PSN server issues


I feel old saying this, but... back in my day things used to be a lot more simple. As a kid in the 90's when my parents bought me a game for the PS1, N64, or PS2 all I had to do was pop it in the system and play. There were no multi gigabyte installs, huge patch downloads, or any of this new-age nonsense. Games were shipped complete, and you didn't have to worry about buying an unfinished game.


Things have changed a lot since that time. These days we've become used to buying games that have significant issues at launch, only to be corrected with patches in the coming months. We're used to requiring a stable internet connection, even for single player games. We're also used to being pushed to spend more money after we've already forked out $59.99. 


There are very few upsides and a ton of frustrating downsides to this. Yes, you can expect a game that you like to become even better after launch, with added content and features, but also have to deal with a whole bunch of technological problems.



Such was the case this week when millions of people around the globe were introduced to new gaming consoles, whether it be the Switch, PS4, or Xbox One. While each has offered their own experience, they've all had one thing in common: huge updates and slow downloads that make you want to punch yourself in the throat.


There are so many people being added to each network that the servers just can't keep up. It's as if they've been invaded by some kind of virtual military, unable to keep composure as millions of digital swords pierce their armor. 



Also Read: A Look Back At The Insanity Of PlayStation 2's Launch Day



Due to this, you now have a large population of people who want to play their brand new console, yet have 17+ hour mandatory downloads to complete before being able to play. Instead of this being a week where people can relax, their patience is being tested to the absolute max.


As you can probably imagine, quite a few of them have taken to social media to release their frustration, as seen below:








While I personally didn't have to deal with updating a new console this year, I did have a problem of my own last weekend. A huge update for Gran Turismo Sport was released, which notably added a single-player campaign to the game. It was actually a big deal, and reason enough for me to be excited. Yet, upon completing a massive download, I encountered nasty errors. These errors effectively made the game unplayable.



As we would later come to find out, Sony's anti-DDoS protocols were mistakenly blocking connections to their Gran Turismo servers as they thought the incredible surge of traffic was an attack from Lizard Squad. The end result was more than 24 hours of the game being completely unplayable, including the offline single-player mode since it requires a connection for saves. Nice!


We might have amazing graphics, consumer grade virtual reality, and so many game releases every month that it's impossible to keep up, but even then I miss when things were more simple. Why does everything have to be so complicated?