Gamers whose PlayStation 3 consoles went on the blink and lost their PlayStation Network connections this weekend should finally be back up and running after the company repaired a glitch that resembled the fearsome and ultimately harmless Y2K bug at the turn of the century.
A malfunction in some older PS3 models’ internal clocks led the units to mistakenly regard 2010 as a leap year when the date switched from Feb. 28 to March 1. This resulted in some units resetting to Jan. 1, 2000, while others received a message saying they had been logged off the game network.
The newer “slim” PS3 units were not affected.
Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold wrote on his blog that all customers should be able to use their PS3s normally. Previously the company had warned gamers they could lose stored game data if they used their machines — even for offline gaming — before a patch was issued.
Access to the PlayStation Network is free, unlike Microsoft’s pricey Xbox LIVE service, which is arguably much more desirable among console gamers.
