Got a PS4 yesterday. Games are crashing often.

Is this a case of a faulty console, or a problem related to Sony? Today within 2 hours Black Flag crashed on me 4 times with the error code CE-34878-0

Sounds like a faulty console. In the 6 months that I have the console, I've had 3 gamecrashes tops

Before you go about replacing it, there are some things you could try.

Are you 100% up to date with both the system firmware and patches for the game?

Sony's official stance seems to be that if you keep getting the error and you're all up to date, back up your saves and go Settings >> Initialize >> Initialize PS4, which I assume is a reset to factory default. That'll probably format the hdd, so do make sure you back up any saves (only way to do that might be the cloud save stuff, but you should have at least a month free PS Plus if you just got the system, right?) and you'll probably need to at least download game patches again.

Best of luck, I hope your system is ok. I had a launch day PS3 that died within five minutes of turning it on for the first time, that rained on my parade a bit!

Yeah certainly sounds like a console issue. doesn't necessarily mean it is hardware or not fixable though. As mentioned above I would first back up any saves then do a factory reset and make sure the firmware is up to date.

https://support.us.playstation.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5111/~/ps4%3A-error-codes:

Step 1: Close the application, install the latest system software and game update, and restart the system.

Step 2: If a PS Camera is connected to the system, remove it and reboot the system, then go to [Settings] > [User] > [Login Settings] and turn "Enable Face Recognition" OFF.

Step 3: If the error occurs again, back up your saved data, and then go to [Settings] > [Initialization] and choose [Initialize PS4].

Never had Black Flag crash on me once.

As a person that absolutely hates returning stuff to stores, stories like these makes me really worried about the new consoles. I'm trying to get away from crashes and error codes when I game on a console.

That sounds like your console isn't functioning right. My PS4 sometimes crashes a game but not at a rate any higher than when I play a game on PS3 or even PC.

Sounds like a bad console. I've not had a crash yet on my launch day PS4, and I have clocked up 32 hours on Black Flag without a hitch.

Are there games other than Black Flag crashing? If not, then you should try deleting and reinstalling the game. If yes, then maybe there's a problem with your console?

The only PS4 game I've had crash on me is Battlefield 4, and that's because, well... Battlefield 4.