New reports from competitors in this year’s EVO fighting game championships claim that heavy used at the tournament had broken some of the PS5 USB ports.
Fighting game tournaments like EVO usually have its players bringing their own controllers and fight sticks with USB connections to have a better edge. This year, it was the same as always, but it seems there has been an incident that involves these personal controllers and fight sticks, especially the USB ports.
According to reports, players that were involved in the tournament revealed that part of the PS5’s USB port got stuck in the controllers. Some blamed it came from the PS5 that generated too much heat and so it “melted” the USB ports for some reason.
The most common report featured a blue piece of plastic that detached from the PS5’s USB port and got stuck in the gap in the controller’s USB connector. Players had to remove it with tweezers or screwdrivers. They assure that these blue piece of plastic was not part of their controllers.
Competitor SabreAZ claimed on Twitter: “Evo is proving that PS5 is not the answer. USB ports are melting like cray. Kyoku236HS’s USB on his controller melted. This is not isolated.”
Other users did clarify that the plastic did not melt, but it came loose from the PS5 after the controllers were connected. There were others who also reported that this was the same situation that happened a few weeks ago at their local tournament. The PS5 units were brand new too, the players said.
To clarify, there are actually no reports or screenshots of the blue plastic melting into the USB connector. They only came loose after long gameplay and the removal of the controllers.
It is possible that the heat from the PS5 has made the plastic loose, but there is one common variable from all of the reports: the controllers had USB connectors. It could be that the connectors would connect too tightly when inserted into the USB ports of the PS5 consoles and after pulling them out, the blue plastic would also come loose too.
Players have now suggested to use USB hubs in the future so that the PS5 USB ports will not get broken after long use.