Wired: See what's inside the Playstation 4.

Video here: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/11/playstation4-teardown-video/

I gotta say after looking at Microsoft's huge console with a massive fan, I am a bitg worried about the PS4 being so small and tightly put together. Is the console going to heat up and get the YLOD just like my launch 60GB? I mean it is an amazing feat to put in the power brick inside and still come out nearly half the size of the X1, but what if Xbox 1 has such an open design because they need proper airflow inside the console?

That was my concern from the beginning. Something got to give, I don't know what but we will find out eventually.

Build quality looks superb. Whole thing looks very neat and tidy. They've gone to a lot a trouble to fit everything in as small a body as possible. Remarkable that they've kept the weight down to 2.8kg with the internal power supply compared to the Xbox One's 3.18kgs.

Is the console going to heat up and get the YLOD just like my launch 60GB?

We will see.

I trust Sony to build a reliable console more than I do Microsoft... Put it that way.

And it looks extremely well designed and thought out to me... as I'd expect from Sony.

The Xbox One's fan is massive, it must sound like a tornado listening to Slayer

Well, it's not so different to how smartphones are packed tightly. My Blackberry Z10 still gets hot occasionally if I watch a lot of video or play games. There's a Snapdragon quad core and 2GB of RAM tightly packed but it hasn't bricked. The PS4 is designed with a similar concept, to pack the technology tightly but allow enough ventilation for it to not overheat unless you live in a hovel in Death Valley and put a blanket over your PS4. I'm sure that the PS4 interior cover has a sort of thermal spread technology that allows for heat to come out and spread making it easier to cool. As long you give the machine proper ventilation ... you shouldn't have a thing to worry about.

Xbox 360 bricking due to design flaw certainly tarred Microsoft's reputation. I think that was only their second iteration in their whole hardware business history so they have a bit of an excuse... However the Xbox One hardware design certainly don't look very impressive. They just added a huge fan and a hard drive and then boxed it up. Basically it is just a PC in a fancy mini-tower. The PS4 looks intriguing because it is a true console with unique engineering concepts implemented. It's not something you can just slap together overnight. That said Microsoft intends the Xbox One to be the centre of everything entertainment related. In other words they expect the One to be run for most of the day and this means a lot of heat ... It could be the reason why they went with a simple concept design and a gigantic box coupled with a humongous fan.

@S0lidSnake said:

Video here: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/11/playstation4-teardown-video/

I gotta say after looking at Microsoft's huge console with a massive fan, I am a bitg worried about the PS4 being so small and tightly put together. Is the console going to heat up and get the YLOD just like my launch 60GB? I mean it is an amazing feat to put in the power brick inside and still come out nearly half the size of the X1, but what if Xbox 1 has such an open design because they need proper airflow inside the console?

Keep in mind that there are numerous sources saying the PS4 is prone to overheating.

Add to that the fact that Microsoft has admitted that the Xbox One can overheat (and just slows itself down to compensate), and you begin to worry. Fan size makes a big difference when it comes to cooling, anyone who's built a PC before can attest to that.

The only good news about it all is that a few anonymous PS4 developers have stated the PS4 has never overheated when they were interacting with it. The problem is, they're referencing dev kits, not the consumer PS4.

Still, I'm confident that the fan will be enough. I don't think Sony would risk anything so catastrophic.

@experience_fade:

Do you have a link? I've been able to find articles which mention rumors of overheating, but none of the articles claim that the writers or any of the writer's sources have experienced or seen such a thing in real world conditions.

Anyway, here is the most detailed article I was able to find about overheating claims. Some people were willing to speak on the record, others weren't but everyone reported that both the PS4 and the Xbone haven't had any overheating issues.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/11/04/ps4s-alleged-overheating-problems-developers-say-they-dont-exist/

Of course not everyone was willing to answer, and not everyone was willing to let us disclose his name and position, but here are the results of our research.

Meridith Braun of Digital Extremes (Warframe) let us know that the PS4 devkits the studio has used “worked as intended.” When I asked for a more specific answer, precisely if the devkits never overheated while working on them, her answer was “Correct.”

Switchblade Monkeys Creative Director Yousuf Mapara working on Secret Ponchos, had the following to say:

We’ve been using a bunch of dev kits. They’ve been on almost all the time, sometimes even over night. They’ve always stayed cool, never even gotten warm so It has never suggested the threat of a problem. We have had no problems with any of the dev kits throughout development.

In addition to that, seven different developers that opted to have their name not published responded that they never experienced any heat-related problems with the development consoles.

Watched this earlier. Very well put together.

Is the Xbox One water cooled? Looks like a darn radiator up under that there fan.

Yeah the whole 360 RROD fiasco was ridiculous... and hence why I'm a PS gamer now (I'd most likely be an Xbox gamer if it wasn't for that).

Yep, even if I had no other issues with the Xbone, it'd be a cold day in hell before I bought another Microsoft console at launch. Far, far too risky.

Funny how so many complain about the Xbox reliability when the PS3 and PS2 has failed on me more than the Xbox 360 by a larger margin.

Thats basically my experience as well. PS2 got hit with DREs only three year into the cycle, and fat PS3 got the YLOD barely two years after i bought it.

That said, the failure rates on the 360 were ridiculous. Over 75% on launch units. There is a reason why they got sued for it and lost. Same with PS2s and DREs.

Typically bigger fans are used when you want to be quieter, since you can use less RPM's to achieve the same amount of airflow as a smaller fan.

I've had more hardware failures than I can keep count of.

I used to smoke cigarettes. And the tar is just murder to technology. It gets on everything, and it took it's toll on my gaming devices.

Thankfully, I finally managed to move on from that nasty habit. But the casualties of my former vice are numerous. I'm on my 7th Xbox 360, my 3rd PS3, and back in the 6th gen I went through 3 PS2 units and 2 original Xboxes. Curiously, I've had no issues with my Nintendo units. Even my original NES still works, as do all the handhelds I've owned. The only time I've had a Nintendo hardware need replacing was when I sat on my original 3DS. My fat ass can crack a screen like a champ.

Doesn't the PS4 have some sort of fail-safe against overheating as well? Could have sworn I read that somewhere...

Well, whatever the case, hopefully it won't suffer from problems. Last thing anyone needs is another console to be completely faulty upon launch. After the red ring of death fiasco, I'd expect everyone to be smart enough to take every precaution possible to prevent such an incident.

Isn't the amount of air moved the main source of noise?

No, not exactly. There's actually of variety of factors that affect fan noise, but in general the primary factor is the RPM's. There's actually a "fan law" that says that the relative noise of a given fan increases logarithmically as the RPM's increases. If you look up case fans on PC hardware sites you'll typically find that the quietest fans are always of a larger varienty (120mm or higher). For instance if you look at this 80mm fan vs. this 120mm fan the larger fan spins slower but produces close to double the air, and is still 1db quieter.

I see. Interesting.

75%? really? I thought it was 50% I mean it's still terrible but 75% seems impossible.

What a cool GIF.

I'm buying all of my systems from now on with an extended warranty. I've had to replace 2 360s (and my current's on the way out I can tell) and one PS3, so my PS4 will be under warranty as long as it's able.

I'm not going into my pocket to reward some company for not building reliable hardware. If I have to send in a system and the company fixes it for free, that's a mild annoyance but not a big deal, but if within five years a system breaks down through normal use, that company should stand behind its product.

I would be a *shudder* PC gamer (which would apparently force me to go on and on about Crysis 1) or something if Sony hadn't agree to fix my PS3 when it YLODed out of warranty and I got rid of my X360 after MS told me they didn't stand behind malfunctioning peripherals (my modem died and due to patches, DLC and online play the internet is very important nowadays) the way they (eventually) stood behind malfunctioning consoles.

Yeah, I guess it's reliant on how the companies have dealt with failures. I had my PS2 break and Sony fixed it, and that system made it to the end of the generation before being boxed up. My PS3 has had no trouble at all. And my 360 broke five times, none of which have happened since i bought a Slim a while back. I've just never seen a console fail twice on me in a generation before, but five times? I would have to be an idiot or masochist to go back for seconds on that. I wouldn't buy ANYTHING that broke five times on me again without serious research given to make sure the problem no longer exists, and in the case of a game console, that can only come from time. That's why I still would have waited even if the Xbone was $200 and had a library fit for the second coming with no kinect and none of the other asshole shit they pulled.