News spread on Tuesday that a bug similar to Y2K sunk its teeth into Sony’s older ‘fat’ (or if we’re being PC, ‘horizontally challenged’) Playstation 3. As owners prepared themselves for the prospect of losing their saved games and being unable to play online, I couldn’t help but snigger.

Many couldn’t even play in offline mode, leaving frustrated gamers wondering what was causing the baffling ‘8001050F’ error.

The bug, dubbed the ApocolyPS3, occurred when the PS3’s internal clock switched to February 29, evidently causing the system much confusion as that date doesn’t exist this year.

The latest fiasco will have left the powers that be at Sony with faces redder than the gamers who couldn’t get their fix and whose hours of hard work (OK, play) might have gone to waste.

In a statement, Sony said: “If you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.”

Frustrated by the whole affair, gamers turned to social media to vent their anger. One comment on CVG said: “I cannot play any games, cannot log on to PSN. Your silence is doing nothing to help the situation. Looks like there is going to be millions of dead PS3′s all over the world with no fix in sight. Sony, you have just screwed up big time.” A video on YouTube called ‘How to fix PS3 error 8001050F’ showed an owner simply unplugging his PS3 and transferring the cables to an Xbox 360, whilst members of Facebook groups such as ‘I’m a victim of the PS3 Y2K bug’ offered more sensible advice.

Gamers were later left wondering why Sony failed to explain how they resolved the issue during an apology. It was later revealed that it fixed itself without any intervention from Sony. This sounds to me like a company that hasn’t got full control over and knowledge of its own hardware.

As the PS3 community flocked to forums for guidance in the wake of the crisis, it became apparent that saved games and ‘Trophies’ (an achievement tracking system) could be restored – no doubt accompanied by many sighs of relief.

Of course, the cynic in me wonders whether the whole episode was just an attempt by Sony to get everyone to upgrade to the newer, slimmer version of the PS3.

Tags: Facebook, Kaizo, Playstation 3, PR, PS3, Sony, Y2K, YouTube

On Wednesday Kaizo ran a successful messaging session with 300 top executives from across Europe for a large multinational corporate. The team pulled off the challenging task of capturing all 300 on video as a way of helping them to develop key messages. The activity also demonstrated that new technologies (in this case, Flip Videos) make it easy for everyone to use video to present themselves and the brands/ companies they represent not just in campaigns but every day. And it’s crucial as this is what customers will expect very soon.

Take the example of my 2 year old. She has a weekly video call on Skype with my parents, both in their late seventies, sunning themselves in Cape Town, which far from being confusing for her (or them for that matter), is accepted as being the norm. And when her baby brother was born recently, it was a video of the two of them playing that the Grandparents were asking for.

Accessible technology has enabled brands to turn into everyday broadcasters, and the audience is ready, waiting, willing and able.

Tags: Brands, Broadcasting, flip video, Technology, video