Sony Playstation 3 consoles around the world almost met their apocalypse. Due to an error with the internal clock, it would try to treat 2010 as a leap year. This bug did not effect the PS3 Slim model and the total number of PS3s affected has not been released. The summary of the problem has been posted on Playstation’s Blog.

Read more to figure out what the errors were, and my opinion on Sony’s prompt action to this issue.

Errors include:

• 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 video downloaded from the
  PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

As of March 1, the problem appears to be resolved. However, users may need to change the date on the PS3 manually.

This whole debacle is really quite embarrassing for Sony. This bug is a huge knock to their credibility and a public relations nightmare.  As bad as this is, I still have to give Sony credit for solving such a potentially harmful problem quickly. They handled it professionally, addressed the problem and started working on it immediately. Less than twenty-four hours after their post addressing the problem an update was released stating the bug was fixed.

Personally, I think the only Sony product worth the box it comes in is the PS3, so assuming Sony actually fixed the problem, it’s pretty impressive.

Playstation, ps3, Sony, Video Games