Why I’m still going to stand my PS5 vertically, despite the alleged risk

You may have seen reports warning you off placing your PS5 vertically, saying that you could damage your console, even bricking it permanently. But there’s a good reason to doubt these claims, and I, for one, won’t be changing how I use my console. 

We’ve seen reports that the PS5 can run into trouble after standing up for extended periods. For example, @68Logic (opens in new tab), who runs a repair shop in France, says they’ve seen a few cases while repairing consoles where a potential seal breakage between the cooler and APU resulted in liquid metal leaking through the casing and setting onto other components, ruining the console. 

They’re not the only one to claim to have seen this fault. YouTube TheCod3r (opens in new tab) opened a PS5 Digital Edition console he had in to repair, saying the console wouldn’t boot. He discovered a metal spill from the APU and says the spill resulted from a design flaw.

Something else to consider is user-made damage either. The consistent movement of a console has the potential to cause internal damage and movement to parts, so if you frequently swap your console from vertical to horizontal you could potentially be putting your console at risk but, even then, the cooling and CPU of a PS5 are tightly packed enough to avoid any potential liquid falling or spilling onto other components.

However, even if these PS5s did break from being stood vertically, I’m not going to start laying my console horizontally. Reports of this fault are so rare that it doesn’t appear the problem is widespread. The PS5 has been on sale for more than two years now, with, presumably, a great many people standing it up vertically (as it is designed to do). If this was a common problem, we would be seeing great many more reports, like when the Xbox 360 suffered from the Red Ring of Death.

In that instance, the risk of reputational damage was so sever that Microsoft gave a blanket free return and repair policy. And, in that case, the failure rate was reportedly between 3 – 5% (opens in new tab). If PS5s were failing in significant numbers we would be hearing about it.

We have reached out to Sony to ask if it is aware of the claims and if it would like to comment but have not yet received a reply. We will update this article with a statement if we receive one.