This past weekend was the ever-popular Evo fighting game tournament for 2023, where there are now multiple reports from attendees about the USB ports on PS5 consoles melting due to the heat.
There are several accounts from different people about these incidents (via Kotaku and engadget) highlighting what doesn’t appear to be isolated to just a couple of units. But rather a seemingly widespread number of them across the entire tournament. The issue it seems is that the USB ports were getting so hot during the tournament that the receivers inside of them were melting. Causing them to get pulled out when attendees removed their controller’s USB cables from the port. This resulted in the receivers getting stuck inside the adapters of those controllers.
SabreAZ on X notes that this isn’t an isolated case. Mentioning it happening to another user. “EVO is proving that PS5 is NOT the answer. Usb ports are melting like craY. @Kyoku236HS usb on his controller melted. This is not isolated. We need to go PC or xbox atleast” SabreAZ said. Interestingly enough, another user, Eduardo Cuervo, responded with a picture of his own controller’s melted USB port. Stating that “it only took one set.”
This is my melted controller. It just took one set. pic.twitter.com/EiG6OsdjeG
— Eduardo Cuervo (eacuervo @ threads) (@cloudraven) August 6, 2023
PS5 USB ports may have melted at Evo 2023 due to heat from non-stop use
There’s not really a confirmation of what caused the issues with USB ports melting. However, a likely explanation is that PS5 consoles were in constant use throughout the tournament weekend. Providing the base for thousands of tournaments between players all plugging in and removing their controller cables over and over. This paired with the fact that it gets pretty hot in the back of the PS5 where two of the USB ports are located could be the culprit.
It’s also speculated that some attendees were using USB converters that weren’t compatible with the system so they could use an unsupported controller. Which could have had a hand in causing damage to the ports.