Sony dodged a huge bullet with the panic caused on February 28th, as the now-infamous error 8001050F helped shut down or significantly limit original PlayStation 3"phat" consoles around the world.
But it appears that the danger has passed, thanks to the hefty consoles correcting themselves when March 1st came along on the affected system's clock. PS3 gamers are back on track and Sony is breathing a sigh of relief...but should they really? Pretty much everyone agrees that Sony didn't handle this well, as most saw their laid-back reaction to this virtual "crisis" a bit underwhelming. So what caused all this mess, anyway?
Keep reading for this and more!
It turns out there was a precedent for the issue, one that dates back to 2008. The PlayStation 3 "phat" consoles share a faulty ARM Syscon CPU chip with Microsoft's Zune hardware, and was the primary cause of that product's infamous 'crash' years back. The error was caused when the PS3's internal clock failed to take into account leap years, which meant the console was unable to sync time-stamped Trophies, or verify activation certificates. This left many without the ability to play newer titles, access the PSN, or in many cases, use their consoles at all.
Compounding things was Sony's assertion that the problem was related to the PlayStation Network itself, although their 'wait and see' approach to fixing the problem suggests they knew otherwise. As no firmware updates - both before and afterward - were issued on the firmware-friendly console, it does appear that Sony simply decided to let the issue run its course, knowing full well the situation was far from dire. This is all speculation, however, as the problem itself seems entirely fixed, and once-afflicted PS3 consoles are now back up and running. We may never know the whole story, but let's just hope such hiccups can be avoided in the future.
Thanks to Digital Foundry for the info!
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