SegaShiro: Pure SEGA HARDCORE! The Sega Saturn Archive / Sega Dreamcast / Sega Archive

If you remember back to a time in 2008 when 30 GB Zunes all over the bricked themselves on a single day – it turns out that the ARM Syscon cpu chip responsible for that terrible moment of chaos was also responsible for 8 out of 11 PS3 skus locking up the other day.

The chip has had known issues with dealing with leap years and RIMM and Microsoft have had to issues patches for these errors on Blackberry device and Zunes (respectively).

The problem was not due to PSN as everyone thought (including us) but rather the chip included in several models of the PS3. The system uses the small chip to control many of the PS3′s minor tasks. The clock righted itself when enough time had passed and there was a hardware fix that required opening up the console.

Many consoles were troubled, according to the Digital Foundry, who frowned on Sony’s relative silence during the matter:

“This isn’t just thousands or tens of thousands of units, it’s surely millions of them worldwide. While an internet-delivered mandatory firmware update could have solved the problem, it’s difficult to imagine how Sony would have handled the multitudes of these units in homes with limited or non-existent internet connectivity…In the here and now, the problem has righted itself and a patch for the ARM controller can be incorporated at Sony’s own pace into a future firmware update. Internally the company must surely be relieved about the bullet it has dodged.”

I hope the ApocalyPS3 won’t happen again.  I quite enjoy the PS3 as a system. Check out the full Digital Foundry article on Eurogamer: here.

_{[Source: Eurogamer]}