TPA PS4 US launch countdown!

[Wehrwolf]

You just need to have a PSN account to get the $10 credit.. Which is moot because you couldn't buy anything from the store without a PSN account.

I verified it by claiming by $10 credit before I claimed the 30 day free PS plus membership.

Too bad PBA didn't make the launch, though.

 

[smbhax]

Oh! Cool.

 

[Mark W**a]

Any news on PS4 Pinball Arcade release date?

 

[Rafie]

Sorry I stand corrected. I totally missed the little blue book that has the 30 day Sony Unlimited trial, PS Plus 30 day trial, and 10 dollar credit.

@Mark- I'm hoping for some news as well. I read somewhere here where FS said that it would be here within 2 weeks at the latest. I guess we'll see.

 

[brakel]

I don't mind the waiting for the release of the PS4 version of TPA but I don't like the not knowing!

 

[flywithsean]

I have my PS4 and I'm dying for TPA on yet another system, but what's driving me crazy is I was at GameStop the other day and played the demo for TPA on their in store demo PS4. Now why the hell can't we download that demo.

 

[Queue]

I don't mean to alarm anyone, but as some of you may already know, lots of new PS4 owners are running into hardware issues, some not even being able to boot the system (blue light of death). Well, it turns out that this may be the result of deliberate sabotage by some assembly interns at Foxconn, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer, in protest of poor working conditions. This hasn't been confirmed, but multiple people are reporting extreme manufacturing issues with their PS4s, such as unscrewed hard drives and faulty HDMI outputs.

The source seems suspicious, but considering the abnormally high amount of reports about out-of-the-box issues that seem to be plaguing the PS4, this may indeed be true. I haven't received my PS4 pre-order yet, but I'm now considering whether or not to return it upon delivery.

Read about it here: http://corruptedcartridge.com/ps4-sabotaged-news/
And here: http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/10/4823796/report-foxconn-chinese-students-forced-to-manufacture-ps4

Read about the high volume of DOA complaints here: http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-4...iewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
And here: http://community.us.playstation.com...-PlayStation-4-Systems/m-p/42122503#U42122503

And finally, confirmation from Amazon:

 

[Dumahim]

I think calling it abnormally high is a stretch. They sold 1 million systems in one day. Sony is saying only .4% of those are having an issue, which would mean about 4000 of those. That really isn't all that bad.

 

[Queue]

Sony's 0.4% estimate pertained only to consoles received prior to launch. Going by online reviews, that estimate was inaccurate, and the real percentage of affected units is probably much higher. It's been only two days since launch, and there are already over a thousand posts by users with non-working PS4 consoles on the official PS4 support forum.

Not to mention that many PS4s have stopped functioning after working properly for hours or longer. How many units are likely affected won't be known until weeks down the road, at the earliest.

 

[brakel]

Foxconn is the same manufacturing plant that has done many iPhone models plus many other consumer electronics. While China really does need to do more to protect manufacturing employees, Foxconn is one of the better ones just because they get so much international media coverage. It seems hard to believe that there could have been a widespread internal sabotage. It's not like people working on them are in some little room or cubicle. They're in a large open assembly line where other employees and supervisors could easily see what they were doing. They also test units before they leave the line. If they started to have units fail they would have tracked down the problem.

What I think we're seeing is just a normal number of sample defects that happens in a new product roll out. Today's electronics are put through design, engineering and manufacturing very quickly. Gone are the days of Zenith TVs built in the 1960s and lasting for 20 years of being watched every day.

I think I'll buy the PS4 36 month extended warranty that Sony is offering for $60!

 

[Queue]

It seems hard to believe that there could have been a widespread internal sabotage. ... If they started to have units fail they would have tracked down the problem.

What I think we're seeing is just a normal number of sample defects that happens in a new product roll out. Today's electronics are put through design, engineering and manufacturing very quickly.

You're giving way too much credit to contract sweatshops. Foxconn was caught employing underage workers to assemble Wii-Us, and they've been in the spotlight before for abusing their employees. If Foxconn had done their job and caught the faulty units during inspection, so many non-working PS4s would not have made it into the hands of customers.

Regardless, I don't think that all of these reported assembly issues can be traced back to mere manufacturing error. The report of the unscrewed PS4 hard drive, for instance, appears deliberate. Also, the threat by sweatshop interns that any PS4 which they assembled could be "turned on at best" matches exactly what most of these faulty PS4s are doing out of the box. The fact that Sony has halted PS4 production pending investigation further suggests that there is more truth to this story than it first appeared.

 

[smbhax]

Maybe we could have a separate thread for general system issues.

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

thats why sony gave the $10 FREE for PSN

 

[Dumpstar]

As long as they have TPA available before I get my PS4 on the 20th of December. As well I am hoping cause I am getting the second batch of consoles, a lot of these "issues" are corrected by then.

 

[Queue]

This just keeps getting worse and worse. Now it's been uncovered that many PS4s have been sabotaged with lead-tainted thermal paste, which may be responsible for some (most?) of the reported overheating/RLOD issues.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/PS...ng-Due-Thermal-Paste-Lead-Sabotage-60604.html

 

[spoonman]

This just keeps getting worse and worse. Now it's been uncovered that many PS4s have been sabotaged with lead-tainted thermal paste, which may be responsible for some (most?) of the reported overheating/RLOD issues.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/PS...ng-Due-Thermal-Paste-Lead-Sabotage-60604.html

I'm pretty sure that is BS started by someone who thinks they are treated badly.

Does this look like they don't want to be working there or are being treated badly?

Foxconn is known for being one of the better factories there and people travel from all over just for the chance to work.
I highly doubt someone would risk that.

I would also hate to know what the punishment is for sabotaging millions of dollars worth of systems there!

 

[brakel]

Like I said China really needs to work on its human rights in general and its workers rights but Foxconn is one of the better ones. They break lots of American labor laws but for a Chinese manufacturing company they're better than most.

I believe the punishment for industrial sabotage in China would be a minimum of 10 years in a labor prison.

While I believe that the failure rate is more than 0.04%, I don't believe it is beyond a normal amount for an electronics release. I have about 20 friends and acquaintances that got a PS4 on Friday and not one of them have had one fail. Maybe there's a chance that we'll see a 2 or 3% failure rate of launch consoles during the first day of operation. Whatever the number turns out to be I bet they will discover that it was the result of a key component of faulty assembly equipment and not sabotage. At any rate anyone with a failure out of the box will get a replacement with no charge for shipping or anything else.

I think it's probably way easier to say that you sabotaged a bunch of PS4 consoles and put a bunch doubt in some people's minds than to actually commit a bunch of sabotage of PS4 consoles.

 

[Worf]

Actually, foxconn is what you make of it. If you're a lucky worker, you get put on the Apple line which has stringent checks (though it's bad because you don't get to do crazy overtime and make lots of extra $$$). This in part is because of all the people watching Apple's suppliers. If not, you get put on the line used by everyone else - Dell, HP, Samsung, Acer, Asus, LG, Sony, Microsoft, etc., and depending on how they pay, it determines how you're treated.

Consoles is a nasty issue because they're created to be very cheap to save money, so the assembly line being poor doesn't really surprise me. Like I said, Foxconn, Flextronics and every other big contract manufacturer will make to your quality level you want. If you want a high quality product, they'll do it, but you're going to pay more. If you want a cheap product, they can do that as well.

Interns are especially bad - there have been a few reports of Apple discovering the use of interns and being mistreated, which indicates there's probably a much bigger issue.

And quite likely, we'll see this repeated again on the Xbox One launch, unless Microsoft decided to opt for the higher quality and higher expense line (unlikely). Given unrest at the Apple lines have slowed down, I'm guessing those issues are resolved.

So far my PS4 is working fine...

 

[jrolson]

Mine seems to be fine, although the sound stopped working on it once and I had to restart to get it to work again.

 

[brakel]

This isn't a scientific measurement but looking at the Playstation support forums is interesting. When they bricked a bunch of PS3 consoles a couple of firmware updates ago there were thousands of posts about it in the first 24 hours and there were over 10,000 posts in 5 days. Three days after launch there are hundreds of posts about dead PS4 consoles. This whole thing is much adu about nothing.

On the Foxconn Apple manufacturing. No one is hired at Foxconn to only work on the Apple line. One day an unskilled worker might be snapping on covers of the latest iPhone and the next day they might be snapping on PS4 covers. During production ramp up for new iPhone releases Apple does have a representative at each plant trying to make sure that labor laws are followed. One of the scams that one manufacturer was running was discovered by an electronics firm that was overseeing the first build of their new A/V receiver line. They had a bunch of workers working under two names. So those workers were all working double shifts and no days off for weeks at a time.