Gadget Mill: Sony recently launched the PlayStation 4 in North America which saw them sell more than a million units within 24 hours. It was Sony’s most successful console launch ever beating the previous record set by the PlayStation 2 with 980,000 units sold in the Japanese launch.
Although Sony sold a lot of consoles there were still a few problems lurking and spreading like wildfire on the internet. These involved issues such as:
Blue line of death (video/graphics problems)
Red line of death (overheating problems)
Network issues
Console freezing
Disc eject problems
Consoles dead on arrival
If you are having either one of these problems you may be able to revive your console without having to go through the warranty process (waiting so long for the console was bad enough as it is right?).
For Southeast Asia, new price changes.
Prices effective starting May 1st, 2026.
Replies(1)Looks like PlayStation took a hit with Marathon and is now quietly adjusting prices worldwide to recover the losses
Lets be honest raising prices doesn't do that when no one's buying it. I imagine the profit it greater selling 10 times more at a lower price
LMFAO Your comment alone says a lot more about you than anything else. When has one game not selling 10 million copies made a company raise the prices of their console? Then Xbox would be costing $5000 by now lol. You remind of the crazy drug addicts on the street rambling on about conspiracies. xD You sure you don't need a hug, buddy?
One game that Sony payed $200 million for. lol
Also, you sure were quick to get triggered. Maybe your the one who needs a hug?
If nothing else, we should be united against the real issue here. AI and unnecessary tariffs that are effecting all gamers.
The price increases are due to the RAM demand associated with AI and the US-Iran war. You can look to any business news website and local news to see that. Heck, even the 2026 Asus Zenbook Duo I've been eyeing has faced delays and has had a price increase of $400; that laptop has two specs. Asus is doing a staggered release with per-orders for the lower spec now and shipping in May and pre-orders for the higher spec that I'm eyeing starting in June. Basically, all computer manufactures are affected. It'll most likely start affecting smart phones too if it hasn't already. I can't remember the last time any major console maker (Nintendo, Sony, Sega, etc) increased the price of their console mid cycle outside of Microsoft just to make more profit.
War is causing gas prices to rise. Transport of everything requires gas so the prices of those items go up as well. So it does have an impact
The blockage of the Straight of Hormuz due to the US-Iran war has affected raw components used in semi-conductor manufacturing such as bromine, aluminum, and helium. Iran had attacked the liquified natural gas (LNG) plant in Qatar which is a large producer (1/3 globally) of helium which is used in semiconductor etching. So it's the both the war and the RAM crises.
Former Xbox executive Ed Fries comments on the early days of Xbox, the opinion of Japanese game companies, and more.
Replies(2)I dont think that'll ever happen. But i must say back in the day, they were definitely trying because they were more cash rich than their competitors.
I think MS were and still are the richer company. They tried to acquire Sega back in the day (and considered doing so again more recently), they obviously bought exclusivity to Halo which was originally shown as a Mac title. I don’t think as a company MS can claim the moral high ground here. It’s a wilful lack of self awareness.
Of course Sony would try exactly the same if they had the resources, but when the PS2 dominated the industry was in a much healthier place with an abundance of great third parties.
This has been a depressing generation as far as first party decisions are concerned. The fact we are debating business plans rather than which game is better is a sad reflection of the state of things.
There was Nintendo as well, Sony wouldn't have had a monopoly. In fact, the world would be better today if Xbox never existed in the first place. They pretty much brought all bad practices we have today. We might have gotten all of it either way, but not this early. In term of franchises, I don't think there is anything Microsoft released that would actually be missed if it didn't exist. Even Halo the world wouldn't notice if Halo didn't exist.
I think almost everyone will agree that a monopoly is not good for the industry. But that being said, the competition needs to be smart and strategic with their business. Simply buying up publishers and traditional third-party studios just to keep them out of the other companies reach is not a sustainable practice. That goes for all parties so don't think I'm just referring to Xbox.
I'm no business guru by any stretch of the imagination but I firmly believe that the best way to drive consumers to your software and hardware is to invest smart in your first-party studios. Give them full support and guidance in making unique, fun games that are only available to play in your ecosystem and the gamers will come.
But first party studios aren't enough. They only make up a small portion of the industry. Without 3rd party there would be no industry for Microsoft or sony.Developing games take time and money and sometimes you gotta make moves to stay competitive.
Nah, I never said first-party was enough. I said it’s the ‘best way’ to drive gamers to your platform. 3rd-party is a free-for-all and there’s no guarantee that gamers will use your hardware to play the game. If you want to push your own software and/or hardware you need first-party, or at least exclusive deals with third-party studios.
Then why be so emotional and continue to talk about it. Xbox will never die be ause it stays in so many people's head.
How can you even see him being "emotional" in that comment?
If anything, you're the emotional one, constantly trying to go at anyone that says anything against Microsoft. So when you call him emotional, it comes off as deflection
Replies(2)
PlayStation PC revenue reached $300 million in 2023, but despite this success, it appears Sony may be pulling back from PC releases.
It's not a success unless we know the profit. It's the same reason I get on Xbox when they mention revenue.
If Sony is considering keeping their single player games exclusive to the PS systems despite the 300 million PC revenue, that means they didn't profit from the venture.
You are correct. Making 300 million doesn't mean anything if you have 299 million in operating costs. Clearly they are making some profit if they want to keep their multiplayer games on PC but what of their single player games?
How could they possibly not make a profit with $300M in revenue?
Nixxis only has about 90 employees. Let's go high and say each person on the payroll makes $200k per year; payroll would only be $18M. I believe the development time to port a game from PlayStation to PC is only about a year, so unless Sony is giving out Bentleys and 5 bedroom houses to each employee with payroll, they should be making a sizable profit.
See, the problem with what you said is we don't know what their operating costs were. So everything you're saying there is just speculation. What we do know is reported revenue and the rumored reporting that Sony is taking first party single player games out of the PC release cycle.
Not saying you're wrong, but we need to work with what we're given.
Here’s another angle of the argument. What if they saw a concerning decline in console sales and/or game sales on PS during this window of PC releases? It may be a crazy success on pc we don’t know but eating your own market share scare PlayStation for sure especially when they are trying to sell every new gen.
Ok, THIS makes sense. I don't know how I didn't think about that. And we know they'll want those PS6 sales to be off the charts. It's harder to do that if their in-house made blockbusters are shared with PC.
Given the recent price increase for their hardware... Sony should really rethink things. Having an additional revenue stream, even if the games come to PC a year after, is still money coming in. Those who wanted a 5 likely already got one, but that doesn't mean Sony should turn their backs on those who may still want to play their software on a PC.
Honestly, I think they are worried about PC piracy.... Getting their games on PC for free is... well its not hard at all. They have to know that and I am sure that goes into their calculus.
thats bogus. Early 2000's a lot of things got pirated sure, but most piracy that currently exists is because the companies themselves sell an inferior product than when you pirate it, denuvo, bad quality on movies/shows etc. It's not much anymore and other companies have been releasing their games on pc since the beginning of time and are doing fine and given the quality of sony's 1st party games they should have no issue making profit at all. Adding shit like having to log in to psn in order to play single players games because they wanna harvest your data, yes that's when I say people are in their right to pirate and sony can go suck a fatty.
We know exactly why they wouldn't want it, because they can't get people into their ecosystem and profit more off of them if they buy it for pc. Nothing more nothing less as with any other company it's only about money.
We buy more games than console gamers BTW. We have over 132 million users on steam so out of that if 2% pirate how can we all be labeled as pirates?
Real reason is sony probably didn't see the big benefits and that's on them because games come out a year later and costs full price
I disagree I think it's strategically in their best interest to remove PC as a pathway to access you need to encourage people to buy the console to play the games otherwise they won't
As soon as Xbox started putting games day one on PC sales of their consoles dropped off a cliff and piracy of their games went sky high
@michiel not true piracy exists because people want to play a game but don't want to pay for it. Piracy may have started really in the 80s but it's still going strong today if you look at any torrent and it's seed count you'll see just how strong the scene is
i specifically said "most piracy that currently exists", not all piracy that has ever existed.
I'm not believing that gamepass story, it's so counterintuitive. They didn't remove the option to be able to purchase a game and for short term they gave people a cheaper way to play it and THEN suddenly they started mass pirating them? yeah I'm not buying that.
Just took a look at GoW Ragnarok and the seed counts are either single or double digits, with 3 out of like 30 having triple digits, 2 of those being basically double digits cause they're so close and the other one a bit above 200. So strong........
Pc sucks and xbox is dead because they stupidly put games on pc and game pass. You like this dumb idea because you want sony down to xbox pathetic level.
Error the price hike effects hardware as well. By all accounts ps6 is designed to be able to be made as cheap as possible. Which should mean it's cheaper than ps5 pro at the very least. Pc parts are effected by increased hardware costs too so they have an obvious market position as the more affordable alternative and once people are in their ecosystem they are unlikely to abandon libraries and switch
And people think they’re going to give that up 🤣🤣
And it’ll be way more than 300m by now
If they make billions in sales on the actual console sure this isn't gross profit either
The value to the brand is significantly more important. Plus is this before or after steam takes their cut?
@Jammit
Majority of the sales is more than like from live service games, so it makes sense why they're pulling away their single player games. Which is honestly a good idea for those games and the brand. Also, if the 300M is revenue, steam taking a 30% cut means Sony is only getting around 210M. Now take aways how much they spent to bring those games to PC and you're looking at less than 200M. With majority of the money coming from live service games.
So easy to spot I wonder HOW YOU GUYS keep falling for his first almost sensible comment then keep getting more and more deranged 🤦🏿 😩.
Death Stranding is owned by Kojima (he purchased the rights back from sony.) Hence the eventual xbox port of the original. Not exactly a good example. Lets see if/when Yotei comes to pc, as that should have been announced already if going by their last first party developed titles ps5 release to pc announce timeline. It's looking more and more like the rumors are correct and Helix has has Sony rethinking pc releases. And why wouldn't they when it would guarantee a competing "console" has access to all their games without their say so.
I'd argue that 300 mill revenue without even considering what part is profit, is not nearly enough money to risk giving xbox access to PlayStation games.
Thats not a lot but still successful,when you consider some games costs over 100 million. But I still think Helix has something to do with them pulling back too.
They’re definitely panicked by helix
Helix also marks the end of their party PS exclusives - Sony can’t afford to keep 3rd party games off PC
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
Panicked by Helix? You probably also believed Xbox Games would never come to Playstation or Nintendo.
“They’re definitely panicked by helix” - 🤡🤡 I know you are a dumb little troll hurt by the demise of Xbox and the continued success of Playstation, but that is still a hell of a clown statement to make after Xbox series got whipped by Nex Playground in December… in 2026 Xbox doesn’t even show up as a skid mark next to PlayStation😬
Also, tech wise PlayStation is ahead of Xbox with PSSR. I can’t see Xbox coming up with anything that matches it. Ps6 is already WAY ahead of Helix
Well, best way to fix it is not to use it.
Call customer services or risk losing your perfect warranty lol, who wrote this article