PlayStation 4 System Update Improves Stability, Players Unleash the Stability Gifs

A new PlayStation 4 system update is now available for you to download, and you’re going to need to update the system before you hop online to play any games. Sounds important, yeah? So what new wonders does system update 4.72 hold for PlayStation owners old and new? The release notes are now available, and they told us exactly what we expected, and hoped, to hear:

This system software update improves the quality of the system performance.

Thanks, Sony! Could you be any more ambiguous or anticlimactic?! We’re used to this by now. Nintendo is infamous for its no-notes stability and “pleasantness” updates. The internet has become so accustom to these types of updates that an entire gif culture has formed around them. On Reddit, on GAF, on Twitter, whenever we see these types of updates go live there is a steady and reliable stream of gifs and memes that we can count on seeing as we celebrate our consoles becoming more and more stable.

Break open your gif folder and prepare to create a sub-folder. We’re sharing the best stability gifs we’ve seen so you can be prepared to have a sensible chuckle the next time Nintendo or Sony releases a total non-update:

Stability Beast

This is the classic. You can count on this gif showing up first in every “stability update” thread on pretty much any social media outlet — especially for the PlayStation 4. I bet y’all didn’t know, but this actually isn’t a photoshop. This is a real PlayStation 4 robot animal created in a lab specifically to test system version stability performance. Before system update 4.72, this thing would go tumbling over with the lightest breeze. Now you can kick the gravy out of it and it’s totally okay. Go try that with your PS4s right now. We think you’ll be surprised (don’t do that).

Stability Chicken

For when you need to communicate the ultimate stability of your system post-update to someone who doesn’t know anything about computers or hardware: here is the stability chicken. Look how effing stable this thing is. Look at its laser-focus. No matter which way you swing or sway it, it’s going to hold that head high and steadfast. You thought that update 4.72 was worthless? Think again. This is what you’re missing out on if you haven’t upgraded yet.

We present this particular gif to you caption-free, though usually there’s a hilarious punchline at the bottom. You can make your own masterpiece.

It Only Does… Stability

“It only does everything.” That’s the rather audacious tagline that Sony was using for the PlayStation 4 in its marketing for a long time, but after a handful of uneventful stability updates, that tagline was altered somewhat to represent what one person believed was a more accurate selling point: “It only does stability.” What more do you need? Forget the UHD Blu-Ray player, screw native 4K gaming, to hell with backward compatibility, and who really needs the ability to change their PSN name? As long as you have stability, you have everything that you need. We’re surprised Sony hasn’t adopted this officially.

The Ultimate Test

Once again, we were able top procure some official footage of stability performance tests. At first glance this may appear as a shop, but what you’re looking at is a high-stakes and highly dangerous test of the the PS4’s ability to recover from highly stressful load conditions.

Notice in the first test that, under load and without the stability update, the PS4 is prone to lose control and explode. Judging from the footage, this can create a deadly and explosive chain reaction. After the stability update, though, the PS4 is able to gracefully recover and assume its proper functions without a hitch.