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Sony: Burning Vitas Not The Result Of A Product Malfunction

As unlikely as it may be, products catching fire can be a pretty severe issue.

According to Andriasang citing source Yomiuri, a Japanese government agency is investigating cases of the PlayStation Vita burning up when the battery is recharging.

Sony says there have been a total of 31 instances of this mini-disaster since the new portable device launched in Japan last December. 23 happened in Japan while only 8 occurred in North America, the UK and Australia. Based on the hundreds of thousands of units sold, that puts the ratio of burning at .000-something percent but hey, we're talkin' about fire, here. Anyway, the issue seems to involve the connection slot between the charging unit and the Vita, and Sony's PR department say this isn't related to a product malfunction so there will be no recall.

Their theory? That liquid or other objects are getting inserted along with the recharging plug. Hence, if you burn it up, you'll have to pay for a new one.

Tags: vita, playstation vita, vita burning, vita investigation

7/25/2012 8:16:13 PM John Shepard

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Comments (18 posts)

ZettaiSeigi
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 @ 9:44:51 PM
Reply

Had my Vita for more than four months and this never happened on mine. Might be an isolated issue only.

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frylock25
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 @ 10:09:38 PM
Reply

how stupid do you have to be to plug in a cable wrong? have had only one issue with my vita where i had to do a manual reset of the system. other wise i have had no issues.

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BikerSaint
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 @ 10:53:51 PM
Reply

Silly rabbit's....there's no "I'm thirsty" icon on the Vita.

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Highlander
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 @ 11:40:56 PM
Reply

Any time anything is charging, especially Lithium cells of any kind, it's an incredibly poor idea to do anything that results in a short between the two terminals of the power connector. People need to stop dripping their sodas on their Vita while it's charging.

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MyWorstNightmar
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 12:26:00 AM
Reply

I knew the Vita is a hot item, but this is ridiculous.

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___________
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 5:33:54 AM
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seriously $ony, that is your excuse!?
come on, i refuse to believe 31 people are THAT stupid!
what they should be investigating though is the black dot problems all OLED screens have been having, and the rampant RSOD issues.
allot more people have been having those issues, then spontaneous combustion!

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Jed
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 5:58:48 AM

If you can't believe that only 31 people are that stupid then you have a lot to learn about this world.

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Dustinwp
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 8:43:08 AM

@________________

Ignorance truly is bliss. Time to take off the diaper and start wiping your own a**.
Last edited by Dustinwp on 7/26/2012 8:43:28 AM

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___________
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 9:09:55 AM

theres a BIG difference between stupidity, and shoving things in power slots and spilling liquids on them!

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Underdog15
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 9:26:52 AM

mmm, I dunno about that blankline. I think they're pretty closely related.

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Highlander
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 10:37:37 AM

Well, my vita has not locked up, no bad pixels, no over heating, and no explosions, except in game.

On the other hand, it's playing all my downloaded PSP titles very nicely, as well as the half dozen Vita titles I have for it. Once they put PS1 support back in the mix it will be more or less the perfect hand held gaming device.

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Mdash0009
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 11:34:20 AM

@Jed It doesn't necessarily mean that they're stupid, it can just mean they didn't take care of it good enough. Anyone can accidentally get something tiny enough not to see ( if it's liquids, they're probably stupid) between the plug and the Vita.

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Jed
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 7:31:10 PM

@Mdash

I'm just saying that there are a lot of stupid people out there. Many more than 31.

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Clamedeus
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 9:55:48 AM
Reply

There was something along the lines of this going on but it was with a Wii I think, I don't remember the details of it though.

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gumbi
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 10:58:22 AM
Reply

Well, I haven't had any troubles with my Vita yet. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this offhandedly. I remember how everyone was dismissing the YLOD when it first started happening. I was flat out called a liar by several people because I was among the first to get YLOD on my precious 60gb launch PS3... sigh, that wound has never fully healed.
Last edited by gumbi on 7/26/2012 11:02:24 AM

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Highlander
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 3:46:18 PM
Reply

I can't believe no one else has done this...so I will.

Vita is such a hot device, it's literally burning up the market for hand held gaming....

OK, I'm done now.

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Axe99
Thursday, July 26, 2012 @ 6:40:11 PM

Boom boom :)

As John says in the article, the actual incidence of this happening (around-a-bouts 31/2000000) is tiny, so it's almost impossible it's a design or systemic manufacturing problem. At this stage I'd chalk it as most likely human error.

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wiiplay
Friday, July 27, 2012 @ 9:21:57 AM
Reply

My Vita has only failed once, and that was caused by Netflix being buggy as heck.

Ever since then, I've had absolutely no problems with my Vita, aside from an occasional network issue.

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