… and they are blaming a ‘Leap Year Glitch’ for the problem. Read on for more!

According to Yahoo! Tech News:

Sony assured millions of users that a system bug halting play on older versions of the PlayStation 3 had been fixed. The company “verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally,” Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said on the PlayStation blog.

Apparently older systems registered 2010 as a Leap Year, and therefore the transition from February 28 to March 1st caused the problems.

We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units, other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally,” a note on Sony’s PlayStation blog reads.

While I have been reading on forums that folks are seeing that the issues have been resolved, there is also a lot of grumbling: Sony is already in ‘last place’ in terms of hardware and software sales this generation, and their online network is seen as a distant second to Microsoft’s XBOX Live. They also considerable amounts of the goodwill generated with the original Playstation on a PS2 generation handled with an attitude that is often described as arrogant, so this sort of pervasive issue doesn’t help their standing with gamers. We will have to wait and see if this grumbling subsides now that gamers can get back to gaming.

Source: Yahoo! Tech News