PS4 Launch day has come and gone.
Exciting! Unless your PS4 comes broken from Amazon.
I preordered it the second I could during the press conference and lo and behold the thing comes busted. It started up after a few restarts, tried to update, then would just pulse the blue light over and over again endlessly. No matter how many times I took out and then put back in the HDD, nothing.
So, I spent a long time on hold with Sony, waiting and waiting, with their crackly waiting music. During that time I scrolled through the PS4 support forums. During that search I stumbled across a post from someone claiming something interesting. He claimed that he had gotten through to Sony, and they told him to take his PS4 to the Sony store and they would replace it on the spot for free.
I didn't believe it.
Until someone else posted that they did the same thing. Or at least called and the Sony store confirmed this. So, I called my closest Sony store (an hour and a half away). The person was confused at first, but told me to hold on, and lo and behold I could bring it in no problem.
So, I rounded up some friends and hit the road. I got there and this is where it got interesting...
The person doing the exchange informed me that this is something Sony had foreseen coming and planned for. They realized there were units having problems and shipped extra units to some Sony stores for this purpose. But he also said they were not announcing this. People had to call the store and ask and find out. Curious? I think so.
If it were not for that one post in that one forum that I stumbled across, I would still have a dead PS4 instead of a brand new one that seems to be working wonderfully.
He also said he had five amazon dead PS4s, a Meijer one, and a WalMart one. So it doesn't seem specific to any retailer.
When he brought out the new one it was in a special box that seemed to be rushed shipping to be specific for replacing dead ones. It made me wonder if was ensured to be working. I had him start up the thing at the store just to make sure. He had the cords already set up at the station to test it so I am assuming I wasn't the only one who had requested it.
It seemed interesting to me that they had set up this fail safe without telling anyone. They probably didn't want a rush of people getting replacements, instead limited it to those who cared the most to call the store.
They also had 10 systems still left for sale.
The sales rep was super awesome and understanding about it. I wish I had gotten his name so I could thank him. He was happy that Sony had taken care of this as well.
It may suck real bad that there are a bunch of bricked PS4s out there, but if you have one and can get to a Sony store it seems like they have the ability to replace them. Just call to make sure.
I'm just glad I have one and it's been working great for a couple hours now. My friends and I are live streaming it here: http://www.twitch.tv/thebrokenhammer playing some games and talking in weird accents from time to time.
That's my PS4 launch day adventure. I hope you all had a better one and are enjoying your PS4s.
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