Blue Light of Death Plagues PlayStation 4 309
jones_supa writes "A classic game console freezing problem seems to affect the newest generation too. It has been found out that a bunch of Sony PlayStation 4s suffer of a problem which has been christened 'Blue Light of Death'. When a PS4 is turned on with a press of the power button, the light that runs along the side of the console should first pulse blue and then switch to white. At this point the console turns on the picture signal to the display device. Those who have a unit with the glitch are instead finding that their PS4 pulses blue, never goes to white and never outputs an image. We do not have accurate statistics of how widespread the issue is, but reports are popping up in Amazon reviews, Twitter, YouTube and other websites. PlayStation support is still in midst of investigating the issue, but has already posted a bunch of magic tricks you can try to get the console past the initial startup stage."
attention kmart shoppers there is a bule light spe (Score:5, Funny)
on all Sony stuff.
Re:attention kmart shoppers there is a bule light (Score:5, Funny)
Correction.
Its called the "Pulsing blue Dickpunch of sadness", in case you didnt know [cad-comic.com]
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Remember back when a console just worked? SNES, NES, PS1 etc. They really DON'T make them like they use to. No, dirty contacts on the SNES/NES don't count, that was user error for not keeping it clean and it was a simple fix that every child knew about; just blow on it.
Try blowing on those pretty lights, see how well that works.
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You're right. I turned on a "+5 Informative" bonus setting for this very post I'm making right now but it'll probably get modded back down..
Back on topic: WTF would TV compatibility have to do with this? That sounds totally bogus since any HDMI capable tv should work, no? Does it have to be a recent Sorny TV to work with the PS4 or what?
Re: attention kmart shoppers there is a bule light (Score:5, Informative)
hdmi is a horribly laid out spec that a ton of manufacturers do not conform to correctly or at least are very loose about it. Depending on their bootup sequence and when their drivers are coming up for hdmi and the timing that the tv is using could cause issues, however in the end it would be a driver issue on the ps4 side since its up to them to not crap their pants at the sign of trouble from a tv and at least try to keep going
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Those cheaper devices are more likely to be from manufacturers who don't care about implementing bullshit like HDCP. I'm assuming that Sony will be fully "compliant" there, and therefore only devices which comply fully with the standard would work. Maybe they also require a minimum version of the HDMI standard.
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advanced piece of technology such as a 3rd-gen game console
Good to know you think so highly of the Master System :P Joking aside, the PS4 is 8th generation.
HDCP issues some hdmi switches / DD sound amp's ca (Score:4, Interesting)
HDCP issues some hdmi switches / DD sound amp's can make it fail / flicker with mode changes.
Rambo (Score:5, Funny)
It's blue light.
What does it do?
It pulses blue.
Sabotaged (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems the workers were not happy.
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Re:Sabotaged (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, they should have written a nice letter to the head(s) of the company. That would have made a forceful statement and gotten widespread attention.
You know, the funny thing about rights is that they're an abstract, man-made concept that only exists in our mind. Some might say that workers have a right to manage and perform their work as they see fit. Or some might call this an act exercising freedom of speech or expression. Ah, rights.
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Re:Sabotaged (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't all protests eventually boil down to protesting with other people's hard-earned money? Seems to me that's pretty much the reason for protests -- to disrupt someone's flow of money long or hard enough (inb4 that's what she said) to enact change against some transgression, perceived or otherwise. Whether the act of protesting damages physical property or intangible things like reputation, the end result is that a protest still costs the person or organization being protested money.
The ps4 is still under warranty so the consumer is protected for the cost of the console regardless if this is an act of protest via sabotage or something innocuous. Might cost sony quite a bit though.
Re:Sabotaged (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sabotaged (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work at a place that created software for a certain part of the car manufacturing business. The product of the company was the software, however they acted as a middle-man for the hardware, simply making profit for being the middle-man. The owners of the company had no idea about hardware, and didn't care to learn. They just wanted to "git-r-dun", if you know what I mean. So they hired a few folks to run that dept, but never really had any respect for these people, I was one of them. Management's point of view was that hardware was stuff that came in boxes, and if things broke, then you just get another one and replace, they didn't know or care about configuring devices, or what it meant, but their system depended upon it being done correctly always. Despite countless occasions where failure was warned about, where problems were pointed out prior to actually manifesting, and despite indisputable facts being pointed out, management didn't want to listen, and never gained respect for "the hardware guys". They would require us to do things that would depend on us breaking other rules that were established.
The result was that prior to quitting the job, we simply stopped trying to make things better, and stopped "pestering" management about future problems, and we just played by their rules - which sometimes meant sending out servers with faulty fans that would fail after 3 weeks, sensors that didn't seem to work, and chips that melted - servers generally lasted no more than 7 weeks, when sent out in this condition. This was, in our way of thinking, a protest. And as you point out, "destruction of property", but what to do?
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We have no idea what the conditions actually were.
It doesn't matter. Unless you're being forced to work, and by 'forced' I mean literally imprisoned, then you don't have any moral grounds for damaging the employer's shit, no matter how pissed you are or how unfair YOU perceive their treatment to be.
The result was that prior to quitting the job, we simply stopped trying to make things better, and stopped "pestering" management about future problems, and we just played by their rules - which sometimes meant sending out servers with faulty fans that would fail after 3 weeks, sensors that didn't seem to work, and chips that melted - servers generally lasted no more than 7 weeks, when sent out in this condition. This was, in our way of thinking, a protest. And as you point out, "destruction of property", but what to do?
Translation- they didn't express the proper level of concern in YOUR book, so you quit doing your job well. That isn't a protest, that's just you being lazy and unprofessional.
A professional would have continued to file reports, continued to notify management of
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You probably wouldn't be on Slashdot if that had been the attitude of those who fought for workers' rights, you'd probably be in a dangerous factory right now if you were lucky or otherwise you'd have no work today and be worrying about how you were going to eat. Putting profits at risk is the most effective way of getting the wealthy to take notice and possibly change their behaviour. What sort of protest should they be making in your opinion? A letter writing campaign?
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With or without those protests, no one would be in a dangerous factory right now, because most of those jobs are now done by robots (and soon all will be). Protests didn't change anyone's mind - the slow movement of labor from unskilled to skilled changed the way people had to be treated.
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The jobs are only done by robots in places where easily exploitable expendable human labour is not available Since the changes to workers' rights wouldn't have come about in the alternative reality proposed there would have been no need for robots, and because most people would have had a shit education, there probably wouldn't have been anyone to invent them in any case.
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A worker is supposed to take pride in their work and demand proper compensation and conditions, not the other way around. You can refuse to w
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Are there? In a totalitarian country where unions are illegal and the army gets sent in to break them up?
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By the way it's "effect" change. Don't be a moron.
minimum wage = minimum effort (Score:5, Interesting)
even more so if you have a boss like bill lumbergh so you work just hard enough not to get fired
Re:Sabotaged (Score:5, Informative)
First, this hasn't been verified. You're citing a single (deleted) post on an internet forum. It would be like me claiming Microsoft CEO Ballmer visits my cube during late nights coding and molests me. Credibility = Zero.
Second, quality control is handled externally to FoxConn -- or at least it damn well should have been. I don't think this is a worker revolt. We would have seen more than one post. If you ask me, it's one of two things -- the most likely is a bad batch of capacitors or other commodity parts. It's happened before -- just ask Monkey Man (who isn't molesting me, btw) about the XBox 360's RROD (Red Ring Of Death) -- which was traced to substandard parts and compounded by poor design regarding air circulation within the unit. The other possibility, an outlier, but considering this is Sony... is that their DRM has malfunctioned in a spectacular fashion. There are literally dozens of layers of DRM in this device, and it could be that a conflict has emerged at the hardware level due to authentication, etc. But like I said, it's an outlier; My money is on shit components.
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It would be like me claiming Microsoft CEO Ballmer visits my cube during late nights coding and molests me. Credibility = Zero.
Now if you said he visits you at night and threw a chair at you...
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Second, quality control is handled externally to FoxConn -- or at least it damn well should have been.
Hahahahaha. You haven't been a Sony customer very long, have you? Sony does not test their equipment. It goes in the box, it comes to you, you open it, and maybe it works. These devices are too complex to test without human intervention, so they just trust in the channel to handle the failures. They test some samples, sure.
Remember, if there were a test procedure for every console, then consoles would ship with updated firmware...
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Why must you re-open that old wound of mine. I'm going to go cry now.
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See this article: http://www.neowin.net/news/foxconn-intern-claims-ps4-was-sabotaged-during-manufacturing [neowin.net] Seems the workers were not happy.
Is this the same plant in Yantai where Foxconn essentially forced students to work for free [sky.com] on Apple and/or Sony stuff? If so, the sabotage is understandable, albeit still reprehensible.
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I wouldn't call it reprehensible. Being forced to work without compensation is the definition of slavery. Throwing a wrench in the master's machine is your moral duty if you can get away with it.
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Throwing a wrench in the master's machine is your moral duty if you can get away with it.
Of course, you might be apocryphally be throwing a sabot [wikipedia.org] into the master's machine, but why would it be your moral duty to continue wearing crappy shoes? ;^)
The question is why continue to support companies that do this? In the '90s, people boycotted companies like Nike for the labor practices of their sub-contractors, but sadly other than some brief noise to channel Apple, electronics companies have largely gotten a pass.
I think one underlying reason is that both the customer and the companies fear they h
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it matters less to most though. plenty of people are willing to switch from nike to adidas or the like. phone/pc/console choice seems to carry almost a religious dedication for a lot of people. theyre not willing to switch from their chosen brand, even if they think their brand does deplorable things.
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The point is not to switch. Every one of the brands have nearly the same supply chain labor practices (do you think the Samsung device is made with labor conditions substantially different than an Apple device).
The point is to apply pressure to the brand that has the highest volume so it has the most incentive and the most leverage to change the situation and can benefit most from positive publicity for changing, not just to change the king of the hill. Otherwise the supply chain folks just get to meet the
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Actually it is. Samsung earlier this year had a leak of hydrofluoric (HF) acid [wsj.com] that killed several of their workers and poisoned the environment. Of course, it's covered in a lot of places, but it barely made a ripple. As I recall, Samsung only had a small fine for that - something like $50k or so.
Ch [wsj.com]
not a wrench but a clog (Score:2)
I could see it (Score:3)
The Xbox 360's RROD made some sense, since they really were pushing things. It was a lot of hardware, quite high end, in a little box. Cooling all that was problematic. This generation of consoles, not so much. Their hardware is decidedly mid-range compared to what you see today, and is single chip. That is much easier to deal with, and shouldn't have nearly as much room for defects. That isn't to say there won't be some, there are always issues, but one wouldn't expect it to be widespread.
So I could buy th
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I'm betting it's a problem with error handling in drivers, and will be fixed by a firmware push soon enough. QA for that sort of thing isn't easy (though that's no excuse - it's not that hard either), and tends to get cut short when a product is rushed.
If the project was running late and Sony was looking to cut corners to make the date, saying "well, we tested it on a dozen TVs and didn't see any problems, so lets just call the HDMI drivers tested so we can ship" is exactly the sort of thing I can see happ
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Even if the new hardware is mid-range it's still being packed in a small box which they're also trying to make as quiet as possible. That eliminates the cheap and easy cooling options yet they also want to keep the price low, which eliminates the expensive cooling options, so what compromise did they make?
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Interesting debate there about how much more the PS4 would cost if "Made in teh US"
Well, the US would be an odd place to manufacture a Japanese product, but you never know. Much of the manufacturing for US companies that was once done in China has come back to the US, because robots work cheaper still. That's a big part of why China's economy has been in real trouble for the last few years - the need for humans in manufacturing work is falling fast.
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Well, the US would be an odd place to manufacture a Japanese product
Why is that?
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Realistically, you're right about manufacturing capacity of consumer electronics being pretty slim in the US.
Companies would need to switch back to the US en masse to get more companies to open factories. Factories are expensive to build and maintain, having a single large contract come in is often not viable.
Stats (Score:5, Funny)
"We do not have accurate statistics of how widespread the issue is, but according to Amazon reviews and Youtube comments, over 500% of PS4 units sold so far are suffering from this issue"
Re:Stats (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite. Note that most of the negative reviews on Amazon state that the package arrived DOA, often poorly packaged or damaged externally. Those things have mechanical hard drives in them, for example.
To be honest I'd be amazed if any new device shipping tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of units wasn't subject to some rate of failure. I hate Sony as much as the next guy but we basically know nothing at this point.
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To be honest I'd be amazed if any new device shipping tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of units wasn't subject to some rate of failure. I hate Sony as much as the next guy but we basically know nothing at this point.
Make that million+ units [twitter.com].
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Well it was being reported prior to launch by a decent number of people with review units, and folks who had won consoles pre-release. Given that there were a widely reported bunch of failed consoles before mainstream release when the sample size was drastically smaller I'd wager this is probably above the industry standard failure rate if nothing else.
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Re:Stats (Score:5, Informative)
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Glitch? GLITCH? (Score:4, Funny)
That's a little more than a "glitch" when the unit don't play games, display output, or otherwise do what it's supposed to do.
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If there's a troubleshooting step you can take to resolve the issue, so that the games display and can be played then it is indeed a glitch.
For some units, of course there's going to be hardware failures. Those folk certainly have my sympathy. Hopefully Sony have a well stocked return/replace process so those unlucky customers can be running quickly.
Videos and occasional complaints are somewhat meaningless. Unless there are hard numbers to show more failures than would be expected, this is just another prod
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I have.....NES and SNES cartdridge connectors can and do go bad.
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So, you don't have fond memories of inserting and removing NES cartridges over and over and over, uselessly blowing on the contacts in between, hoping against hope that, this next time, the game would come up and stay up? I loved the NES and have many fond memories, but I could never afford the special edition Deluxe Set which came with not only R.O.B., but also the rose colored glasses you seem to have gotten.
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I did say "uselessly blowing on the contacts". But, you heard by way of your friend that his brother's girlfriend's father's cousin swore that was what you needed to do, so you tried it anyway. Your trick that "works every single time" didn't work every single time either.
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Ctrl-Alt-Del [cad-comic.com] has named it the "Pulsing Blue Dick-punch of Sadness". I think that's way too good a name not to be generally adopted for the condition.
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Power On! (Score:5, Funny)
Awww screw it... let's just mix and match memes...
Han Solo: "Oh yeah? Watch this!"
Pulse blue: Atomic Batteries to power
Switch to white: Turbines to spee... BLAM
Leia: "Watch what?"
I much prefer the name... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I much prefer the name... (Score:5, Funny)
The best part is that after publishing the comic, Tim received his PS4 and it too had the Pulsing Blue Dickpunch of Sadness.
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The PBDoS is no joke.
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Wow, CAD is slashdotted.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sony was the principal developer of the Blu-Ray format and has its own content division pushing for DRM measures. If you don't blame Sony for DRM fuckups in their products, you might as well bend over and take it.
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Sony is a schizophrenic company that not only shoots its own foot, but that of their customers as well. They can't be trusted.
I think their own foot shooting is merely impressive stupidity. The way they go after their own customers has been turned into an artform.
Deja Vu? (Score:2)
Is Jones_supa really #4 from Ctrl-Alt-Del?
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20131115 [cad-comic.com]
Even linked to kotaku ^_^
That's what people get (Score:3, Informative)
For giving Sony money. Don't people ever learn?
Ahhh, Rev A hardware (Score:2, Insightful)
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that doesn't last long if your Rev A model keeps BSODing.
This time it isn't BSOD, but PBDS (Pulsing blue dickpunch of sadness).
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that doesn't last long if your Rev A model keeps BSODing.
This time it isn't BSOD, but PBDS (Pulsing blue dickpunch of sadness).
What's the difference? Both cause no gaming outcomes, and BSOD has precedence.
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It wont do anything for you more than add to your superiority complex over the "eager beavers".
Who said anything about being superior to anyone else? I was talking about juvenile, irrational needs and how marketing hype leads to foolish buying decisions. On your other flimsy point, you seem to be trying to come up with something to cover, i.e., being defensive. Do you have a pulsing blue space heater, perhaps?
Uh guys, this happens with every console launch (Score:2)
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The NES cartridge connector is notoriously finicky even when relatively new. Same thing can happen to the SNES if you don't get a good connection.
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"Nintendo has never had launch issues with a console"
*coughs* Super Smash Brothers Brawl exposed a nasty flaw in Nintendo's Wii. Try again when you actually own some of Nintendo's hardware and have had to deal with the returns process.
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Intrigued though, I have a launch Wii and what if I discover the flaw now only what, 7 years after release? Will I still get a free repair?
blow on the cartridge (Score:5, Funny)
It's easy, take the cartridge out, blow on the contacts, wave it around if it feels hot, then put it back in.
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It's easy, take the cartridge out, blow on the contacts, wave it around if it feels hot, then put it back in.
And failing that, ram it in and out a few times. It's funny how we're back to blinking lights at power on because stuff's broken. (Long live the NES!)
* of Death meme (Score:4, Interesting)
Where did this start? On Windows it was obviously the "Blue Screen of Death", Zip Drives had the "Click of Death". Did this phrase have any widespread use before Microsoft/IBM? Wikipedia points to OS/2 as the original BSoD monkier, but I'm wondering if it has roots that go back further than the late 1980s/early 90s.
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Rattle of Death [wikipedia.org]
Look on the bright side (Score:4, Interesting)
At least it happens now instead of the usual 2 days past warranty.
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Unless your YLOD is for the HDD, you still have all of your data.
Early adopter tax :) (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is one of the reasons I'll get my PS4 next summer at the earliest.
The other being that there are fuck all games to play on it at the moment.
Check Engine Light (Score:2)
I think the major issue here is: The blue pulsing light is a bit like the "blinking red light" or "check engine" light on a car. It can stem from a number of different things. There certainly seems to be QC issues with the HDMI port, and the provided HDMI cable is of rather poor quality. But another major issue seems to be Amazon shipping them with inadequate packaging, resulting in a lot of damaged systems that come up as "pulsing blue light."
The light could be from a bad HDD, faulty HDMI port, faulty cabl
Re:posted a bunch of magic tricks (Score:5, Informative)
... and the fanboy trolling for this generation begins.
This will be a long 5 or so years...
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That's a good point. I haven't been following consoles for a few years now but, you're right, it was kind of silly of me to assume people would wait to actually get their hands on the consoles before trolling!
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I understand the psychology of zealously defending something you spend a lot of time and money on (consoles, phones, many things in fact), but this is a sign of weakness and it should be something that we see as a failing, not a virtue, and work to rid ourselves of such behavior.
Aggressively defending and proselytizing a games console has material benefit though. The more choices there are in console, the less choice there is in games on each console. If you own a PS4 then any game that comes out on the Xbox One or Wii-U exclusively is a game you can't play yourself.[*] Marginalizing competing consoles maximizes your own choice selection so it is an obvious response that follows from free-market capitalism.
Companies love this stuff, it's part of "Word of Mouth advertising" which is
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Problem is, when is it trolling, and when is it not? I owned all the last gen consoles and will probably own all the next gen consoles so can hardly be called a fanboy troll, but I have a lot of criticisms for the PS3 compared to the XBox 360 and in fact, the PS4 product page I was looking at yesterday listed as it's main selling points a bunch of things the XBox 360 had since release like, "download games whilst playing" and that sort of thing.
So given the absence of these sorts of things was a legitimate
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did these include downgrading to a xbox one?
FTFY
FTFY
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HDCP (Score:2)
Why in the name of all that is unholy would the firmware on your TV affect a game console?
So that the PS4 can make sure that you haven't been using your TV to watch High Definition Child Pornography :p
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Re:PS4 NEEDS A UPS !! DAMAGE ON POWER OUTAGE !! (Score:4, Interesting)
Never had it happen after a power outage, it'll do the PS4 equivalent of fsck (which is an actual BSD fsck) on reboot (just like the PS3 does)
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