PS5: 4 Ups & 4 Downs After 4 Months

3. Hardware Faults Across The Board

Possibly relating to a slew of reports across 2020 that Sony were struggling to meet demand even before launch, the PS5 has been susceptible to many hardware issues since, where almost every user has experienced one of the following:

- An insanely loud, lawnmower-esque disk drive, requiring removal of the facia plate and the disc drive to be reconfigured. Even after this, some PS5s continue to spin up the disc drive at random intervals, even if you're not playing the game, or are just watching a movie.

- The "Please Wait" bug, where the console hangs for a good 10 seconds on every startup, with the only solution being a full factory reset.

- An unresponsive console that randomly dies during Rest Mode, meaning you have to hold the power button for an extended period of time and hope it comes back on.

- Disconnecting controllers, requiring a USB connection to "re-pair" with the console like new.

That's just the tip of the iceberg (I'm only speaking from personal experience here), and yes we can file a lot of these qualms under the "launch day tech" rug, but it doesn't excuse the fact we're still paying a premium price for a product that oftentimes, simply doesn't feel reliable.