When Consoles go Crash

Unlike Xbox Live, the Sony Playstation network is actually available in the Middle East and thanks to a now-resolved ‘clock bug’ the network was temporarily out of order this week.

Players who tried to sign in to the PlayStation network this week ended up seeing an error code. What was even more frustrating for these players is that they then found they couldn’t launch games and many even lost their trophy data. It was only those who had the Playstation 3 Slim who ‘escaped’ experiencing the error.

News about the error spread fast though and Sony responded quickly with the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones mentioning on a BBC blog about how Playstation Europe used its Twitter account to keep players informed.

Sony had said that the fault had been caused by machines that had "recognised the year 2010 as a leap year".

"We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PlayStation (PS3) units other than the slim model, recognised the year 2010 as a leap year," said Patrick Seybold of the firm in a blog post.

"Having the internal clock date change from 29 February to 1 March (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally."

Many have mentioned about how this bug has had parallels with the Y2K bug, which was predicted to cause a global computer meltdown when computer clocks changed at the end of 1999. Nothing catastrophic happened after the advent of the year 2000.

But modern-day console problems are nothing new. Xbox has had the RROD (Red Ring of Death) and E34 errors that have angered and frustrated many a gamer.

Our consoles have become hubs for our music, movies and access to much of our multimedia content; so when our consoles crash, we get very angry. Let’s just hope that the likes of Sony will now remember that a leap year is every four years, and that we won’t experience a similar calendar faux-pas in 2012…