Some Videogames Suddenly 'Expiring' on Classic PS3, Vita Consoles (kotaku.com) 70
"Digital purchases are mysteriously expiring on classic PlayStation consoles," Kotaku reports, "rendering a random assortment of games unplayable."
The glitch is "affecting users' ability to play games they ostensibly own." Upon re-downloading the PSOne Classic version of Chrono Cross, for instance, Twitter user Christopher Foose was told the purchase expired on December 31, 1969, preventing him from playing the game on both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. GamesHub editor Edmond Tran described a similar issue. Trying to boot up Chrono Cross on PlayStation 3, Tran said, gave him the same expiration date and time, only adjusted for his location in Australia. Tran did mention, however, that he was able to download the PSOne Classic from his library and play just fine on Vita despite the game's apparent delisting from the handheld's store.
While at first this felt like an attempt at encouraging Chrono Cross fans to purchase the new Radical Dreamers remaster, Kotaku quickly found evidence of this same problem occurring with different games. Chrono Cross worked just fine for content creator Words, but not its spiritual predecessor Chrono Trigger, the license for which somehow lapsed 40 years before the game was added to the PSOne Classic library.
Steve J over on Twitter asked PlayStation directly why the expiration date for his copy of Final Fantasy VI was changed to 1969, but never received a response....
The only potential explanation I've seen for this issue thus far involves what's known as the "Unix epoch," or the arbitrary date early engineers designated as the beginning of the operating system's lifespan. Some bug or glitch on Sony's backend may be defaulting PlayStation game license expiration dates to the Unix epoch, essentially telling them they can't be played after midnight UTC on January 1, 1970.
The glitch is "affecting users' ability to play games they ostensibly own." Upon re-downloading the PSOne Classic version of Chrono Cross, for instance, Twitter user Christopher Foose was told the purchase expired on December 31, 1969, preventing him from playing the game on both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. GamesHub editor Edmond Tran described a similar issue. Trying to boot up Chrono Cross on PlayStation 3, Tran said, gave him the same expiration date and time, only adjusted for his location in Australia. Tran did mention, however, that he was able to download the PSOne Classic from his library and play just fine on Vita despite the game's apparent delisting from the handheld's store.
While at first this felt like an attempt at encouraging Chrono Cross fans to purchase the new Radical Dreamers remaster, Kotaku quickly found evidence of this same problem occurring with different games. Chrono Cross worked just fine for content creator Words, but not its spiritual predecessor Chrono Trigger, the license for which somehow lapsed 40 years before the game was added to the PSOne Classic library.
Steve J over on Twitter asked PlayStation directly why the expiration date for his copy of Final Fantasy VI was changed to 1969, but never received a response....
The only potential explanation I've seen for this issue thus far involves what's known as the "Unix epoch," or the arbitrary date early engineers designated as the beginning of the operating system's lifespan. Some bug or glitch on Sony's backend may be defaulting PlayStation game license expiration dates to the Unix epoch, essentially telling them they can't be played after midnight UTC on January 1, 1970.
Pong (Score:2)
When you buy digital items... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:When you buy digital items... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you buy digital items... You should expect them to vanish at some point.
The bits in a DVD are digital as well. The problem is not being digital, it's being stored in a server outside your control and gatekeeped by someone who should have no say after you have purchased the item.
Re: When you buy digital items... (Score:1)
Yes DVDs degrade over time, as EVERYTHING does. Since you are on Slashdot, I assume you have at least a rudimentary understanding of storage tech and digital rights, and are simply being a trolling asshole. Isn't your time more valuable? Or do you achieve orgasm by being an asshole?
Re: (Score:2)
The DVD storage medium degrades over time, so the bits on the DVD don't always stay the same. Not a great example.
Bits in a server hard drive degrade as well, so what's your point?
Re: (Score:2)
One of those can be backed up for future recovery.
Re: (Score:2)
Both can. Have you never heard of ripping a DVD?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Name a console that has standard discs that you can rip. And even if you can, it won't run the backup copy.
Re: When you buy digital items... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The bits in a DVD are digital as well.
Since we're doing the "actually..." thing, I said "digital items", and a DVD is a physical item.
Re: (Score:2)
The bits in a DVD are digital as well.
Since we're doing the "actually..." thing, I said "digital items", and a DVD is a physical item.
Quite right. A physical item, not a digital item. The digital item I referred to were the bits in the DVD, which is what *I* said. Those bits, you may copy over to a new physical item before they degrade too much, keeping your digital item indefinitely - because you have access to a copy at all times, which you don't have if they are physically stored in a remote server of the company who sold it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Blu-Rays can have their license code revoked at the player level....You can physically have the bits and still get denied.
That would be included under the "outside your control and gatekeeped by someone who should have no say after you have purchased the item", wouldn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When you buy digital items... You should expect them to vanish at some point.
The bits in a DVD are digital as well. The problem is not being digital, it's being stored in a server outside your control and gatekeeped by someone who should have no say after you have purchased the item.
Or more specifically, you've locked yourself into a platform controlled by an entity as unscrupulous as Sony.
At least with my Steam games on PC I know that the bits can be stored on my hard drive and even if the gatekeeper says no, it's on my drive and I can override their no (also a reason I prefer to buy from GOG when I can).
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The trouble with software is that you LICENSE it, not BUY it. Just saying.
That's not the trouble. The trouble is that they can revoke your license.
They never did that for my old DVDs or VHS tapes, and I'm pretty sure I only had a license to watch them and didn't actually own the movie itself.
This is the whole problem (Score:4, Insightful)
We told you so since the beginning.
This is the whole problem with DRM and "renting" ownership of things you purchase. This particular problem might be fixed at some point but the issue remains. You can be deprived usage for something you already paid for with no recourse. All under circumstances you don't control.
The subscription model sucks. Consumers need to vote with their wallets and reject this crap. Though I know that's not going to happen. Just look at how the poisonous Apple market is slurped up by the masses. Generations are being conditioned that this is normal (along with loss of all privacy).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
We told you so since the beginning.
This is the whole problem with DRM and "renting" ownership of things you purchase.
Although I agree, in this case it is probably not a DRM problem. It is most likely a Developer Stupidity© problem. Somewhere in all that computer code is a bug, because someone made a mistake or did something stupid.
Many years ago I had a program that suddenly stopped working on January 1, 2000. It wasn't even a commercial program, it was a free program. For some unknown reason, the developer had put a date check into the program so that it would not run after Jan.1, 2000. Maybe he had plans t
Re: (Score:3)
Wrong. It is a DRM problem. It doesn't matter what exacerbated the DRM problem, it would not a problem without DRM.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Makes sense considering both the PSP and the PS3 have BSD code in them. As do the Vita, PS4 and PS5 as well. The latter two being full-fledged BSD systems.
Re: (Score:2)
The Unix epoc problem isn't until 2038 when the signed 32 bit integer overflows.
Re: (Score:2)
That's still DRM. It may have been clumsy and pointless DRM but it was still a deliberate restriction on use after a certain date that had nothing to do with intrinsic functionality. It didn't mis-compute anything, it operated as the programmer intended.
Re: (Score:2)
It would help if the courts and law enforcement treated it for what it is. If you have perpetual rights (you bought the thing) and suddenly it goes poof, it has been STOLEN. Treat it that way and suddenly companies start re-evaluating the risks of DRM to them.
So these suddenly "expired on 12/31/1969" (Score:3)
And there wasn't even one semi-computer-literate person who said "hey wait a minute guys, this probably wasn't deliberate..."?
Two obvious facts (Score:3)
- This is a bug
- A server bug in a game which is not online-multiplayer should not prevent you from playing it.
Achievements make games online MP (Score:2)
Video game publishers and console makers would probably defend their digital restrictions management practices on grounds that any otherwise single-player game with achievements is online multiplayer with respect to achievement hunting.
why have an expiry date? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect they have an expiry date so it's possible to put up temporary offers, eg. pre-release demos that disable on the full release date and similar, and normal games that aren't supposed to expire just get a date a few hundred years in the future to be effectively eternal.
Then bugs happen and we see this.
What I find curious is that all the games mentioned in the summary are Square-Enix titles.
Re: (Score:2)
The Square-Enix titles aren't the only ones, it is just that among the older games, those are most likely to be played.
Re: (Score:2)
Demos and the "free" games that you get through Playstation Plus. Those have expiry dates, usually the renewal date for your Playstation Plus account. Purchased games don't generally have expiration dates.
Bobby Tables (Score:5, Insightful)
update games set expiration = -1;
Which means 1 seconds before 1970-01-01 and not "expiration disabled".
Re: (Score:2)
interesting. Possibly the affected consoles have older firmwares that do not take into account the possibility that "-1" represents "unlimited expiration"!
Obligatory xkcd (Score:2)
Know your audience (Score:4, Interesting)
"own", indeed. (Score:2)
> The glitch is "affecting users' ability to play games they ostensibly own.
If someone thinks they ostensibly own something, they should look up the meaning of that word.
"ostensibly owned" is accurate (Score:2)
The closest we will get to a solution is to use platforms without DRM like Steam (where Goldberg emulates the APIs, just avoid Denuvo and uPlay) or Good Old Games (using standalone instal
Re: (Score:2)
If someone thinks they ostensibly own something, they should look up the meaning of that word.
Yep. You can't even say you own your atoms so laying claim to "property" is as dumb as it gets.
MTG Arena (Score:1)
Filed a bug report, no answer.
So, after good money spend on buying packs, only for Arena to screw me over by deleting dozens of cards in my collection I don't think I'll ever play their online game again.
Re: (Score:2)
The MMO equivalent happened to me several times, and its name is server merge.
Most MMO companies will not use/hire anyone sufficiently competent in SQL to merge their server databases without data loss.
Hence I lost several characters when logging after the fact, some of the said characters having paid-for skins in their inventory. Gone.
*Sigh*
why was this even an option? (Score:3)
I can understand the unix epoch thing, i deal with epoch issues like this from time to time. But my question here is "Why does a game that was PURCHASED have code in it anywhere that's even capable of expiring?"
Reminds me ever so slightly of the trope where a space ship gets hit on the outside by weapons fire, and the navigation console suddenly explodes, sending people cartwheeling on the bridge. "Why is there anything explosive in the nav console??" That's such an unnecessary and risky design!
I suspect if they don't fix this quick there's going to be some class-action lawsuits. Imagine someone setting the date on their tesla to 2040 and finding it won't start anymore because the car's software has "expired". They'd be in the streets with torches and pitchforks once they found out that such a "time bomb" was in their purchased product.
A bit of a segue: I've seen software installation discs that used to work but won't run anymore, claiming the software is "damaged". It turned out that the sotware is digitally signed (nothing nefarious, it's a tamper-proof checksum) But the certificate has both a "not valid before" AND a "not valid after" date, as most certificates do. This one expired a few years ago, so the fix was to set the computer's date back a few years, into the "window" it was valid within. Then the installer worked fine.
The installer can still be downloaded though. I compared it with the one on the DVD, and it's identical except for the signature which has a new date range. This is what these authors are going to have to do. BUT... what if they're not in business anymore? Lost the source? etc? This raises a problem similar to the one of DRM servers being shut down when the stuido goes out of business years after launch. What do you do when something you bought just stops working "because it can", not for any good reason? And the company that could fix it (or be FORCED to fix it) doesn't exist anymore? How do we prevent that from happening? Should they be legally required to develop and maintain an "unlocker" to legally use such DRM? It's a difficult question to answer.
Though with this disgusting "software-as-a-service" trend we are continuing to sink deeper and deeper into, I wonder if they're just looking at this as the "solution" to the problem, ie "nobody owning software anymore so they can't complain when it stops working"?
Re: (Score:2)
Because television/movies.
Either you need to show the severity of an attack by having a now-dead redshirt fly across the room, or you need to temporarily incapacitate a main character for story purposes, or just to create t
Re: (Score:2)
There are electronic components, such as capacitors, that can explode if they're overloaded badly enough, and power capacitors can be as large as a roll of pennies, or even bigger.If that hit sends a power surge through the nav console a minor explosion is quite possible, although you'd expect there to be proper surge protection in place.
Re: (Score:2)
While i agree that large electrolytics can explode if they get too high or reverse voltage, something like that doesn't belong in a console. You'll only find that sort of component in a power supply. Now that might be somewhere on the bridge, like behind a bulkhead or in the floor, but it's not going to be IN the console, any more than your car's engine is going to be in your steering wheel.
I've got a case of old 250uF 250V caps downstairs, they're a bit larger than a 12oz soda can. There's a battery box
Time Zones (Score:2)
The users seeing an expiration date of December 31, 1969 are likely in the United States or Canda, or somewhere else west of the prime meridian. The Unix epoch time, when converted from UTC to any other time zone to the west, will become December 31, 1969 at e.g. 19:00 (US/Eastern) or 17:00 (US/Pacific). Any time you see a date of 1969-12-31, it's invariably the Unix epoch converted to a different time zone.
Re: (Score:2)
...and obviously that should have said 16:00 (US/Pacific)
Chrono Cross... (Score:2)
Just wasn't all that great of a game when compared to Chrono Trigger (perhaps the best of the genre) or some of the Final Fantasy games in that era, american FF2 and FF3. Later FF7 was also amazing. FF8 was better then Chrono Cross but not really better then the other 4 mentioned. FF8 felt closer to a movie while the others felt more like a game.
As far as the issue at hand, well that's what happens when everything is in the cloud under someone else's control. Better off finding original copies or just pirat
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of people never tried Chrono Cross when it came out. But the franchise recognition is strong, so it makes for a good choice for a re-publishing. I think being a great game is not necessarily the only reason these IP owners can use to extract money from customers.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm obviously in the minority here but I thought it was really good and wrapped up some loose ends from the original. Loved the ending. Hated what happened to the characters from the original.
Re: (Score:2)
SoM was a great game also and done different, as you mention. Felt more like Zelda then Final Fantasy, and that's okay!
Man, I lucked out here! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
How hard is this to grasp (Score:2)
You buy milk and don't expect that to last you several years. With people re-buying 28 year old games on multiple platforms, it's clear that Sony is just being a good milkman.
Re: (Score:2)
Used to be, /. read the post... (Score:2)
That the beginning of the era for all Unices, including Linux, androud, and Ios. (1980 for Windows). Someone screwed up, and either they've got a short instead of a long for date, or they incremented the wrong counter, and it just went to -1 for date.
Software Bug (Score:1)
Zero = 1970-01-01T00:00:00 (Score:2)
Dead store still being "updated" (Score:2)
Sony already killed PS3/Vita stores 9 months ago, it's rather silly that they would need to update how the system works given that it's dead. One might question why they thought expirations were justifiable for purchases, but more questionable would be why are they doing verification for a system that's EOL at all.
Sony is effectively forcing users to jailbreak their devices as a self protection mechanism now.