Depends on how you define widespread. For example X360 was massive. I literally bought broken consoles back then and sold them for parts because they were dirt cheap and made quite some bucks. People were recording videos how to fix it by baking it in oven. I bricked at least 3 consoles myself (still made profit).
Procedure was: 1. buy bricked console, 2. try to re-heat it (well I had hotair station), If it worked I played on it. If it didn't i sold it for parts.
Now I could do full BGA reballing as I have tools for that BUT I don't want to deal with this shit again.
As for PS4 I did my research back then and dont remember BUT:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...e-8939161.html
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming...w-to-fix-them/
So it wasn't uncommon either.
Xbox one also had them:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...7-35a1ad25d9ba
Widespread? Maybe no, but no way in hell Im gonna be guinea pig after what's happened with PS1, PS2, X360 (had tons of issues with these) and skipped next-gen.The biggest problem upon initial release were power supply failures on some and disc drive failures on others. However, the failure rate for consoles was nowhere near the number of 360s that suffered the RROD. I still have my original day one edition console as well so no problems here.
I would say its best to wait until Hardware version 2 at least.