If the dont decisively deal with broken consoles issue fast, their momentum can be slowed massively. The PS4 is riding a wave of good press, good marketing and a good price. But a vocal word of mouth can throw all that away.
Microsoft's RRoD fiasco says otherwise. But we shall see. They need to get an idea of how widespread the issues are first. But hopefully they aren't huge in number and the issues can be rectified quickly.