Why Are Roaches So Obsessed With The PlayStation 4?

Image courtesy of YouTube

If you haven’t experienced the problem yourself, you may not know that Sony’s PlayStation 4 is a magnet for cockroaches. While the presence of bugs is enough to make Sony refuse to work on your console, independent repair shops have the process of debugging a PS4 down. (Note: There are no pictures of roaches in this post, but we do discuss them.)

A reporter for Kotaku (there are cartoon roaches at that link) visited a repair shop in New York City and learned the secrets of roaches and PS4s. The shop she visited gets in at least one roach-infested console per week. While the Xbox One is sometimes infested too, the PS4 is the more popular device and more welcoming to roaches.

Why is that? It has an internal power supply that makes the interior nice and warm, and the case is especially welcoming to roaches. Here’s a video, which also shows some roaches.

Experienced repairmen know a roach-infested console when they see it, even if the owner just knows that it won’t turn on. That’s because roaches that make contact with the wrong parts of the power supply at the same time fry the power supply and themselves. When this has happened, it’s pretty easy to spot.

“Their poop color is distinct and has a certain smell to it,” an employee at the NYC shop explained to Kotaku. “We kind of know right off the bat if there are poop stains on the vent of the fan — we assume it’s bug-loaded.” The shop charges an extra $25 for roach-loaded consoles. That sounds like a bargain.

How can you keep this from happening to you, whether you live in a big city or not? Try to find a place to put your console that isn’t the floor. If roaches can’t reach it, they can’t move in. Put your PS4 somewhere that’s up high and not dark or enclosed.

Maybe you could convert a non-working PS4 into a roach trap, solving the twin problems of what to do with a console that’s beyond repair and trying to get a handle on your roach problem.

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