The PSN Outage and Other Console Problems Gamers Had to Deal With

On April 20, Sony took the PSN offline to deal with an "external intrusion." According to the PlayStation Blog, service should be back within a week. Right now, they are rebuilding the system after an unauthorized person compromised our personal information. This may include any credit card linked to your PSN account. This isn't the first time gamers have dealt with major problems. Here are some other situations we had to endure with the seventh generation of consoles.

The "Leap Year" Bug of 2010
In 2010, owners of older PS3s faced an unusual problem. On March 1, Sony told us not to turn on our consoles. It couldn't even be used just to play a Blu-Ray movie. We were told if the older models were started, trophies and saved game data might be corrupted or lost. Why did this happen? Since the PS3 was released in 2006, original models were programmed to accept that 2010 was a leap year. When February 29 never came, gamers had problems connecting to the PSN and got a multitude of error messages. Sony addressed the situation quickly and service was only interrupted for about a day.

Weeks of Xbox Box Live Problems
During the Christmas season of 2007, Xbox Live was on and off for weeks. Besides disconnecting from the service, there was terrible lag. The Marketplace wasn't responding. The Dashboard wasn't loading and the information on it was often incorrect. Gamers reported problems from December until January. While there was never a complete outage, it was difficult to access multiplayer games. The problems were blamed on the influx of new XBL subscribers during the holiday season. For all the trouble, subscribers received the game Undertow for free.

Wii Remote Breaks TVs
When Wii owners first got hold of the console in 2006, reports started circulating that the remote was flying out of gamers' hands and into TVs. Combine the motion of games like Wii Sports with sweaty hands, and the next thing you know, stuff gets broken. First Nintendo just recalled the strap and replaced it with a different one. A year later, Nintendo began packaging silicone jackets for all new remotes. Gamers could also request jackets for already purchased ones. I have never broken anything with a Wii remote, but it's easy to see how it could happen during intense play.

Red Ring of Death
When the 360 was launched in 2005, gamers started complaining about three of the sections on the power button turning red instead of green. This indicated a general hardware failure and the console had to be sent back for repairs. Microsoft played down the initial reports until 2007 when it extended the warranty for three years. At the height of the RROD problem, some reports estimated that the failure rate was as high as 50%. My Xbox got the RROD, as did many of my friends'. The new S models of the 360 run cooler and quieter. So far they have fewer problems then the older ones.

The PSN should be back within a week or so. As gamers, we rely on the latest technology to keep us happy and sometimes we have to deal with problems. Unfortunately, the news about the nature of the PSN outage is the worst case scenario for online gamers.

Sources:

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/03/01/playstation-3-leap-year-bug-is-history/
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/12/microsoft-still/
http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/meGSAugqYGKxlEMVLDtePEEQweFFdtSM
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6215590.html