So the next generation of consoles is officially here. With the Wii U being out for a while now, the PS4 released November 15, and the Xbox One released November 22. As usual, Sony and Microsoft have been competing to win over the consumers with the newest installment of the Console Wars. Nintendo isn’t really considered a contender this time around, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because they are aiming for a much different audience. There are always going to be some complications with console releases. Sometimes it’s bad sales, and other times it’s the hardware malfunctioning, and both the PS4 and Xbox One had the later.
Soon after the Xbox One’s release, countless videos started emerging of people inserting a disc into the system, and be greeted with a large clicking noise. People were confused and worried that their Xbox One’s were broken. After many owners contacted Microsoft, they were given the option to trade their broken Xbox One for a new one, since Microsoft isn’t sure what the problem is too. The PS4 released with what might be a worse problem, yet not as bad. When you turn on a PS4, a blue light turns on that stretches the width of the system and pulses on and off before switching to white. Many peoples systems would get stuck pulsing the blue light and never finish turning on. Like the Xbox 360’s “Red Ring of Death,” this problem has been dubbed the “Blue Light of Death.” Sony has acknowledged the problem and has released some fixes that work for some systems, and has given the option for owners to trade in just like the Xbox One owners. The PS4’s problem is worse it seems, but there seem to be more people with defective Xbox One’s then defective PS4’s.
Even with these problems surfacing, neither Microsoft or Sony are losing that many sales, with both systems selling around one million consoles on release, and Xbox One being the top selling console during Black Friday.