The PlayStation 5 has two ways it can be placed while gaming: vertically or horizontally. However, most promotional material has it standing vertically and it turns out that this can end up killing the device.

Repair shop owners have shared their findings when working on PlayStation 5’s which have reportedly (via Wololo) become damaged from this design flaw.

A user on Twitter and another posting on Facebook have shared their findings and it seems a design flaw is causing the thermal solution Sony uses to move onto vital parts, effectively bricking the device.

According to the repair techs, this impacts all versions of the console regardless of model number and spans both the standard and digital only variants.

It’s noted their findings are currently a case-by-case basis, where the liquid metal thermal paste somehow leaks due to the seal breaking.

As it currently stands, it’s unknown how likely the problem is to occur. So for owners of the PlayStation 5, it’s recommended to leave your console placed horizontally if possible. Sony has yet to comment on this matter officially.

While the issue hasn’t appeared widespread yet, and it’s unknown if it truly affects as many consoles as currently speculated, there are a lot of PS5s out in the wild – over 30 million mark in fact. As such, this is an issue owners should keep an eye on.

This is Niche Gamer Tech. In this column, we regularly cover tech and things related to the tech industry.