection of mediocre games, a day 0 firmware update, missing functionality, glitchy online and mysterious system failures.
It doesn't matter who makes the console, it's always the same. If a console is THAT GOOD, I'm sure that it will still be around in 6 months. Probably in a better configuration / bundle and definitely with more games to choose from.
We can wait now because everything has been done before, there are millions more machines and games out there and a lot more gadgets to spend our money on but...
There was no waiting for Playstation 1 with Arcade perfect Ridge Racer and Wipeout
Nintendo 64 for Mario 64 and Pilot Wings 64
SNES Super Mario world, Super Tennis,Pilot Wings, FZero.
Dreamcast, Powerstone, Sonic Adventure, Ready To Rumble, House of the Dead 2, Soul Calibur.
All games to die for and better than anything on the PC at the time.
"Brag factor. For a few fleeting weeks you'll be the coolest kid on the block."
I bet the brag / cool factor are somewhat diminished if that shiny new console is bricked, failing to to read disks properly or has a red/yellow/blue light of death and the weeks or months for Sony/Microsoft to send a replacement.
"I never understood the mentality of preordering a games console."
Probably related to the "first" concept. (remember when that was a thing? firsting forum posts?)
I played WoW for a long time and competing for world first kills definitely improved the experience.
But lets take a related industry: movies.
There is no reason you couldn't wait for the DVD/BD release and for the cost of 1 movie ticket get a copy to own forever. Yet millions of people go to the movies every year. Why? Because they can. Because we aren't a patient species. Because we have an internal drive to compete with everyone about everything and all times. (Except you lazy slackers).
I wonder what proportion are HDMI problems? Those, the solution can be to simply have the manufacturers finish the ports off straight away rather than leaving them all jagged, hopefully Sony starts having them do that ASAP. At least it sounds like people with port problems can clean the port up themselves. If you take out HDMI problems, are the other ones frequent? I don't know.
just use DVI like on GFX cards, the only place in the known universe you can get the right adaptor is from some shifty place in hong kong
DVI-D (Female) to DVI-I (Male)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390390846005?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
you can get the same adaptor in reverse from american whole sales for £1.68
"the solution can be to simply have the manufacturers finish the ports off straight away rather than leaving them all jagged"
It isn't likely a cosmetic issue.
" least it sounds like people with port problems can clean the port up themselves."
Somewhat unlikely - the port would have to be completely mangled for it to be a fit and finish issue. This is generally something much lower level like a chipset compatibility fault....Sony are screwed - this is going to cost them big time....
new ports are also 4x harder to press in the new plug, the plugs have tougher pressy paths, to make a tougher and more reliable connection, so they are more efficient and comply with the EU ERP power regulations
if your plug is loose and you can wiggle it a little, it probably wont work anymore