the end of an era
It finally happened: After 11 years, my PS4 became basically unfixable.
I have always vowed to repair it myself if it breaks, but unfortunately, it seems to be the HDMI chip (not the port, not the cable, not the TV) that is fried, which is a notoriously fickle and unpredictable thing to replace and most replacements are futile. It seems to be a particularly sensitive and weak point of the PS4 as it is easily fried by just power surges while off and hooked up to power, or hotswapping the cable. Getting a replacement chip that isn't bad from the getgo, getting the special tools just for it to fail is not wise. Even repair shops have trouble with that, so that may be it.
Now I have to rethink my entertainment setup, and where I wanna go from here.
My original plan was that once my wife finishes a save of a specific game (Star Wars Bounty Hunter, btw) on there, I'd put Arch Linux on it and turn it into an entertainment box where I can install an adblocker and other things. Well, this won't happen now. My wife has the game on Steam too and can play it on the TV via her Steam Deck and the dock for it we have hooked to the TV, but is understandably sad about the idea of losing her progress, especially because getting there has been extremely hard. Converting PS4 saves (if you can even get to them, as it needs jailbreaking) to PC saves is a gamble and only seems to work for select games.
So, I could get another PS4 and transfer the data via their guide and a LAN cable between them as the HDD is still fine. I would have swapped the HDD too, but unfortunately you can't as they're encrypted per device and unusable in another (boo). I could get a cheap one refurbished, but honestly, I wasn't planning on getting another one. It would just be for one game and as a DVD/BluRay player, which doesn't seem like it's worth it. The rest we have historically used it for hasn't been worth it for a while: Always having to ask the account holder of a streaming service for a code every week due to password sharing restrictions, and YouTube with ads in their official app is unwatchable at this point. For a few months now, the PS4's WiFi module randomly crashed as well. So unfortunately, the whole setup was on borrowed time already and just inconvenient left and right.
In the end, our Steam Decks are already hooked up via Dock to the TV, work with the controllers, are portable, have no connection issues, allow for more games and have a Desktop mode I can use to watch YouTube with adblockers on the TV. I had just ordered a DVD set, so that is an issue, but others online say it's no problem to hook an optical drive up to the Deck (just a little hassle to remap VLC controls to the controller). Also, I had planned to use my VPS to set up Jellyfin, possibly.
I will remember the PS4 fondly - the Firewatch Theme with its dynamic background based on time and its music, the times when YouTube had no or barely any ads on their console apps, the convenience of the streaming era before the password sharing crackdowns, the years of perfectly functional WiFi. My hours playing Horizon: Zero Dawn and Infamous: Second Son, watching my wife play Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V.
It's moments like these, especially in comparison to another, more open system you have access to, that you realize how locked down services and devices just don't benefit you at all. The inability to swap harddrives or access its files by default to lock down modding and piracy, the difficulty of backups and save file transfers artificially limited for their PS Plus, losing access to games in your account because of hardware failures. I appreciate that nowadays most games release on all platforms or get a PC port later on; it used to be so, so much worse, so that aspect of it all used to be relevant as well. I could rebuy basically all games I had on that console elsewhere, but not everyone is that lucky. Instead of just the era of comfortable entertainment on the PS4, the era of buying into artificial limits, exclusivity, paywalls for basic maintenance features, and console wars is over for me now as well.
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Published 18 Jul, 2025