PlayStation gamers still confused by hardware error to rival Xbox's 'red ring of death'

PlayStation fans are still confused by the PlayStation 3’s “yellow light of death”, and are comparing it to the Xbox 360’s “red ring of death”.

Video game consoles, like any piece of hardware, ultimately have a shelf life. You can maintain them for as long as you can but eventually they will break down. Then, it’s just a case of seeing if they can be fixed. For gamers on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there were two signs that your console was broken beyond repair: your Xbox would flash the “red ring of death“ or your PS3 would flash the “yellow light of death”.

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However, years later, PlayStation fans are still unsure what exactly the yellow light meant, and why seeing it meant your console was on its way out. Microsoft confirmed the Xbox 360's red light meant the console had overheated, and as a result forcibly shut down. However, Sony never acknowledged the PS3’s yellow light problem leading many to wonder what it actually meant.

In a recent Reddit post, user BeinZilexthe2nd aimed to get to the bottom of the mystery, saying they’d heard several theories on why the yellow light might flash up, such as the “NEC/TOKINS,” a bad “solder” and a faulty “RSX chip or cell chip”.

Other users shared a few ideas, though the general consensus was it’s simply an “indication of a general fault within the board,” though exactly what can be tricky to diagnose. Any issue with a motherboard can turn into a bigger problem for the rest of the system, so in theory just about anything could be the cause of the yellow light.

Luckily, new-gen systems like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S are much more advanced than their predecessors, making faults like these rarer and less of an issue for the majority of players, a good thing too considering how much more expensive they are now.