I bought a copy of Soul Calibur 3 for the PS2, and the following day, I found out that there's a bug in the game which can cause you to lose all your data on your memory card. That is, not only will you lose your saved progress in the Soul Calibur 3 game, but you'll lose all the data on all other games, such as DDR, Metal Gear Solid, etc.

Namco Japan has announced that the the Japanese versions of the game which are affected have the serial numbers SLPS-25577 1 or SLPS-25577 2, and you can contact them to get a replacement disc which does not have this flaw. Namco USA has not yet even admitted that there is a flaw, let alone announced how to know if your North American version is affected or not. The serial number on my disc is SLUS-21216.

I contacted Namco's live support chat system, and here's the log:

Chat Information: Please wait for a site operator to respond.

Chat Information: You are now chatting with 'Brian'

Brian: Thank you for contacting Namco's Live Support. How may I help you?

Nebu: There seems to be a bug in SC3 which can lead to corruption of your save game. With the Japanese version, CDs with the serial SLPS-25577 1 or SLPS-25577 2 are affected. Do you know what CDs are affected in the north american versions?

Brian: I'm sorry, I do not have that information available.

Brian: This service is mainly designed to provide hints and tips for games.

Nebu: Oh.

Nebu: Alright thanks.

Brian: Thank you for visiting.

Chat Information: Chat session has ended.

There's no timestamps, but the timing is basically that Brian greeted me, and there was a long pause as I typed up all that text. Then there was a long pause before Brian said he didn't know. The rest was "normal paced", except that the Brian closed the chat session immediately after "Thank you for visiting" which sort of felt like being hung up on. Most chat-based technical support I've used had the other party ask if there was anything else I could help them with before ending the session (in fact, I'm pretty sure any decent company would train their employees to ask this). It'd be a bit paranoid, but not unreasonable, to imagine that Brian asked his supervisor what to do about this question and was told to end it as quickly as possible. He didn't ask if there was any other info, as that would have given me a chance to ask who I could contact about this.

Now I'm on eBay looking to buy a cheap PS2 memory card that I'll use solely for Soul Calibur 3. Froogle tells me I can get them for $14US, but all the stores in Montreal seem to sell it at $40CAD.