Fixing the problem would take longer than just waiting it out, says the game’s developers.
While Sony has managed to get PSN back up and running again, the PSN Store is still out of action, and that’s proving problematic in more ways than one. PS3 players of the newly released Dirt 3 have been unable to redeem the game’s online pass – which is a requirement if they want to play online – and Codemasters says there’s not a lot it can do about it.
While some developers have been able to temporarily remove the online pass stipulation from their PS3 games, Codemasters said that for Dirt 3 the code requirement is “hard-coded” into the game, and altering it would take far too long. “Changing this would require considerable development time and a patch which would need to go through the submission process,” Codemasters said in a statement. “This in itself would be a longer process that waiting for Sony to bring the PSN Store back online.”
Sony hasn’t set a firm date for when the PSN Store will be restored, although it says it is aiming to have it back online by the end of the month. This situation also neatly illustrates one of the biggest potential problems with online passes, in that they leave players at the mercy of outside bodies to be able to get full functionality out of their games. Players getting locked out of content isn’t going to happen that often, but it clearly can happen, and that’s something that developers and publishers need to take into account.
Source: Eurogamer
Published: May 26, 2011 10:32 am