Sony is facing a class action lawsuit over a PS5 glitch that crashes the game, but do the accusations carry any weight?
Plaintiff Christina Trejo of Illinois filed a lawsuit after discovering that the PS5 was susceptible to shutting down completely during gameplay. Court filings (opens in a new tab) state that the flaw "affects users' ability to play video games and impairs the primary function and overall usability of the PS5."
As evidence, the document cites a variety of Amazon customer reviews and Reddit threads over the nearly two years of PS5 sales. The unifying theme of these complaints is that the console randomly shuts down, without warning, during gameplay.
Perhaps the most damning accusation made by Trejo is that Sony knowingly covered up this issue and decided to sell the PS5 anyway. If found guilty, Sony could be forced to pay a fine to cover the cost of those defects.
Does the demand have any weight?
This latest lawsuit against Sony is far from the first time a console maker has been sued over a defect. Previously, Nintendo took legal action over the Switch's Joy-Con deflection issue, which caused the controllers packaged on the Nintendo Switch to register motion on the analog sticks even when not touched.
In the latter case, it's not entirely accurate to say that Sony hasn't leaked any information about the PS5 bricking flaw. As the lawsuit itself admits, Sony's official support page (opens in a new tab) says that consoles that turn off during playback can be repaired if they're under warranty.
Of course, that's not an issue eager PS5 buyers should be dealing with in the first place. And the lawsuit cites threads through July 2022 reporting the issue. It looks like it's still a problem for some PS5 owners.
It also appears to be a console glitch in particular. Many players report the problem in various games. If the flaw is not isolated to a specific game, then this lawsuit may prompt Sony to provide a future firmware update.
In general, consoles are prone to hardware issues like this. And the suit argues that they shouldn't be allowed to start with such glaring problems.
Sony has done well to bring some welcome firmware updates to the PS5, such as the addition of VRR. But it looks like there's still work to be done if a decent number of users are still reporting glaring bugs as the subject of this lawsuit.