Calendar Bug Disables Older PlayStation 3 Models

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because of the trophy system:

rubbish. older downloaded PS1 games won't start either. they give a "invalid copyright protection" error message

Re:HA!

[sopssa]

Yeah, that's why I said with the bluray games. Downloaded games obviously use a little bit different system.

Re:HA!

[ZDRuX]

Dude, did you even read the article? SOME GAMES CANNOT PLAY OFFLINE. Lookup what offline means, its opposite of ONLINE.

Re:HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

The only games that can't be played offline are those that have some PSN component.

In other words, this ONLY effects games with online components, like trophies, or that require an active PSN account due to DRM (like downloaded PS1 games).

Offline-only games are completely unaffected.

Re:HA!

[batkiwi]

It does affect consoles that have never had a network connection and never will.

Re:y2k anyone ?

[gerardolm]

Do you mean Y2.01K?

How to fix Netflix PS3

[BroadbandBradley]

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.

Re:HA!

[fedos]

Ayn Rand is not exactly a good source for economic insight.

Re:HA!

[zach_the_lizard]

That would be correct; her views fall under the purview of politics and philosophy. I do not think that she ever even studied econ; she instead tried to put forth her vision of a free society, utilitarianism be damned. That's how I see it, anyways. Other than that, she wasn't a very good writer; the only book of hers I could stand was Anthem, which just so happens to be very short. She also wanted to claim that she invented libertarianism.

Re:They'd better fix this

[LazyBoot]

I guess this is where the offline update methods come in (USB-drive or disk comes to mind)

Re:No PSN on sim yesterday

[Sancho]

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.

Re:HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to read.

Re:HA!

[Doctor_Jest]

This reminds me of the "must be connected" to XBox Live to play the arcade games you purchased after you had the RRoD.

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...)

Re:HA!

[eonlabs]

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.

Re:Sony timer

[HTH NE1]

A loose S-Video connection can also result in black-and-white video if the chrominance pin isn't connecting.

AVOID THE ISSUE

[loafula]

Lucky for me I read up on this before using my PS3 at all today. I seem to have circumvented the issue to a degree. I unplugged the power my wireless router and then fired up my PS3. From there, I noticed my date/time was set to 12/31/2000. In the system settings, I disabled internet connection and reset the time manually to 3/1/2010. Now that internet was disabled, I plugged my router back in. I tested a few games, and all worked. Granted, this does not solve the issue of trophies and getting into PSN, but at least I can play single player games until they come up with a fix.

Re:No PSN on sim yesterday

[dangitman]

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.