Sony’s hotly anticipated PlayStation 4 finally launched this weekend, but the next-generation console was soon engulfed in a growing social media nightmare after numerous technical glitches left some systems offline and dead on arrival.
Though sales numbers were positive — with more than one million units sold in the first 24 hours after the Nov. 16 launch — the company was in for anything other than the “Perfect Day” launch channeled by Lou Reed in the popular system ad.
Consumers wasted no time in complaining on social media about faulty HDMI output ports, PlayStation Network crashes, and a “blue light of death” rendering the system useless.
Forty percent of product reviews on Amazon.com give the PS4 a one-star rating, citing hardware failure as the reason.
Reddit’s PlayStation hub lists 91 individual incidents of system failure as of Monday morning.
Official tech-support forums for PS4 have been inundated with complaints of malfunctioning hardware, prompting the company to release a statement.
“A handful of people have reported issues with their PlayStation 4 systems. 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,” the statement said.
Though the company initially stated the failure rate is about 0.04 percent, Sony later revised the number to 0.4 percent in a followup statement.
“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,” the statement said.
The growing volume of complaints on Facebook, Google and Twitter is leading some to speculate the number is higher, though social media complaints don’t always reflect actual customer satisfaction numbers.
The PS4 is the first major next generation console to launch in the budding world of social media, where Sony will have to launch an aggressive public relations campaign to appease a younger, increasingly connected video game consumer base.
Microsoft’s newest console, the Xbox One, hits stores nationwide Friday morning.