I am going to keep this short and simple. I’ve got to get back to gaming. That’s right. Despite the issues I had with my Blue Line of Death on Friday night, I was able to do quite a bit of gaming on my Playstation 4 this weekend. “How?” you ask? Well, despite the issues I had, Sony actually came through.
So first, I spent nearly 2 ½ hours on hold Friday night… and I never even got to speak to anyone. Despite my overall satisfaction with the way this ordeal turned out, this, to me, seems unacceptable. I know that Sony expected a smooth launch, but I would have hoped that if they learned anything from the Playstation 2 launch, and the Microsoft RROD fiasco, they would have had plenty of support reps on hand waiting to respond to questions. I woke up at 6:40 on Saturday morning to call in early, and still had a 1 ½ hour wait on hold before a rep finally took my call.
The rep was very nice, and very empathetic with the situation. She took my information, and oddly enough my PSN sign-in info (what if I had none?), and let me know that I would need service on the console. While this didn’t surprise me, I wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of having to wait possibly another 15 days before I could play with my new toy. But, I was in luck. There is a Sony Retail Store in University Village (Seattle, WA, near the UW campus) which is also a repair facility. The rep indicated that I could take it there. I was ecstatic because if driving a mere 19 miles might reduce the amount of time it takes to fix the issue, I would do it.
So I wake my roommate and we jump in the car with the PS4 fully packed back in its original box. I wanted to get their as they opened because I was sure there would be a number of people having issues, but we got there 30 minutes after opening. There were 2 others there who were having issues, and apparently there had been 3 more before us. Every single one of us received our PS4’s from Amazon. The rep at the store asked if I had learned my lesson about ordering from someone other than Sony, and I had to politely remind him that it was Sony who manufactured the system, not Amazon.
So after waiting for about 25 minutes while the other 2 were helped, the Sony Store employee took my PS4, hooked it up to a TV and confirmed that it was indeed bricked and showing the BLOD. We went back to the front to the cash register, and there waiting for us, in all of its glory, was a brand new console. My brand new console. I was worried going into this that I would end up with a refurbished console, but no. Sony replaced my bricked console with another, brand new, unopened console. It seems that this retail/repair store had a small surplus of consoles in case some issues arose and replacements needed to be given.
So in the end, I spent 6 hours to try and get this whole situation taken care of, and while the time on the phone made a major contribution to this time (4 hours), I am satisfied. I know that not all consumers will be fortuitous enough to have the same experience as me, but hopefully many will. But there is one thing that is nagging me about the whole situation. If Sony is calling this an isolated incident, and the issues are affecting 0.4% of consumers (a statement was issued to correct this figure from 0.04%), why have a decent size surplus of consoles for a product that is sold-out and in high demand. The Sony employee at the store told me they were sold out, but had a large amount on hold for just such an occasion. This could be the conspiracy theorist in me coming to the surface, but it does seem strange.
But enough of that. Back to Assassin’s Creed IV!
