Sony is facing a class action lawsuit regarding a game-crashing PS5 defect. But do the accusations hold any weight?
Plaintiff Christina Trejo of Illinois filed the lawsuit after discovering the PS5 was prone to shutting down entirely during gameplay. The court documentation states that the defect "affects users’ ability to play video games and compromises the primary function and overall usage of the PS5."
As evidence, the document cites a range of Amazon customer reviews and Reddit threads across the nearly two years the PS5 has been on sale. The unifying topic of these complaints is the console randomly shutting off, without warning, during gameplay.
Perhaps the most damning accusation made by Trejo is that Sony knowingly concealed this issue, and decided to sell PS5s regardless. If found guilty, Sony could be made to pay a fine to cover the cost of these defects.
Does the lawsuit carry any weight?
This latest lawsuit against Sony is far from the first time a console manufacturer has been taken to court over a defect. Previously, Nintendo has gone to court over the Switch's Joy-Con drift issue, which causes the Nintendo Switch's packed in controllers to register movement in the analog sticks even when they're not being touched.
In this latest case, it's not entirely accurate to say Sony hadn't disclosed information on the PS5 crashing defect. By the lawsuit's own admission, Sony's official support page states that consoles that turn off while playing are eligible for repair if under warranty.
Granted, it isn't an issue that eager PS5 buyers should have to deal with in the first place. And the lawsuit cites threads as late as July 2022 reporting the issue. It does appear that this is still a problem for some PS5 owners.
It also appears to be a defect with the console, specifically. Many players are reporting the issue across multiple games. If the defect isn't isolated to a specific game, then, this lawsuit could spur Sony to deliver a future firmware update.
By and large, consoles are prone to hardware issues such as this. And the lawsuit makes a sound point that they shouldn't be allowed to launch with such glaring problems.
Sony has done well to bring welcome firmware updates to PS5, such as the addition of VRR. But it sounds like there's more work to be done if a decent number of users are still reporting glaring defects like the subject of this lawsuit.
