WARNING: PSN Issues Feb. 28th : Resolved

[Canas Renvall]

Yeah, my PS2 had the disk read error problem a while back and I had to buy a new one. Honestly, I've never had a RROD and have had very few problems with the 360, other than the graphic card problem I had last year. Like you said though, Nintendo build their shit to last. I can't recall how many times I've dropped my DS on the floor, or accidentally kicked my Wii over and I've still never had any problems with a Nintendo console. The only one which was a bit iffy was the Gamecube, but every other of their consoles which I've owned (NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy, GBC, DS, Wii), they are built like a brick shithouse.

I agree with everything but the DS. Every single DS I've touched has just fallen to pieces. I love it to death, and it was under warranty each time, but seriously. I replaced my DS seven times, my DS Lite twice, and more recently (this was my fault though), lost my DSi. So I bought another DS Lite and I pray to God that I can hold onto it long enough to play Pokemon HeartGold and Golden Sun DS. Everything else Nintendo that I own, though... There is no possible way to break them. Hell, even the rigorous testing X-Play put the three last-gen consoles through, only the Gamecube could start up again. Dropping them 20 feet, dropping a weight on them, and slamming them with a sledgehammer, and only the GC survived.

Nintendo's defenses are as good as Pam Anderson's boobs are large.

On topic, however, yeah... I admit, I kinda freaked a little when this happened, but now that it's blown over... well, it's blown over. All is well again. And now I can go back to blasting through the God of War collection before FFXIII and Pokemon HeartGold come out so I can be caught up on my gaming.

[Jill's Boob]

The company I work for (British Gas) has been in business since the early 1900s despite being completely and utterly incompetent at every level of the business, but it has cheap products and a strong brand name.

Your comparison between Sony and British Gas doesn’t hold much weight. It’s simple Economics. There is always a demand for gas, thus they (British Gas) can maintain their business status (even with prevalent incompetence, as you imply) since they control the supply. Also, British Gas is a former government monopoly and didn’t even experience privatization/denationalization until the late 80s.

A public utility controlling a lone natural resource doesn’t have the same business model as a private organization which deals in electronic goods (many products – films, mobile devices, home entertainment, video games, etc) and has direct competition which affects supply & demand. Anyway, I never said the key to success in business is simply “be competent, deliver good service.” But thanks for trying to put words into my mouth. I never actually said anything about what I think the most successful business model is. All I tried to say was that your logic was incorrect. My personal opinion though is that I think Sony is successful (or what I actually did say before…that they’re “competent”) based on the fact that they’ve been in business for a long time (and continued to stay at the forefront of their industry), have a strong product name, and they continue to flourish in all of the company’s five operating segments. Surely their stock value is also pretty good indicator of their continued success.

Has Sony had numerous problems in their history? Of course. All businesses do. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are indeed “successful” or at the very least competent from a business standpoint.

It's a completely different league to simultaneously knock out every console in existence, permanent or not.

Wait, I thought you said you weren’t being “over dramatic?” Because then how do you explain that sentence? “Every console in existence.” Pretty exaggerated statement is it not? PS3 slims still worked. And in various isolated cases, some older PS3s still worked (all for music and movies, some for games). That seems to defy EVERY console in existence being knocked out.

You’re tailoring your argument to your own agenda. Let’s continue:

The comparison to the 360 or Wii is in no way the same. Those are hardware faults and every console has them. 360's RROD, PS3's YLOD, and the Wii's initial problems it had as well.

Okay, every console has hardware faults and THAT is okay? But many (not ALL, as you imply) PS3s experience a glitch in the internal clock for roughly 24 hours and that is far worse than having a physical problem that makes the machine COMPLELETY unplayable (RROD, YLOD, Wii optical drive)? How is 24 hours worse than the week+ for the other machines to be mailed-in for repairs? Please explain this foreign concept to me.

It's "bricked" because it's a gaming device that could not play games, either online or offline. Regardless of what additional features the game had, its primary purpose is to play games. It didn't do that.

Some games were playable, like games that didn’t require trophy synching (like MGS4, Heavenly Sword, etc). Also PS1 and PS2 games. So there goes your argument that it could NOT play games. Look up “bricked” on the internet, please. You’re making an argument with the term without completely understanding it. Bricked is YLOD, RROD…where the system doesn’t function in ANY capacity.

Stop with the exaggeration that the PS3s didn’t play games whatsoever.

Every console in the world going down at once is.. just wow. I'm not the one who's getting all eat up about someone not thinking Sony is perfect, so I don't think I'm the one who needs to stop being "over dramatic".

Dramatic = “EVERY console in the WORLD going down at ONCE.”

^How is that not dramatic? Or do you find gross exaggeration to be perfectly normal?

Personally, I’m really not “all eat up” (?) about Sony being perfect. I’ve owned a VAIO in the past and I actually disliked it immensely, and I also now own a PS3. Those are the only 2 Sony products I’ve ever had as far as I can recall. Mainly my problem lies with your faulty logic, and you continuing to try to debate with information that stems from your personal bias. I actually have no problem with you personally at all; I’m just trying to prove my point in this argument/debate (however you perceive it).

Partly my point. It's the only gaming malfunction that's made national headlines and on the BBC website as well.

Wow. Now your bias in all this is really, really starting to show. CR29 hit it on the head with his post.

Do you just mean gaming malfunction that's made national headlines and on the BBC website for the past 36 hours ONLY? Do you have selective memory?

Just a quick search on my part (far quicker than my lengthy rant above) provides the following (out of many results concerning video game console problems) courtesy of the "BBC website:"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/.../xbox_360.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technolog...h_returns.html

There were numerous other hits from the BBC search engine, and you really expect all of us to believe that tech problems with other gaming systems have NEVER been covered by the Brit media? Do you watch the news 24/7, thus being able to validate your statement's accuracy?

[TheSelfishGene]

Talk about being dramatic.
I didn't try my whole library of games, but I know that some of them certainly did work on the 1st of March.

Uncharted 2 worked just fine. After I was convinced some games worked well, I tried AVP, which didn't work.

From my PSN, I tried flower, which didn't work because it couldn't authenticate against the PSN. But I tried the ぽちゃぽちゃあひるちゃん demo, and it worked just fine.

I stopped there, since I saw that either type of game could or couldn't work. Fortunately it was late here in my timezone, so I went to bed and by the time I woke up it was resolved.

But I'd much much rather a 24 hour outage over a 6-8 week return cycle.

[Vector]

But I'd much much rather a 24 hour outage over a 6-8 week return cycle.

THIS. When the problems started, I feared the worst after having my PS3 YLOD three times in 2009. All that happened was a blackout of 24 measly hours, instead of waiting weeks for my console to be repaired and come back to me. The 'APOCALYPS3' ended up being not. That. Serious. We can all move on now.

[Karui]

Lock thread now and sticky it for future use?

[Rombie]

Finally! I won something!
(What do I get?)

(Still remains to see if they'll be able to patch up the RTC, though. Would kinda be hilarious if the internal clockwork of the phat forever believes it's a day off and if it every 4th year will go another day off sync.)

Sorry Carn - I don't know what you win ;)

I suspect it will be able to be fixed, from what I've since read the Zune issue which was exactly the same was able to be corrected - just took a while. Sony have 4 years (and possibly even an extra day seeing as we'll still be one behind on the actual Leap Year day) to fix it. I'm sure it'll get done.

this is why the slim is so much better than the original. no one was affected if you had a slim it seems.

Well thats a stupid comment. My fat PS3 is better than the slims. It has other OS support, 4 USB ports instead of 2, a memory card reader, and backwards compatibility with PS2 titles... anyone else with fat consoles that have the PS1 and PS2 chips in them are even better off than me. 1 day of inconvenience due to something that was updated for the Slims without Sony being aware of it seems like nothing.

[Stu]

Lock thread now and sticky it for future use?

Sticky it...just so we know where it is when the next leap year comes along? Get a clue. Why does it even need locking?

[Carnivol]

Next SONY leap year!

Speaking of locking; What's with people requesting threads to be locked once they've had their run recently? I find it annoying. We generally only lock threads if they spin out of control and people start being extremely nasty in them. (We bring security and escort them out of the building if they are insubordinate.)

[Alexia_Ashford]

Yeah, no locking required. I really haven't got the energy or inclination to reply to a wall of text anyway, and I have to get back to work in less than 20 minutes so. If we locked a topic everytime people disagreed on a subject, there wouldn't be many left open.

[Stu]

I disagree.

[rehunk88]

I'm not angry at Sony, by any means. There are a lot more important things to be angry about. I just no longer have confidence in Sony as a business, or in their product.

but that could happend to any computer business really and no harm is done its fixed and for those who lost tropichs hey you have done it before you can do it again but come on losse fait in sony just becuse they had a error nobdy had forseen coming :/

[Alexia_Ashford]

I disagree.

no u

but that could happend to any computer business really and no harm is done its fixed and for those who lost tropichs hey you have done it before you can do it again but come on losse fait in sony just becuse they had a error nobdy had forseen coming :/

Again, people seem to think the only reason I think Sony are poor is because of the PS3 issue. That was just the cherry on the cake for me. Whether they saw it coming or not, Nintendo or Microsoft didn't have a problem and it was a bug in software * that Sony have released for their console. I have a lot of other issues spanning back a couple of years, so.

*not hardware

I don't hate Sony and I don't foam at the mouth everytime someone mentions their name. I enjoyed the PS2 (despite a couple of mine breaking and getting the dreaded disk read error) and it was my favourite console of that generation. I also quite like their music-related products (headphones, Walkmans, stuff like that). The PSP is.. okay, but I don't think it has many games and don't think it has been as successful as it could have been. Regardless, still fun when I find a game I like. PS3, not a fan. I've bought it only for PS3 exclusives like Heavy Rain, and more importantly, God of War 3. I also wanted a blu-ray player so I decided to bite the bullet and buy the console. Saying that, I don't like the layout or controller, and I'm just generally not a fan. I'm just not keen on their customer service after being let down repeatedly by them and royally buggered about.

[Carnivol]

I'd say the RTC issue is a more "questionable" issue in the sense that it shouldn't even exist in the first place. If the theories are true, that it believes every 2nd year is a leap year instead of every fourth... how on earth do you create such a mistake? You would think that time code would be something that's recycled over and over again, ad infinitum... but since the last batch of phats and the slim wasn't affected... they've obviously revised the RTC somehow, but why revise it if they supposedly weren't aware of any issues with the existing ones?

Makes you wonder whether they knew about it or not, and if they just "forgot" to give the userbase the memo (or inner management failed at bringing the message through the system). This is part of the reason why I hate the multi-SKU thingy SONY's got going on the PSP and PS3. Besides the checklists people have made online (and the accompanying guides for how to verify which hardware revision you've got), you seriously have no clue what you're getting unless you tear the entire system to pieces and compare every single component.


As for comparing the PS3 vs 360 YLOD/RROD thing, in most cases, the issue is the same on both platforms. It's an issue both parts should've been able to predict, but with no way of really testing it other than putting the systems out there and see whether or not they "survive".

If I've understood things right;
It's not really a heating issue that causes it (or, well, it is), when the system goes hot (as it will), the soldering points for the CPU may get so hot that they start expanding/retracting as the system heats up/cools down. Evt. you reach the point where you either create a short circuit with two (or more) connections that shouldn't be connected touch eachother or that the entire soldering glob for one connector is just straight out missing (not making its connection). (This is also why the "towel trick" works on the 360. You pretty much force the system up to extreme heat by packing it in an isolating fabric, as the system normally wouldn't be able to create large amounts of heat when it only displays an error message, to force the soldering points to heat up again - hoping for any broken connections to be re-established.)

Those types of issues could pretty much exists in any consumer device that generates large amounts of heat and has a heat generating source that is somehow attached directly to a surface through standard soldering points. Of course, it's possible to easily avoid this issue, but there's never really any way of checking if it exists without going through months, maybe even years, of testing.

[Alexia_Ashford]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've been trying to say. The issues with RRoD/YLoD are hardware failure and you get that in any system really so I don't think it's comparable; and the quote which exactly fits my opinion of it being a cherry on top of me thinking Sony are incompetent is this;

how on earth do you create such a mistake? You would think that time code would be something that's recycled over and over again, ad infinitum..

[Guest]

no u
I don't hate Sony and I don't foam at the mouth everytime someone mentions their name. I enjoyed the PS2 (despite a couple of mine breaking and getting the dreaded disk read error) and it was my favourite console of that generation. I also quite like their music-related products (headphones, Walkmans, stuff like that). The PSP is.. okay, but I don't think it has many games and don't think it has been as successful as it could have been. Regardless, still fun when I find a game I like. PS3, not a fan. I've bought it only for PS3 exclusives like Heavy Rain, and more importantly, God of War 3. I also wanted a blu-ray player so I decided to bite the bullet and buy the console. Saying that, I don't like the layout or controller, and I'm just generally not a fan. I'm just not keen on their customer service after being let down repeatedly by them and royally buggered about.

I've been a sony playstation fan since the release of ps1. My PS1 up to the day it was released still works fine, pretty durable if you ask me even though I dropped it a few times. Back when I was in the philippines I owned the original PS2, It broke on me a few times like it won't power on or read the discs etc. I think I had 3 PS2's that fucked up on me. Never thought of buying after the 3rd until I came here in america and now own a slim ps2 though my first one fucked up on me but my current one is still good to go and I think the PS3 is very sensitive as well especially its lense. My first one the original PS3 had no problem whatsoever except it couldn't read any discs I put in whether it'd be games, DVD movies, Blu-rays etc. My slim one 250gb is my current ps3 and is working fine. Just had it this december after my big paycheck.

Sorry for a bit off-topicish. xD