Sony's recent moves to end support for its previous consoles may have made some PS4 owners nervous, especially with the CBOMB system clock issue looming overhead. However, a new PS4 firmware update appears to have fixed the issue, which could have rendered all physical and digital PS4 games unplayable.

CBOMB is a portmanteau of CMOS, the small PS4 internal clock battery that plays an important role in determining whether or not PS4 owners can play their games. PS3, PS4, PS Vita, and PS5 consoles all rely on the accuracy of an internal clock to verify if console owners can play games, presumably to prevent gamers from exploiting trophies. On PS4, this extends to games on disc as well as digital titles. The CMOS is used to power the internal clock while the PS4 is disconnected from a power supply, but if the CMOS stops working and the console can't sync to a remote server, games and DLC will not boot – even if those games are on disc.

The name CBOMB came from PS4 owners' fears that if Sony ended support for the PS4 like the previous PlayStation consoles, the CMOS issue would render the console unusable. However, according to Twitter user @desgamesyt, it appears the company may have addressed this in the latest PS4 firmware update as of writing. Reportedly, gamers with the 9.0 PS4 firmware update are able to play games on PS4 with dead CMOS batteries without the games crashing on start-up and can even earn trophies, though the date and time the trophy was earned seems to be blank.

My date when booting my PS4 was 1969 and 5:00PM which is the default date and time the PS4 falls back on with a dead battery, so my battery is definitely still dead.

Also here’s a pic of a trophy I just earned, with the date and time earned being blank pic.twitter.com/ENOANw5afn

— Destruction Games (@desgamesyt) September 21, 2021

According to other Twitter users, the update also extends to digital games, which may be reassuring to PS4 owners who feared their consoles might get bricked in the future. The possibility that Sony could fix the CBOMB issue with an end-of-life firmware update has been brought up before, so it may not be that much of a surprise that the company appears to have implemented a fix. Now that a new PS5 is out, the PS4 may be on limited time.

As of writing, it appears that PS4 owners are very relieved by the new update and its associated fix. Sony's lack of regard for preservation and backward compatibility seems to have had many fans concerned about the future of the console and its titles. This firmware update may be a step toward keeping outdated PlayStation consoles in working order.



Posted: Sep 23, 2021 6:06 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/ps4-update-fixes-system-brick-error/