Millenium Bug hits PS3

[Jaynestown]

Read this in the paper this morning:

MILLIONS of PlayStation 3 consoles have been hit by a "Millennium Bug" - ten years late.
Fans switching on yesterday saw the console's calendar reset to January 1, 2000, locking them out of games and wiping away saved high scores.

The problem affects the older-style "fat" console - but appears to have hit all 23 million boxes around the world.

The flaw is thought to have occurred when the machines' clocks tried to tick over to March 1, 2010.

They were disconnected from the online gaming system PlayStation Network at midnight on Sunday.

The network is used by owners around the world to challenge each other to multiplayer games via the net.

But many furious fans have flooded messageboards to say they are unable to play off-line.

Many have lost hard-won "rewards and trophies" built up on hit titles such as Call of Duty.

Some owners have even reported calendars returning to 1999. Stuart Miles, editor of gaming website Pocket-Lint.com said: "This is to gamers what the Toyota's faulty accelerator pedal was to drivers. If you want to play games on a console, and can't, what good is it?"

A Sony spokesman said: "We've identified this problem as a bug in the clock functionality. We hope to resolve it within 24 hours."

The error is a big embarrassment for Sony, who have just launched a major UK TV campaign for their latest game title Heavy Rain.

[GamerMan316]

It's really the Ayatollah of Rock n Rolla's fault 

His awesomeness destroyed everything 10 years ago and obviously some of it was still floating around to mess up Sony's plans for console domination!!!

[Failed]

Read this in the paper this morning:

The network is used by owners around the world to challenge each other to multiplayer games via the net.

Sounds just like it was written in a newspaper, probably one of the lesser papers like the Daily Star, with a massive picture of a woman with t*ts holding a PS3 to symbolise PS3 goings t*ts-up ofcourse.

[Jaynestown]

Close, it was on Page 3 of the Sun, the graphic actually said "Game Over" 

[Astrex]

Close, it was on Page 3 of the Sun, the graphic actually said "Game Over" 

Yeah a small article next to the boobs 

Glad I don't have a PS3, XBOX all the way!! 

[Maibs]

Pretty funny tbh, they had it fixed at 11pm last night

[CRracer_912]

I have two fat consoles.  Feeling a bit left out on all the trouble others report having with theirs, I rushed home at lunch to fire both mine up.  I was delighted that one of my two had the date issue. I finally got to experience nirvana!  It was quite a rush.

I had read that some were disconnecting the internal battery and this resets the internal clock, so, not ever seeing the inside of a PS3 before, I popped the top and much to my disappointment, my battery was right there in plain site, unlike some of the videos on you tube where you have to completely disassemble the system because the early models have the battery on the bottom.  Nirvana was gone as it only took me about 5 minutes to disconnect the PS3, pop the top, unplug/plug in the battery and hook it back up.

What was weird was the date issue sets the date on the console back to 12/31/1999.  When I disconnected disconnected the battery and reconnected it, firing it back up I was greeted with the date 1/1/2009, set the correct date, then it logged in online.

I was a little more than disappointed that BOTH consoles didn't act up.

[nCogNeato]

A Sony spokesman said: "We've identified this problem as a bug in the clock functionality. We hope to resolve it within 24 hours."

This nearly ruined my experience playing Heavy Rain on Sunday.  I posted about it HERE.

The funny thing about Sony saying they'll "resolve it" ... according to the internet braintrust, the problem corrected itself once the internal clock reached March 1st.  When Sony said they'll "resolve it within 24 hours", they actually meant "it will fix itself within 24 hours, but we're going to pretend we're actually working on the problem."   

[CRracer_912]

Yeah, I read how you lost a whole trophy.  LOL! j/k