Should probably stay off of the PS3 right now...

[Pulsar_t]

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2010/03/s ... page-news/

A sad state of affairs

[Niode]

As for fixing PS3 YLOD or PS2 DRE... what could they do, exactly, that would fix those problems on a wide scale? "Here's a firmware update! That'll fix your PS2 laser right up!"

At least this problem fixed itself. I wonder if any other console's reliability problems will fix themselves without action taken by the manufacturer?

It just seems like this is all a huge overreaction to something that amounts to not being able to play a majority of the PS3 library for 24 hours. I can understand it being a huge inconvenience for those who have a PS3 Fat and ONLY a PS3 Fat - but seriously, who here - especially on this forum - have ONLY a PS3 Fat?

The least they can do with the YLOD is accept that there is a fault with the systems, just like Microsoft did and offer an extended warranty. They haven't, they simply refuse to acknowledge the problem exists.

I own two fat PS3s, so I was doubly fucked. I refuse to buy an intentionally gimped console. No otheros, no PS2 backwards compatible, means no sale from me. I can imagine that there is plenty of people with only a PS3, why would you have both?

Regarding it magically fixing itself in 24 hours, Sony simply did nothing. They had no intention of doing anything and hoped it would fix itself.

[CRTGAMER]

I know the whole issue here was the internal clock but through the course of this I learned games are dependent on the PSN to even play. What happens when Sony decides to shut down PSN support for the PS3 one day. Does this mean I can't play them? Or is there something I am missing here?

Your downloads are safe unless you get that YLOD or if the trophy-clock bug pops back up. The only backup of the download is on PSN so yes you might consider downloads as a "Rental" not permanently owned.

Pretty ridiculous that a disc you purchased such as Modern Warfare 2 can't even be played off line because of trophy-date-time error. As bad as Steam on the PC. What a pain. If you upgrade your system that Half Life Disc you purchased is no good for reinstall if the online to authenticate it goes away.

Sony very likely will have a firmware upgrade that will address the clock bug, but I'll wait to make sure its bug free before risking that upgrade.

Glad I have my PS2's as one of other game consoles which I'll never sell. HDAdvance/HDLoader is very convenient, game discs stored out of the way in other room.

[Luke]

From CNN:

Sony said problems with its PlayStation Network that kept some PlayStation 3 users from playing games on or offline has been resolved.

A posting on the PlayStation blog said Sony officials have identified the cause as a leap year bug in the clocks on their older PS3 units. The newer slim PS3 consoles were not affected.

The posting said the internal clocks wanted to treat 2010 as a leap year, making March 1 into February 29. When the clocks rolled over to March 1, Sony “verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.”

Sony suggests that anyone continuing to have problems should adjust time setting manually or via the Internet.

But the outage frustrated many PlayStation users, who lit up blogs and message boards with angry comments. One PS3 user said the episode prompted him to go buy an Xbox 360 console.

“I've stuck with Sony through the years, but ... this failure by Sony pushed me from thinking to doing,” a user named Jumping Ship posted to CNN.com's Tech blog. “Sony lost a customer. You have to think there are more people out there doing or contemplating the same thing.”

“I find it completely unacceptable they allowed most of their customer base to endure this outage. Sony waited this out rather than take action to resolve the issue,” wrote Jamesg, another CNN.com reader. “I believe Sony was aware this would be a problem and had a plan of not addressing it. Sony should be held accountable for allowing a known defect to manifest itself in a 24-hour outage for millions of their loyal customers.”

Some Xbox 360 owners took the opportunity to taunt rival PS3 users online about the problem, while PS3 owners fired back about the “Red Ring of Death” glitches that have plagued the Xbox.

Other PS3 owners decided to wait it out and were rewarded for their patience when Sony announced the problem had been resolved.

In a post on its Web site Monday, Sony addressed the symptoms of the outage. The company said error messages and glitches included the following:

• The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.

• When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.

• When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”

• When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”

• Users are not able to play back certain rental videos downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

[Niode]

Pretty ridiculous that a disc you purchased such as Modern Warfare 2 can't even be played off line because of trophy-date-time error. As bad as Steam on the PC. What a pain. If you upgrade your system that Half Life Disc you purchased is no good for reinstall if the online to authenticate it goes away.

I'm sorry CRT but that is completely wrong. On Steam you can install your game on as many computers as you like. The only thing you need is your Steam account to verify ownership. Each system only requires you to log in for a couple of seconds to verify login details only once. You can then use all your games offline for as long as you want, you may never need to login ever again. The difference between that and a PS3 though is a PC is an open platform, if Steam ever goes away (highly unlikely since it's the lead platform for digital distribution on the PC) then either Valve will simply remove the DRM on the games or somebody else will crack it. If Steam ever goes down, I can guarantee that the entire platform will be cracked in less than 48 hours (hell, it may already be cracked I don't know). Unless the PS3 gets hacked then if PSN goes down, your PS3 is practically useless. Compare this to 360, if Xbox Live goes down, the only thing missing from the games is the multiplayer component. Lack of Xbox Live doesn't break your console. Lack of PSN breaks your PS3.

[CRTGAMER]

Just very inconvenient and ridiculous of possibility of having to hack a legitimate purchased game years later for a reinstall. Agree PC easier to hack then PS3 hardware headaches.

[Ack]

I actually find this pretty funny. They waited a day. I expect they will likely use the rest of the year to fix the problem through some kind of update, and they'll probably have to build it into games from now on, since it affected original PS3s not connected to PSN, and they can't just blanket patch those.

But because they waited a single day, folks are going apeshit.

Jesus. I'm on my fourth Xbox 360, and despite all that bullshit about Microsoft supposedly extending the warranty, they've never come through for me any time I contacted them. Nor did they come through for several of my friends when their 360s went on the blink, for a lot of problems beyond just an RROD, ranging from a faulty disc drive to other errors. We waited weeks and tried multiple times to contact Microsoft.

You waited one day. For all we know, it took that entire day to identify what was happening. How long did it take Microsoft to figure out their RROD issue?

And Hell, perhaps waiting a day was the first thing they thought of. "It's a problem with the clock, so what might happen tomorrow?" "Let's wait one day and find out, the issue might resolve itself."

Do you seriously need to play PS3 games every day? Will a single day without it kill you? And how would they have fixed it anyway, on all those consoles that aren't connected to PSN? It's not like they could be updated. Sony got blindsided by a bug they didn't see coming, and the bug worked itself out in a single day. I expect they'll do their best to fix it via updates and patches available either online or built into various games.

[CRTGAMER]

What and miss out hibernating with video gaming for one day? I finally went outside and saw the sun yesterday.

[env963]

Aren't you allowed 5 downloads from PSN on any game you buy? Lets say that you already have downloaded 5 times already on some of the games. (Hey its possible) After receiving this error, you thought your console was dead and you formatted your HDD hoping it would fix the problem. Now your out any of those PSN games and need to repurchase them. That is when I would be livid!

[Niode]

Aren't you allowed 5 downloads from PSN on any game you buy? Lets say that you already have downloaded 5 times already on some of the games. (Hey its possible) After receiving this error, you thought your console was dead and you formatted your HDD hoping it would fix the problem. Now your out any of those PSN games and need to repurchase them. That is when I would be livid!

It doesn't work like that. It's based on system id, you can activate it on 5 different consoles. You can de-activate your purchases on a console and it will give you one more system to activate it on. However, if your PS3 suffers from the YLOD and you can't get boot your PS3, then your only option is to plead Sony to de-activate your system ID, I've heard people have varying success over this.



Regarding the 'it's only one day' it's not that that's the problem it's the fact that this particular hardware is known to have issues. It's a documented bug and should have been patched by now. The fact that Sony let it happen is the real worrying issue. What is slightly more worrying is that they simply let the clock roll by, they didn't fix it... They may never fix it. Who knows? It's severely tarnished Sony's reputation. For a lot of people it seems to be the last straw.