Two TV news in one day usually only happens around CES time but unfortunately, neither are particularly good. First, there is the case of LG 4K TVs not playing nice with PS4 Pro though a fix appears to be around the corner and now, there is news that PS4 Pro also doesn’t play nice with Sony’s own 4K TVs. As for the problem, Owen Hughes from IBT notes that Reddit user GivingCreditWhereDue, who originally reported the matter, wrote:
Sony’s 2016 Bravia line is ill-equipped to handle 4K gaming, as their flagship models have really high levels of input latency. Sony advertises their x930D Bravia model as best fit for the PS4 Pro, but users who actually have it face a severe disadvantage when it comes to competitive and even casual games like Battlefield.
But the real problem here isn’t the issue gamers are having with Sony TVs and the PS4 Pro but an apparent censorship on the matter from Sony.
Disgruntled owners of Sony’s Bravia televisions have accused the company of “censoring” its community forums by preventing users from reporting technical issues. Users on Reddit say the company has locked threads containing complaints about its 4K televisions to suppress negative feedback in the run-up to the high-spending season.
One of the threads removed by Sony contained 90 pages-worth of reports of input lag issues affecting its 2016 line of ultra-high definition (UHD) Bravia sets. The thread is titled, “Buyers beware, it looks almost the entire 4K ‘HDR capable’ TV line up from Sony are trash for 4K and HDR gaming” and clicking on the link now brings up an empty page with the error message: “the topic you are trying to access is not available.”
Users say they attempted to begin a second thread under the same name, which was removed by Sony within 10 minutes, while on the third attempt Sony immediately deleted the thread.
If true, this is pretty terrible from Sony’s end. In the case of the LG TV, shit happens and instead of trying to bury the news which never really works, especially when a passionate community is the one being affected, Sony should put on their adult pants and issue a vague statement that they’re at least looking into it. This seems to be PR 101 instead of initiating the ban hammer which buys you some good will and time.
From there, Sony engineers can dig into the issue and hopefully come up with a fix if the problem does actually exist or at worst, buy themselves some time and hope that the story fades away a bit. But censoring and locking threads appears as an immediate admission of guilt and malice.