Calendar Bug Disables Older PlayStation 3 Models 342
JohnWilliams writes "The Sony PlayStation Network appears to be inaccessible to older ('phat') PS3 units. Players cannot play games that require a connection, even in single-player, offline mode, e.g. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Also, the system date resets to January 1, 2000. Sony is 'looking into it.' Speculation abounds that it is a bug related to 2010 being incorrectly flagged as a leap year. The newer PS3 Slim models seem to be working properly."
Complete and utter Sony DRM failure (Score:5, Informative)
On my UK PS3, the date was reset to 31/12/1999 (a value you cannot input yourself manually) and then rolled over into 2000 some hours (5?) later.
None of my downloaded PS1 games will start - just gives an "invalid copyright protection" error message.
With the exception of Wipeout HD, none of my downloaded PS3 games will start.
None of my Blu-ray game disks will start.
My PlayTV device is not performing scheduled recordings
VidZone cannot be used, since it requires signing into PSN network to determine what region you're from
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has to love this (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The party headed over to Nintendo for his Xbox360 got a red ring of death...
Okey, next...
Re:Microsoft has to love this (Score:4, Funny)
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We didn't ignore it. Everyone just forgot about it because nobody has a zune. ;)
9's (Score:2)
well sony just blew there 3 nines rating. :(
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arg.... drunk and sleep deprived.... I meant Their... I swear!
I Told You All! (Score:5, Funny)
They'd better fix this (Score:5, Insightful)
If this a hardware/firmware issue, then I hope to god for Sony's sake that there's a quick and easy fix that users can apply at home. The problem is that even if they offer everybody a free trade-in to a PS3 slim (which would be cripplingly expensive), then a lot of users, self included, won't accept this. Trading from an original 60 gig PS3 to a PS3 slim is not an upgrade. It's a downgrade.
Why? Because the original first-gen PS3s had full PS2 back-compatibility, while the more recent versions don't. People like me, who got rid of their PS2 when they picked up a PS3, are not going to be happy in the slightest if it turns out we need to start hitting Ebay for PS2s.
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I wonder if the firmware will actually update, the servers have a fit as the date on the machine does not match that of the server, and again, "invalid copyright protection" error appears.
D'oh (Score:2)
I can't sign into PSN on my US 60GB, so it's looks like I'm affected by this... :(
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People like me, who got rid of their PS2 when they picked up a PS3, are not going to be happy in the slightest if it turns out we need to start hitting Ebay for PS2s.
PS2s are still available retail for $99, as far as I know. Compared to the cost of replacing all the worlds old PS3s, throwing in a PS2 as a consolation prize is no big expense, plus it depletes the warehouses, probably a convenient way to discontinue the PS2. That's what a reputable company would do. Oh, wait, this is Sony, home of the root kit. No, I guess you're just out of luck.
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Except I would want a PS2 from the 4th through 8th revisions of the hardware along with an Ethernet adapter for the unit.
That's what I gave up when I moved to the PS3 (Specifically a 4th gen with Ethernet adapter). Anything else is not "fair replacement".
Weird coincidence (Score:2)
I just hooked my PS3 up after disconnecting it for a couple of weeks, and noticed the date was off and I couldn't connect to the PSN. Oh well, might as well read Slashdot! And I find this. Someone call James Randi, I think we found a psychic!
No PSN on sim yesterday (Score:2)
My PS3 slim wouldn't stay logged in on PSN yesterday evening, didn't have any issues earlier that day. Not sure what the error code was, and I haven't tried it today (because I'm obviously at work).
Also interesting to see that also games on the PS3 have shitty DRM that requires online activation/presence. Are they really trying to kill gaming on all platforms?
Re:No PSN on sim yesterday (Score:5, Interesting)
No, DRM is and has always been about killing 2nd hand sales. The piracy non-issue was just an excuse that no one would question whilst they went about removing your consumer rights. For over a year now publishers have been openly equating the 2nd hand market to piracy. The ultimate goal is to destroy all media they don't control, if DRM isn't stopped in the near future all games will require an authorised console, with authorised media, on an authorised display device and an authorised user and if any of these things fail authorisation then the whole system will stop working (for you at least).
/.ers are in the US) about DRM.
So at least write to your representative (I know in the US this will do nothing but not all
I've said it before and I'll say it again, consoles have DRM built into the hardware. This makes it both more prevalent and more aggressive then DRM on the PC. It also makes it harder to remove.
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Are they really trying to kill gaming on all platforms?
I don't know, but they've pretty well made me decide not to get a PS3. I was waffling, so I know I'm not their target demographic in the first place, but I'm frankly sick of phone-home DRM. Here's a perfect example of it failing and locking out legitimate users.
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but I'm frankly sick of phone-home DRM. Here's a perfect example of it failing and locking out legitimate users.
Except that isn't what happened. It's a clock error. It has nothing to do with phoning home.
Effects are rather... odd (Score:5, Interesting)
It was refusing to install the Star Ocean Trophy set. I could get it to start Bayonetta, but when it attempted to load the first cutscene it just hung forever. Tried doing a number of things, nothing worked... And it wouldn't let me back up my data as the largest thumbdrive I own is 8gb and after removing ALL game data, installed demos and everything else I could strip, it claimed it still needed another 750mb of space (original claim was over 17gb). And of course it refuses to recognize either of my external USB HDDs as a target for backing up or reading data from...
So I started thinking "HD Failing" (it is an original PS3 after all). Figured I'd have it format the drive then reinstall and repatch my games. Nearly a 5 hour time estimate. Take a nap, wake up, see this.... "oh god damnit."
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So I started thinking "HD Failing" (it is an original PS3 after all). Figured I'd have it format the drive then reinstall and repatch my games. Nearly a 5 hour time estimate. Take a nap, wake up, see this.... "oh god damnit."
AKA the "it just works" console gaming experience? Or are you running a PS3 emulator on a windows PC? I haven't had/heard that kind of agony in gaming since trying to get Wing Commander working by editing config.sys lines back in 1991-ish.
I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely curious, since your experience is supposed to be unpossible on a console.
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80gb "mostly hardware" BC PS3 unit. Not an emulation setup or anything.
It could very well be the HD picked today to start giving out, but it's kinda odd in that a friend of mine was playing Star Ocean under his profile on the system 2 hours before. Didn't have issues saving, didn't crash or anything. When we came back after grabbing a bite to eat is when the "fit hit the shan". Went to start up Star Ocean on my profile (already had a game saved at the first save point so everything had already been installe
Sony timer (Score:5, Funny)
It is not a bug, it is the Sony timer [wikipedia.org].
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A loose S-Video connection can also result in black-and-white video if the chrominance pin isn't connecting.
Since when is a year = 2 mod 4 EVER a leap year? (Score:4, Interesting)
GregYear <- (appropriate year for start of Gregorian era in locale)
IF (month = 2 AND year MOD 4 = 0 AND (year < GregYear OR year MOD 100 > 0 OR year MOD 400 = 0))
{MaxDayForMonth <- 29}
ELSE IF (month = 2)
{MaxDayForMonth <- 28}
ELSE IF (month IN (4,6,9,11))
{MaxDayForMonth <- 30}
ELSE
{MaxDayForMonth <- 31}
(pseudocode style adapted for Slashcode)
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My thoughts exactly, I mean...
It fails the FIRST TEST, that is, ((year % 4) == 0) for leap years. Guys, 2010 % 4 == 2, I mean
the mind boggles
Intern coding (Score:2)
A leap year miscalculation is no worse than the skewed random shuffle bug [slashdot.org] reported in Microsoft's browser selection screen yesterday. If that's the problem with these PS3's (which I doubt), it could be something similarly brain dead:
Somebody tested that on 2001 through 2009 and declared it good enough.
How to fix Netflix PS3 (Score:4, Informative)
I ran into this problem last night trying to watch Netflix on the PS3. the Netflix disc gave me a cannot connect error.... Being a slashdot reader my first though was I'd done something weird with my router ports.. So Mucked with those for awhile first making sure I hadn't done something weird. Then I noticed the system date was wrong on the PS3. I tried "Set Time via Internet" which failed, then I Set time manually and tried Neflix again and it works as normal. I'm sure the Servers figured that a 10 year old packet was "timed out" and didn't respond (or the PS3 won't respond to communication from 10 years in the future).
Worked for me, didn't try any games yet though.
god damn, how f*cking hard is this!? (Score:2)
There, I just pulled the above code out of my ass, and it's so damn simple! I don't claim any copyrights to this! Go ahead, copy 'n paste it into any of your products as you like (also commercial and closed source, I don't even want a mention!), if that is really to hard for you, you lame ass tinkerers!
Flower? Really? (Score:2)
Talk about timing: I downloaded Flower for my 5 year old, who loves just flying around in the pretty fields, and the game won't start because of this error. A single-player game, that has no multiplayer aspect, that doesn't even keep score, and it can't be played because it can't connect to the network.
I guess it's because Flower has trophy support, but really...you can't store the trophy information locally and then transmit later? I couldn't sit there, looking at the error screen, then trying to explain t
what will happen in 15 years? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a bug. And it's not because of any kind of DRM system with the bluray games. It's because of the trophy system:
It's the same story for other games that feature dynamic trophy support.
Re:HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying it's ok for me to be locked out of my games because Sony's servers don't feel like giving out achievements at this time.
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It took a while, but Microsoft gave in and made an incredibly convoluted solution to "fix" the DRM being tied to a console that died. This error is a bit more than "no trophies at this time".... but like Microsoft, Sony's DRM has showed us all the dark side of this whole "you don't own anything" mantra of this generation's consoles... (Including the Wii...)
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Sometimes bugs happen.
And sometimes they lead to lawsuits.
Re:HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
And sometimes they shouldn't.
This was an accident that is ultimately harmless, particularly in the long term, and will more than likely be resolved within a day or so.
A lawsuit is ridiculous at this point. Maybe if they let it go on for weeks, or if it actually destroys their peripherals.
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And sometimes they shouldn't.
Of course. When you can't win, you shouldn't sue. Otherwise, why wouldn't you? Sony sure as hell wouldn't hesitate to sue someone if they thought they would win.
Re:HA! (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:HA! (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm wrong but this is the only reason I can think of. I just can't find it easy to accept their explanation for this, that's all.
Re:HA! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, you lose some non-net based functionality as well. All my downloaded add-on content is fubared at present, free or paid. This is a pretty significant loss.
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Yeah, that's why I said with the bluray games. Downloaded games obviously use a little bit different system.
Re:HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
Can it be a date bug in the PS3's hypervisor (or other internal 'security' functions)? The units that that maintains among other things the DRM and copyrights.
If that insists that the date is 29/2-2010, I can hardly imagine the number of things that will get decoded wrong.
We may be lucky, that tomorrow the clock will claim it's March 1, at least that is a valid date. or the hardware will continue being 1 day behind, screwing up the DRM again tomorrow.
AVOID THE ISSUE (Score:5, Informative)
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I hope Sony gets sued to absolute oblivion over this. Not being able to play games you have paid for is abso-fucking-lutely un-acceptable for any reason other than your console being physically broken.
Jesus fuck. Suing over temporarily not being able to play a game? The "sue everybody" mentality really has gotten ridiculous.
All these goddamn DRM schemes that backfire and companies never learn.. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my DRM-free games and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!!!
What does it have to do with DRM? Calendar bugs have been a very common part of the computing landscape for many years.
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I hope Sony gets sued to absolute oblivion over this.
Jesus fuck. Suing over temporarily not being able to play a game? The "sue everybody" mentality really has gotten ridiculous.
Thats why I dont want to live in the US. Instead of solving problems like civilized people everyone sues right and left and demands millions in damages if you even looked angrily at someone. I demand, I want, me me me money money money for me.
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Instead of solving problems like civilized people everyone sues right and left
How do two parties in disagreement over financial liability solve things in your country?
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Two words: Cage Match
Re:HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
We talk to each other. We try to come to an agreement. If that fails a third party might get involved, especially if it's a disagreement between a company and an individual customer.
And once all those options have been exhausted...then we might bring in an actual lawyer.
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We talk to each other. We try to come to an agreement. If that fails a third party might get involved, especially if it's a disagreement between a company and an individual customer.
And once all those options have been exhausted...then we might bring in an actual lawyer.
Sometimes even "talk[ing] to each other" and "try[ing] to come to an agreement" result in complaints from the Slashdot peanut gallery. A cease-and-desist notice over a fan-made derivative work, for instance, is just "talk[ing] to each other". And a lot of disagreements don't make the news until "all those options have been exhausted", which biases news coverage in favor of lawsuits.
Re:HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, as an individual, a cease-and-desist doen't feel like you're trying to talk to me, it feels like you're trying to bully me. If you're trying to talk to me, give me a call or send me an informal email, from one human being to another.
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If you see hundreds of fan works and instead of thinking "damn, the customers love us" you think "how dare they make fanart without paying us for it", you probably don't deserve the customers.
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Sorry, but what do "computer landscapes" have anything to do with being unable to play my games due to a calendar screw up?
I've been playing video games since Commander Keen was being sold as shareware on a 3.5 floppy at your local VHS rental store, and I have *never* had a single problem with my computer or video games because of a "leap year".
The only reason I can see a video game n
Re:HA! (Score:5, Funny)
The only reason I can see a video game not working because of mis-matched dates is because of DRM,
Well, if that's the only reason you can think of, you're not thinking very hard, are you?
Re:HA! (Score:5, Funny)
Give the guy a break, he could just be stupid.
Or he could be following the longstanding tradition of not knowing what the hell you're talking about when bitching on the Internet.
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Well, if that's the only reason you can think of, you're not thinking very hard, are you?
Neither are you apparently, otherwise surely you'd have provided some examples of additional reasons instead of simply insulting GP.
While personally I side with GP, I will point out that games do use dates for a variety of reasons. Pokemon games starting with Gold and Silver for the GBC, and the Animal Crossing series, all have date-specific events. Of course, none of those refused to play if their internal clocks did not match the clocks of some central server. Heck, you could even set your clock to b
I take it you don't play Animal Crossing (Score:2)
The only reason I can see a video game not working because of mis-matched dates is because of DRM, there is no - and neither should there be, any reason why a game should be dependent on any date.
Then why do the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Nintendo DS even have a clock? Consoles have clocks for at least four reasons:
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But this case has nothing to do with DRM. All those games work just fine even if you don't have an Internet connection.
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My PSX games, actual PSX discs, work just fine.
Dunno about Blu-ray movies, but I know my Netflix disc won't work. None of the $2,000 in games I bought work (every single one has trophies/achievements.)
Also, try to play that game, it wipes your trophies. Hopefully those will come back once the servers fix themselves.
This is what they get for making varying hardware in the first place. They should have introduced ONE MODEL, with backwards compatibility all the way through. Leave in EVERY ADVERTISED FEATURE EV
Re:HA! (Score:4, Funny)
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You despise Sony, yet you spent $2,000 on PS3 downloadable games? Nerd rage troll detected!
Re:HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
While people are far too quick to yell "sue" needlessly, it is a legitimate complaint that otherwise offline, single-player games should be unusable due to this glitch. Whatever happened to gracefully handling failure? A network connection has no business being a requirement (to the point of failing to play without it) for a single player game.
Suing as a means to modify behaviour? (Score:3, Interesting)
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A network connection has no business being a requirement (to the point of failing to play without it) for a single player game.
But that's not the problem. On my PS3, an internet connection is available - I can browse the web just fine, but I can't log in to the Playstation Network.
Also, a network connection is not normally required for these games. The problem appears to have something to do with trophies - games that would normally work offline just fine, give an error if you have previously been connected to the network. It now tries to "sync trophies" and fails. If you had been playing purely offlinem I don't think this big woul
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It does affect consoles that have never had a network connection and never will.
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Fair is Fair.
If game producers can sue users when they play games they don't own, then user can sue game producers when they cant play games they do own.
If they want to sell software as a service and use trophies to boost first sale value, it better freaking work whenever people want to use it.
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If game producers can sue users when they play games they don't own, then user can sue game producers when they cant play games they do own.
That's fucking retarded. The two have nothing to do with one another. Copyright infringement is prohibited by law. Computers/consoles/software are not guaranteed by law to work all the time.
See "warranty" (Score:2)
Copyright infringement is prohibited by law. Computers/consoles/software are not guaranteed by law to work all the time.
I beg to differ [wikipedia.org].
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I beg to differ [wikipedia.org].
Well, you'd be wrong. Where does a product being covered by a warranty mean that you can sue the manufacturer for it not working? It just means that they need to replace or repair it if it is faulty. Not that any of the "fat" PS3s are under warranty anymore.
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Fuck that, if they want to sell software as a service then it needs a service level agreement, 99.999999% uptime.
That needs to be written into law. NO IF ANDS OR BUTS. Write it that plain and simple, applied to all software sold by license.
Re:HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if your fridge doors locked and prevented you from using it each time you set the date wrong on the fridge, yes I would suggest suing.
I am not mad at the PS3 breaking, I am mad at the fact that rather trivial issues prevent people from playing fully functioning games on a fully functioning console system.
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Re:HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
What does it have to do with DRM?
The DRM for games purchased on PlayStation Network seems to require that it be able to phone home and validate everything before it lets you play the game. This is impacting all of the games I've tested so far which were purchased from the PlayStation Network. Many of them just fail with an inscrutable error message ("Error HEXADECIMALSOUP") and refuse to start up. Others give you "demo version" mode and behave like you need to purchase the full product still.
Calendar bugs are one thing, but DRM which fails and locks you out of a bunch of stuff you paid for in the presence of such a bug is another thing entirely. If Sony gives me a nice discount voucher or PSN credit by way of apology for this inconvenience, I'll be less peeved, but I get the feeling that Sony (and their ilk) consider their self-rights-protection technology to be so damned important that no amount of inconvenience on the part of their paying customers is too much to ask. They'd be more concerned if a calendar bug allowed you to bypass all that license-key crap.
Re:HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
The DRM for games purchased on PlayStation Network seems to require that it be able to phone home and validate everything before it lets you play the game.
But that doesn't seem to be the case. I've played downloaded PSN games plenty of times without having any internet connection. This glitch seems like an entirely different beast.
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This bug is something different. I've been able to play downloaded games and games with trophy support even when the net connection has been down before, but not with this bug.
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I think it's completely fair. If game producers can sue users when they play games they don't own, then user can sue game producers when they cant play games they do own.
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Do not worry, if someone does sue, Sony will come to the UK and put a super injunction in place so nobody will hear about it.
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"Jesus fuck. Suing over temporarily not being able to play a game?"
It's more than that - I can't use my Netflix disc - there is NOTHING to do with trophies on that. Every single game I have has some sort of trophy involved, so I'm essentially stuck with $2,000 worth of games I CAN'T PLAY, not what i wanted, especially since I'm on playthrough #22 of Heavy Rain.
The only thing that works, is internet browsing, and playstation 1 games - EVERYTHING ELSE is busted (except my linux install, that works no problemo
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Why are you acting like they will never fix this bug? Unless I missed something, it's just a temporary inconvenience to me. Certainly not something to get up in arms about.
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It sounds like you need to get out of the basement, go take a walk, and interact with the regular 3D world for a change and come back to your PS3 in a few days when Sony have fixed it. I'm no corporate apologist, but if you can't survive without your PS3 for a few days then its you who has a problem and not Sony.
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"It sounds like you need to get out of the basement,"
Seriously, you ignorant people need to quit using phrases like that. I'm independent, I travel the globe, and I work towards getting mankind out into space by working on new artificial plant lighting. Get your head out of your ass so you can actually see, eh?
"go take a walk,"
Hard to do with a crippled leg.
"interact with the regular 3D world for a change and come back to your PS3 in a few days when Sony have fixed it."
Why should I wait for Sony to fix it?
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"Why should I wait for Sony to fix it?
Because the other alternative is . . . . not waiting for Sony to fix it? Forcing Sony to hire a team of time-traveling coders to travel back in time and fix the bug before it happened? I fail to see what alternative there is besides waiting for a few days. Deciding to sue Sony won't make your PS3 work any sooner than just doing something else for a few days and then coming back and installing the update that they put out to fix this.
Look, I know you're upset that a bug in the PS3 calendar has managed
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Au contraire, mon amis
The people so stupid they buy games that need an always-on network connection are to blame. They are in the same league as people who by fake drugs from spammers.
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What does it have to do with DRM? Calendar bugs have been a very common part of the computing landscape for many years.
Because even offline games are unplayable, so it's clear some flaw exists relating to their protection mechanism.
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Because even offline games are unplayable, so it's clear some flaw exists relating to their protection mechanism.
How does that follow? The Y2K bug would have affected offline systems if not fixed, and that had nothing to do with DRM.
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Still afaict this is a defect in original workmanship (not a wear-out and not a random failure) that renders the product largely unusable.
If sony doesn't sort this out quickly i'd expect lawsuits in the EU at least.
What? This is exactly that.
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More likely, people will simply say "uhuh, it is broken, lets get new one", will go out and buy new one. This bug could end up being quite profitable: people will either come to service center and get software update (or just do get it done by friend) or they will buy new hardware.
Which is same reason why DRM scheme issues are never issue for average consumer because it either works just fine or end up not being big enough deal. It is customers who never learn.
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Actually, if everyone goes to buy a new PS3, SONY will lose money hand over fist. They sell their units at a major loss.
Re:HA! (Score:4, Informative)
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other words, this ONLY effects games with online components, like trophies
All PS3 games released since January 2009 have had mandatory trophy support... I would assume the games most people are currently playing fall in that group.
Re:Can someone explain the bug? (Score:5, Interesting)
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the clock that is displayed on-screen is just some application level date. it's for 'display purposes only. changing this has no effect on DRM licenses restrictions (such as when you download a movie with an authorization to watch it once over the next 7 days).
the 'real' ps3 clock is a hardware device (I guess they changed model between the 'phat' and 'slim' hardware releases, which is why slim is not affected). this clock has read-only access via the hypervisor only.i don't think it's even possible to rese
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Problem is I scrolled through the thing resetting my time and date - the PS3 fat can't roll over to Feb 29th 2010, I've tried it - so the bug might be on the other end.
If so, maybe the new slim models have the same bug?
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"modded PS3s"?
Uhm... There are no modded PS3s at this time.
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Do you mean Y2.01K?
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I've got a fleet of GPS vehicle trackers that crapped out last nite when they hit "00:00 March 1st" UTC. Working with the vendor to resolve :(