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Pokemon GBA Bugs Out, Internal Clock To Blame

Posted by simoniker on from the time-travel-testing dept.

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."

8 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. I guess this explains how console titles patch by Qzukk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally, I'm glad Nintendo of Japan is providing this service to their users. Maybe things like this will get fewer buggy console titles out the door if it becomes expected that you'll exchange them for working titles.

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  2. I hope... by quandrum · · Score: 4, Interesting

    this problem doesn't appear in March. To play a single game for a substantial portion of a day everday for a year is... yikes.

    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.

    1. Re:I hope... by Unholy_Kingfish · · Score: 5, Funny
      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?

      --
      Fear Is the Only God
    2. Re:I hope... by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "To play a single game for a substantial portion of a day everday for a year is... yikes."

      Um... the internal clock is there so you don't have to play the game every day of the year for the game to know it's been a year since you first set the clock.

  3. Re:Here we go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dude, you are missing the point. On PC or Xbox a lazy publisher can release an unfinished game, because you can release a patch with minor inconvenience.
    This is going to be massively expensive for Nintendo. I expect they just copy the savegame to the latest version of the cartridge. As the game code is stored in a masked rom, there isn't much they can patch.

  4. Interesting insight to the cartrridge... by stienman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds like the cartridge might be flashable, then? If so, it's a cheap way to get a flash cartridge, if we can figure out how to program it.

    Is the real time clock in the cartridge itself? It must be if you can use the game on one gameboy, then resume gameplay on another gameboy. Could make for some interesting hacks.

    -Adam

  5. Re:Here we go by unclethursday · · Score: 4, Informative
    because there is NO SUCH thing for the Xbox. Downloadable content only adds to the experience, it doesn't fix it if it's broken. Otherwise we'd have seen a patch for KOTOR months ago, since it is LIVE enabled.

    Please see Unreal Championship, Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO, NFL 2K3, Crimsons Skies, and a host of other Live games that have been patched. UC and CvSNK were the only two games that were publically announced as having patches (tarnishing MS' promise of no patches on XBL); but Microsoft does mandate that all XBL games have the ability to be patched.

    Instead of announcing a patch, publically, what will happen when you try to connect to XBL when a patch is available is that you will get is a screen that says "Xbox Live has an update available, you will not be able to connect to Xbox Live until this update is installed." Yet, if you pop in another XBL game, you can connect fine. That's how they're hiding the patches now.

    XBL has patches. You just didn't realize you were seeing them.

  6. Nintendo has always had excellent tech support by dancingmad · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of course I'm talking about NOA, but every experience I've had with them has led me to believe that the NOA tech people really put the customer first. They'll chat with you about games, etc. and tell you whats up with bugs and things on the line. They even replaced a couple of N64 controllers for me (one with out me even having to send it back!)

    My personal favorite console tech support thing is when Capcom's Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo for the SNES would freeze older SNES machines; they sent me a new model SNES and asked for the old to be shipped back to them, all free of charge for me. I did so and they sent a little token; coins featuring the SF2 characters. It's a cheap little thing, but I was a kid back than and really enjoyed it.

    It's not the same thing, but PC publishers could learn a thing or two from the guys over on the console side.

    --
    "There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)