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Tag Archives: Broken Stuff

Rush Album on Rock Band Broken, Pulled

I was all types of excited for “Moving Pictures” by Rush hitting Rock Band. I was sick all day yesterday, so it wasn’t even a thought in my mind. But today, I find out I have to wait. Apparently the album’s release has been marred with technical issues.

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen technical difficulties, we won’t be able to release Rush’s “Moving Pictures” this week. We’ll be working on it as hard as we can, but it looks like it could be a couple of weeks to fix. In the meantime we will be moving around our schedule so we still have DLC coming out each week (including this week, info to follow in another announcement).

Boo on that. Guess it’ll be a while. But it looks like we might be getting something this week. No word yet, but we’ll keep you posted. My guess is that it will go up tomorrow, since it’s the only time the PlayStation Store gets updated.

Konami Won’t Sell MGO Expansion in 30 Countries

Metal Gear Online Screen

Oh, Konami. The problems just keep piling up. Yet another one that could have been easily solved by using the PSN and PlayStation Store. The Gene Expansion pack cannot be sold in 30 countries (the PS3 is sold in these countries and they can purchase from the PlayStation Store).

According to Konami’s website, the following countries cannot puchase anything from their online store:

Andorra, Bahrain, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Gibraltar, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta & Gozo, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Vatican

That’s a lot of places, some pretty large, that Konami is ostrocizing. The entire country of Russia? Come on now. I really hope Sony takes the initiative to force developers to use the PSN for online portions of titles. We need to avoid this type of thing in the future. The fact that all this is happening with a Game of the Year candidate makes it that much worse.

No Fix in Sight for Broken Metal Gear Online Expansion

Metal Gear Online Screen

It only gets worse for Konami… The botched launch of the Gene Expansion for Metal Gear Online will continue to suffer as they can’t figure out what the problem is. Yeah, good times.

This is yet another perfect reason to have a unified service. Had this expansion (and all online aspects of Metal Gear) been handled by the PSN and the PlayStation Store, this issue should not have occured.

Sadly, I think Konami just lost a lot of MGO players permanently. Why dedicate yourself to a game that’s going to break every month?

Metal Gear Online Expansion Release Botched

mgo.jpg

Oh, Konami. You just can’t seem to get the online right with Metal Gear, can you? First we had all the issues with the Konami ID, then only getting one character, and now the Gene Expansion just released is causing major troubles.

The MGO Shop and new Reward Shop are both up and down (mostly down) with some players reporting having purchased the Gene Expansion but not receiving anything. Seriously, why can’t this all be tied into the PSN? Have everything on the PlayStation Store, not in some web page shop you have to access with the PS3 Browser.

To top it all off, Konami is blocking random strings of IP addresses from accessing the shops and even the game. Most people I’ve spoken with have had major trouble playing MGO over the past few days. If things like this keep happening, I’d expect people to stop playing Metal Gear Online completely. Why go through all the hassle when there are online games just as good that work easier?

Xbox 360 Number 10 Has Arrived

Loot Ninja Faceplate on my Xbox 360

Number one through nine obviously didn’t pan out. All died from either disc read errors or the Red Ring of Death. Number 9, a Falcon, suffered the dreaded RRoD a little over a week ago. Finally, I have a replacement Elite. It’s obviously a Falcon, so I can only hope this one works out better than the last Falcon that crapped the bed on me.

Everyone keep their fingers crossed that Xbox 360 stops hating me. I really don’t want to have to replace it again.

And So It Ends… RIP Xbox 360 Number 9

RRoD

This is just very very annoying. While playing some Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Beta yesterday, my Xbox 360 went all RRoD on me. I made a sad face. I have the Best Buy warranty for a reason, but come on. I had such confidence in this one after Max’s marathon Halo 3 sessions.

I let the poor sick console sit overnight and tried to fire it up today, hoping it was just a fluke. Nope, she’s gone. Unfortunately, my Best Buy is out of Elites right now, so I have to wait until the end of the week when they hopefully get more in stock. You won’t be seeing me online for the next few days on Xbox Live. She was a Falcon, too. She’ll be sorely missed. To quote my article the last time a console died:

It’s not like I treat it like crap. It’s babied. My Xbox 360 has it’s own shelf in the entertainment center, with full ventilation from the front and rear. The power brick also sits on the shelf fully ventilated. The console is never moved when playing (in fact, it’s only moved a tiny bit once a week to dust). The console is kept perfectly clean, as are my other systems. I haven’t had any problems with my PS3 (save long install times) or my Wii. Never had problems with my PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube before that.

For the record, I’m tired of taking pictures of the Red Ring of Death when this happens. So you guys get to look an old RRoD from one of the Loot Ninja consoles.

24 Hours Later… Sony Still Working on Firmware 2.40

PS3 Firmware 2.40 XMB Trophies

It’s been a full 24 hours since the new firmware 2.40 was pulled from the update servers. We heard from Sony yesterday that they were looking into the issue, but that’s about it. A post on PlayStation.Blog saying the same was put up yesterday around 7:30pm ET. Nothing else has been said. What’s the deal?

We contacted Sony and have yet to hear back. It seems that they don’t want to comment on just what’s going on here, which leads me to believe they really aren’t sure what’s causing the issues. While a huge majority of people had no problems when installing v2.40, a few got bricked consoles (wouldn’t turn on, gave errors, etc.). It seems the problem lies somewhere in the install process.

Hopefully Sony drops word soon. I have a feeling the internet will go into an uproar when they release the PlayStation Store update and still don’t have a fix or any word about the firmware. We’ll keep you posted.

[Update] I just spoke with Jeff Rubenstein at Sony. He confirmed they are still working on the firmware.

We’re still examining the cause of the problem. We’ll announce as soon as we are ready to resume the system version update.

[Update 2] We received a link to the exact file that the PS3 checks for updates. This file still indicates version 2.36 as the current version. Check it out.

PS3 Firmware 2.40 Pulled from Update Servers

PS3 Firmware 2.40 XMB Trophies

I just spoke with Jeff Rubenstein over at Sony. Apparently the issues with firmware 2.40 are more widespread than we originally thought. Jeff wouldn’t confirm any numbers to me, but gave me this official statement:

Looking into it right now and will work with those customers directly to address any issues they may be experiencing.

I’m trying to get more information from him, but he’s not sharing. I think Sony is in lockdown mode trying to figure this one out. More as it develops…

[Update] I asked Jeff if a new firmware version would be issued and he didn’t want to comment. So even if 2.40 is working for you, a new update may be in store.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Beta Launched, Broken

SF2 HD Remix Screen

The SSFIITHDR Beta launched today on the Xbox 360 and some people are pissed off. Buy some people, I mean pretty much everyone playing the game. The Beta is locking up hardcore to the point where you have to power down your 360. Yikes. Worst part? Capcom has no plans to fix it.

“We will not be patching the beta… resubmissions would cost a fortune and not go live for weeks even if we had (MS would have to reapprove every submission). This isn’t like the PC where a developer can make changes daily (for good or ill). All feedback and bugs will be factored into the final code.”

So if you bought Wolf of the Battlefield for no reason other than to get into the Street Fighter Beta, you got screwed. Hard. With no lube. I haven’t attempted the play the Beta yet, but I’m not expecting much given the major problems being reported.

PAIN Updates Come Broken

Pain Screenshot

It seems the good folks over at Sony and Idol Minds just can’t release an update to PAIN without something breaking. Last time, the update didn’t come out for 2 days and the game was wonky. This time, network connectivity has been disabled in the game, meaning you can’t access community features or buy new characters in-game. According to developer comments on the official site:

there has been a power outage in Europe that affected the staging of content for our European brothers and sisters. This is being worked on at the moment, and as soon as it is resolved (9-10am London time is the estimate we were given), we will get the update out to Europe.

Now, they’re saying that because the update got borked in Europe, the US gamers who got the update can’t connect online. Yeah, crazy, I know. Since they plan on releasing another update for the game next week (and still more content is coming), I seriously hope this gets resolved ASAP. People can only take so much broken stuff.