Pokemon GBA Bugs Out, Internal Clock To Blame

Thanks to 1UP for their article revealing the popular GameBoy Advance titles Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire have a time-unlocked glitch that's just been activated in Japan, since the game has features based on how long it's been played, and Nintendo have discovered there's "...an issue with its internal clock that can disable certain gameplay systems after a year's worth of playtime." Specifically, you can plant trees in-game which "eventually bear fruit, which you then feed to your pet monsters to cause them to evolve in useful and interesting ways." Unfortunately, after a year from the game's start date, "those trees are unable to grow." Nintendo has "...invited Japanese players to bring or send their game cartridges to one of many service centers around the country. The service centers will apply a patch that corrects the issue and return the fixed copy of the game free of charge." Finally, Nintendo of America have commented "The earliest the issue could appear [in the U.S.] is March 2004, which is the one year anniversary of the first sale in North America."

Comments

Re:I hope...

[Unholy_Kingfish]

How many people can his possibly affect? How much can you do in a video game in a 8,544 hours? It boggles the mind.

I guess you have never seen a child playing Pokeman?

03/'04 - Nevar Forget

[Mr. Darl McBride]

It was March of 2004. The start of the Pokecaust.

Food would not grow, and Pikachu began to look for new food sources...