Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Many PS4 units dead on arrival

amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 136 posts

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#41

Post by mistercow »

brownbat wrote: post #38
idProQuo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always bothered me, both on Amazon and the iTunes app store. No lie, when I published my first app, one of the comments was "I'd rate this zero stars if I could." and my first thought was actually "wait, why can't you?" Overall, I think YouTube was on the ball by switching to a "Thumbs up, Thumbs down" rating system. "Out of five star" rating systems are always sabotaged by the fact that most people think in…

I wonder if a five star rating system could secretly count only the 2 and 4 star reviews without telling anyone, sort of filter out anyone passionate enough to try to game things...

That might work, but I have doubts. Interestingly, it's the opposite approach the the one taken by pre-employment personality tests, in which each question has no partial credit and exactly one right answer, which is either "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree".

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#42

Post by JoachimSchipper »

vonskippy wrote: post #25

So rushing to stand on the cutting edge might result in bloody feet - whoda thunk it?

I don't think something as super-mass-market as a gaming console qualifies as "cutting edge". (You could make an argument for the PS3's Cell processor, I suppose, but that's hardly relevant here.)

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#43

Post by hga »

idProQuo wrote: post #34
thetrb wrote: post #28

I find it interesting that as of now with 516 5 star reviews and 332 1 star reviews (and very few 2, 3 or 4 star reviews) the average still shows up as 3.5 stars. It's interesting since the lowest value possible is 1, so more realistically it's not 3.5/5 but 2.5/4. I'm wondering if this makes a psychological difference and if less people would buy something on amazon if they changed their rating system to go from 0 -…

This has always bothered me, both on Amazon and the iTunes app store. No lie, when I published my first app, one of the comments was "I'd rate this zero stars if I could." and my first thought was actually "wait, why can't you?" Overall, I think YouTube was on the ball by switching to a "Thumbs up, Thumbs down" rating system. "Out of five star" rating systems are always sabotaged by the fact that most people think in…

While you both have a point, I'm not sure it makes a difference in practice.

OK, granted, I've been an Amazon.com customer since 1997 or so, but to me a 3.5 star rating is like writing BEWARE! in flaming letters across the sky. I never buy something that poorly rated before thoroughly investigating what's behind it. E.g. Kindle version's content is messed up I discount since I don't play in that ecosystem except for freebies.

While there are plenty of mostly bi-modal distributions (5 or 1 stars), for lots of things there are carefully chosen ratings in-between, often telling you why it lost a star or 2. Even ones edited some time after with additional commentary and often an adjusted score.

So I'd say it gets the specific job done, which is quite different than YouTube's where the cost of a wrong choice is very very small. I find the reviews invaluable, to the point where there's a lot of stuff I won't buy unless it has enough quality reviews for me to make an informed judgement.

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#44

Post by jlgreco »

city41 wrote: post #39
stedaniels wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many years did it take for Microsoft to come to that decision? Exactly.

The RROD was really crappy, for sure. But ultimately MS did do do the right thing, or at least they tried . On the other hand, Sony has never stood behind their consoles. From the PS1 cd drive wearing out prematurely [0], to the PSP's analog nub falling off[1] to PS2 disc read errors [2] to... on and on. Sony has never once helped the consumer in these situations. For most Playstation owners, buying multiple systems…

The fact that I have never even heard of those issues probably says something in itself.

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#46

Post by mcpherrinm »

idProQuo wrote: post #34
thetrb wrote: post #28

I find it interesting that as of now with 516 5 star reviews and 332 1 star reviews (and very few 2, 3 or 4 star reviews) the average still shows up as 3.5 stars. It's interesting since the lowest value possible is 1, so more realistically it's not 3.5/5 but 2.5/4. I'm wondering if this makes a psychological difference and if less people would buy something on amazon if they changed their rating system to go from 0 -…

This has always bothered me, both on Amazon and the iTunes app store. No lie, when I published my first app, one of the comments was "I'd rate this zero stars if I could." and my first thought was actually "wait, why can't you?" Overall, I think YouTube was on the ball by switching to a "Thumbs up, Thumbs down" rating system. "Out of five star" rating systems are always sabotaged by the fact that most people think in…

I find the 5 star system on Amazon useful. I don't always look at the average rating, but rather the distribution graph of ratings.

For example, one common shape looks like this:

   5 stars: |||||||||||
   4 stars: ||||||||
   3 stars: ||||
   2 stars: ||
   1 star:  |||||||
There's way more 1 star than 2 or 3. That usually indicates the product shows up DOA for a lot of people, or is otherwise probabilistically totally unsuitable for some group of people.

If the number of star ratings follows a more normal curve like the following, then I'm more confident in the quality of the product, even if both have an average 4 star rating:

   5 stars: |||||||
   4 stars: ||||||||
   3 stars: ||||
   2 stars: ||
   1 star:  |

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#47

Post by hga »

brownbat wrote: post #38
idProQuo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always bothered me, both on Amazon and the iTunes app store. No lie, when I published my first app, one of the comments was "I'd rate this zero stars if I could." and my first thought was actually "wait, why can't you?" Overall, I think YouTube was on the ball by switching to a "Thumbs up, Thumbs down" rating system. "Out of five star" rating systems are always sabotaged by the fact that most people think in…

I wonder if a five star rating system could secretly count only the 2 and 4 star reviews without telling anyone, sort of filter out anyone passionate enough to try to game things...

I think the human mind is best at that. Even if there are too many reviews for you to completely read, you can sample them, especially the ones others have rated for usefulness, and with some practice recognize the ones that are passionate with sufficient support.

Specificity is one think I really look for. Those who say essentially nothing more than "It's wonderful" or "It sucks" are noise. Those that say, "It's great, but I'm subtracting one star because the control console is a pain because of X, W and Y" are golden ... especially when people add comments on workarounds....

It's kind of funny, in that this "impersonal" mail order outfit very often manages to provide a better shopping experience than brick and mortar stores for those of us willing to buy things sight unseen. Heck, it's not uncommon for me to check Amazon.com reviews before buying something from one of those.

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#48

Post by [deleted] »

thetrb wrote: post #28

I find it interesting that as of now with 516 5 star reviews and 332 1 star reviews (and very few 2, 3 or 4 star reviews) the average still shows up as 3.5 stars. It's interesting since the lowest value possible is 1, so more realistically it's not 3.5/5 but 2.5/4. I'm wondering if this makes a psychological difference and if less people would buy something on amazon if they changed their rating system to go from 0 -…

[deleted]

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#49

Post by barista »

jlgreco wrote: post #44
city41 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RROD was really crappy, for sure. But ultimately MS did do do the right thing, or at least they tried . On the other hand, Sony has never stood behind their consoles. From the PS1 cd drive wearing out prematurely [0], to the PSP's analog nub falling off[1] to PS2 disc read errors [2] to... on and on. Sony has never once helped the consumer in these situations. For most Playstation owners, buying multiple systems…

The fact that I have never even heard of those issues probably says something in itself.

that you are ignorant?

Re: Many PS4 units dead on arrival

#50

Post by pgrote »

gigq wrote: post #30
gigq wrote: post #29

There appears to be multiple issues going on that are probably all being filed under the console being bricked. HDMI seems to be causing problems where the console won't show a picture but everything internally is still working. There is also a safe mode you can go into that is fixing the issue for some. And finally there are some that are really just bricked which is probably accurate to the 0.4% rate that Sony clai…

From an Amazon review: You can return it to Amazon or Call Sony @ 1(800)345-7669 to schedule a replacement. Mine is broken like everyone elses. If your console light turns white (and doesn't get stuck at pulsating blue), it could be the HDMI cable or connection issue. Fix with a pin (see Kotaku's article). If it stays blue and pulsates, try safe mode (turn off system completely, then hold down power for 10 sec and wa…

This is the article relating to the pin:

http://kotaku.com/tips-for-using-the-playstation-4-146522878...

"A thin piece of metal in the port got raised when we put an HDMI cable in—at least that's what we think happened. A Sony official fixed the unit by pushing the metal down with a pin."

Post reply on HN