Gamer Buys Two PlayStation 5 Consoles, Both Get Bricked During Thunderstorm

Words: Catherine Lewis

The ever elusive PS5. Despite becoming the fastest selling PlayStation console, reaching over 10 million sales across the globe, it still doesn't feel like anyone actually owns one. Almost nine months after its initial release, gamers (and scalpers) are still hot on their F5 keys whenever there's a whisper of a restock, and often to no avail.

So, imagine your luck if you managed to grab yourself not one, but two of the consoles. You have them there, in your house, plugged in and ready to roll. The hard part is over now...right?

Have you played Astro's Playroom on the PS5 yet? If not, you're missing out on some amazing Easter eggs hidden throughout the game...

Meet Reddit user yawran, who wins today's award for the most unlikely and definitely most unfortunate gaming disaster. They took to the r/playstation subreddit to share their tragedy; both their own and their wife's consoles had been left completely bricked after a local thunderstrike in the night. Who said that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot?!

Even a surge protector wasn't able to save the consoles from their doom: "I actually had one, so no other devices suffered damage even though they were in the same power strip. This is the part where I am puzzled." yawran said.

Understandably, this has left other PS5 owners feeling concerned about the safety of their own consoles. "At least you've warned hundreds of PS5 owners about this possibility. I know I'll be unplugging during thunderstorms from now on, can't risk this I'd be devastated." Reddit user Gamesgar0 commented.

"Same here, I have my PS5 plugged into a surge protector/UPS but this post is making me rethink my entire strategy. We are having heavy thunderstorms every night in my area, I will be unplugging my PS5 for sure." user fastonmyfeet added.

Scarily, this isn't the first time that this sort of thing has happened lately. Over on GameFAQs last week, user Kingdom080500 encountered a similar calamity when a power outage bricked their PS5. Yikes.

If you're unfortunate enough to end up with your PS5 bricked in a similar fashion, you might want to try these steps to boot up the console in safe mode, which might help fix the problem. Otherwise, it'll be off to Sony to work their repair magic (and hopefully not saddle you with a hefty bill). All in all, this is a fairly rare occurrence, but it still might be worth unplugging your consoles during storms just in case. Talk about gone in a flash...

Topics: PlayStation 5, News