Sony has been warning users of its first generation of PlayStation 3 consoles to not use their machines while it fights to fix problems caused by a glitch in the PS3 hardware - a glitch that did not affect owners of the newer PS3 Slim machines.

The problem came to light yesterday, when users across the world began reporting that their PS3s wouldn't play games, nor would they log onto the PlayStation Network. Furthermore, reports were that earned trophies and such like had gone missing.

What was causing it all? Something not a million miles away from the good old Y2K bug. Basically, on March 1st, the PS3 system clock in those older machines was detecting the date as February 29th 2010, believing it to be a leap year. However, while the system clock was reporting that was the date, the operating system failed to recognise it. And that conflict led to many, many machines becoming unusable.

The core of the problem, it appears, is that the original PS3 was programmed to believe, for some reason, that every two years was a leap year, instead of every four. The last time it would have believed it was February 29th, back in 2008, it actually was a leap year, and thus this is the first time that the problem has come to light.

As it turned out, the machines have been going back to normal simply through the passage of time. As PS3s ticked over to March, or as users moved the system clock on to 2nd March, the problem was resolved. It was only while the PS3 system was reporting a date that the OS inside didn't believe existed that the machines would not work.

Sony is reporting now that things have gone back to normal, and no doubt has a fix in place to stop this happening again in four years' time...