[Valigarmander]

Global Lockdown Strikes Pre-2009 PS3s, Calendar Error Suspected

PlayStation 3 consoles around the world appear to have gone on strike. Reports have been coming in since Sunday that the PlayStation Network is now inaccessible, and that certain PS3 games have been rendered unplayable.

The issue appears to be affecting systems that came out before 2009's PlayStation 3 Slim. Trying to load up PS3 games on one of those systems will result in an error code and a notice that trophies cannot be loaded.

A 1UP 60 gigabyte PlayStation 3 was no exception to this sudden meltdown. Both a Japanese copy of Final Fantasy XIII and Flower gave the error code. Development studios appear to be affected as well; Develop is reporting that industry debug units have been thrown into a "rebooting cycle, due to an endlessly-looping error message."

In an update on the PlayStation Blog, Sony wrote, "We're aware that many of you are having difficulty connecting to the PlayStation Network this evening. Those of you with "slim" PS3s (the 120/250 GB models) appear to be unaffected."

"Know that we have narrowed down the issue and have engineers working to restore service even as you read this. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and genuinely appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this."

Speculation has surfaced that this problem may have to do with a calendar error. It seems that the fact that 2010 is the first even-numbered non-leap year the machine has encountered may have caused the problem. Once again, this is just speculation right now.

We'll keep you up to date as more information arrives. In the meantime, check out the running discussion of the problem at our forums.

UPDATE: Sony has released a statement confirming that the problems are caused by a clock error. They hope to resolve the issue in 24 hours, but in the meantime, they've warned PS3 users not to turn on their systems. Doing so "may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data."

We'll let you know when the all clear is given.

lol