Depending on which message board or review you read, Nintendo and Team Ninja's Metroid: Other M is either the worst or the best game ever made. And while we could quarrel over its quality until the end of time, there's at least one thing about Other M that cannot be called into dispute: the presence of its game-breaking bug. Once you grab the Ice Beam, do not go backwards and kill the spiked enemy rather than proceeding forward through the nearest door. If you do, your save will be broken and you'll be unable to keep going in the story.
 
Nintendo has acknowledged this bug and is now offering a fix, according to MTV. Just don't expect that fix to be convenient.
 

Nintendo Service Center "Metroid Other M" Dept
56 Kaguraden Ogura-cho
Uji, Kyoto 611-0042
Japan  

Depending on which message board or review you read, Nintendo and Team Ninja's Metroid: Other M is either the worst or the best game ever made. And while we could quarrel over its quality until the end of time, there's at least one thing about Other M that cannot be called into dispute: the presence of its game-breaking bug. Once you grab the Ice Beam, do not go backwards and kill the spiked enemy rather than proceeding forward through the nearest door. If you do, your save will be broken and you'll be unable to keep going in the story.
 
Nintendo has acknowledged this bug and is now offering a fix, according to MTV. Just don't expect that fix to be convenient.
 

Nintendo Service Center "Metroid Other M" Dept
56 Kaguraden Ogura-cho
Uji, Kyoto 611-0042
Japan  

I'm just going to venture a guess that not a lot of people are going to take Nintendo up on that offer.

I just ended up starting over, sigh Nintendo..

Way to go Nintendo. 
So console patches don't sound so bad now...

" Way to go Nintendo. So console patches don't sound so bad now... "

It's 2010 and people have to physical mail a few kilobytes of data half-way around the world so that Nintendo can give them a fix. I just don't know what to say.

Well maaaaaaaybe if their console had a little bit better support for online connectivity and patching and so forth just like every other major gaming platform out there then maaaaaaaaaaaaybe this wouldn't''ve been an issue.

Hahahaha pathetic.

Wow...

It's the perfect solution to that problem. I wish I could have come up with that. Clever, Nintendo.

This just so that nintendo can say "we did give people a solution to fix the save, so now you can no longer give us shit" (even tho this solution is out of the question for 99% of the people getting the problem)

Will they fix the broken gameplay as well?

Nintendo is ALWAYS late to the tech party. They  have to be the most stubborn video game company EVER. They never commit to relevant modern technology. Example, while car is a HUGE success and has been for 10 years, the car company Nintendo is still using Dog Sleds and a Motion controlled commands. 

i'd rather just read a guide and figure out how to avoid it. In my first playthrough I managed to avoid it, hopefully I won't run into it on my second one.

didnt realize about that bug. cmon, nintendo, why are you so scared of giving us proper consoles withe actual Hard Drives!

Someone needs to do this. Just for my amusement and too see how long that SD card will be gone.

haha holy shit nintendo needs to get with the times. 

The only winning move is not to play

I once had a similar issue with Twilight Princess. It's in that cave area with the archeologist, I got stuck there. Thankfully I had a save a couple of hours back. It was annoying but at least it was not completely borked like this case.

Of all the sites that reported this yesterday (and it was also discussed in the Giant Bomb forums), the credit for the source is given to MTV?! Really?! Not even 1Up or something?
 
Also, it's not just the SD Card. People can choose to send an SD card with a copy of their save or their actual console. That's nuts. Imagine if you had to ship your PS3 back to get a save game issue with Warhawk or whatever fixed?

" Of all the sites that reported this yesterday (and it was also discussed in the Giant Bomb forums), the credit for the source is given to MTV?! Really?! Not even 1Up or something?
 
Also, it's not just the SD Card. People can choose to send an SD card with a copy of their save or their actual console. That's nuts. Imagine if you had to ship your PS3 back to get a save game issue with Warhawk or whatever fixed? "

Nintendo is ALWAYS late to the tech party. They  have to be the most stubborn video game company EVER. They never commit to relevant modern technology. Example, while car is a HUGE success and has been for 10 years, the car company Nintendo is still using Dog Sleds and a Motion controlled commands. 

I want a corrupted save just to send it in and see what happens.  I bet they send it back with hella free stickers!

Why don't they just make a save file available for download? Have it include all the items up to that point that a player could/should have, even if they weren't found by the player. I know this opens up an exploit. But, we didn't screw up the game either.

" @Branthog said:

" Of all the sites that reported this yesterday (and it was also discussed in the Giant Bomb forums), the credit for the source is given to MTV?! Really?! Not even 1Up or something?
 
Also, it's not just the SD Card. People can choose to send an SD card with a copy of their save or their actual console. That's nuts. Imagine if you had to ship your PS3 back to get a save game issue with Warhawk or whatever fixed? "

GB are MTV's butt buddies "

Can I send Nintendo back the game itself and have them fix the gawdawful story?

LOL, couldn't they just put up a Windows and Mac supported app that can patch your SD card save for you? 
 
I <3 Japan.

is it 1985 again?

" @garyoldman

Nintendo is ALWAYS late to the tech party. They  have to be the most stubborn video game company EVER. They never commit to relevant modern technology. Example, while car is a HUGE success and has been for 10 years, the car company Nintendo is still using Dog Sleds and a Motion controlled commands. 

Yeah, Nintendo was SO late to the motion control party. Are you trying to be serious? "

Didn't the Power Glove come out before the Activator?

" @wrathofconn said:

" @garyoldman

Nintendo is ALWAYS late to the tech party. They  have to be the most stubborn video game company EVER. They never commit to relevant modern technology. Example, while car is a HUGE success and has been for 10 years, the car company Nintendo is still using Dog Sleds and a Motion controlled commands. 

Yeah, Nintendo was SO late to the motion control party. Are you trying to be serious? "

They actually were:    

  
 
Yeah, that Sega. "

Are they paying for the shipping? If they are, hell, I'll break a save intentionally just to make them actually do it. 
 
If they're not [paying shipping], they certainly should be. It certainly shouldn't be the customer's responsibility to pay for their mistake.

I have a feeling Nintendo only did this because they knew that nobody with a brain would bother sending something all the way to Japan just because they lost a few hours of game time. It means less time spent fixing saves on their part, and they all get to laugh about it in the office. Oh, Nintendo, you so sneaky.

Just gotta Love how Nintendo treats there fans, Love it!

" Just gotta Love how Nintendo treats there fans, Love it! "

Game breaking bug?
Guess I was lucky then.

Jeez, even my iPhone games have title updates. Get with the times Nintendo.

I remember back in the mid to late 90s I had an issue with a PC save game (Sam & Max, maybe?). Even then I was able to get help by emailing the save game to a support person who promptly replied back to me with a fixed save file.
 
I guess it's better than nothing but this an archaic solution to say the least.

really seems like a problem that'd be non-existent if the system had some capable online interactions. Oh how we have become jaded by patches. Sure starting a game to fins it needs to download an update can be irritating, but situations like this are why they are done.

so many better ways of handling this. how about patching the game? how about asking users to upload the save file to a server? how about just hosting the fixed file? what the fuck is this shit?

Wonderful. If it had been anyone but Nintendo, they'd have the patch out by now and this'd be a non-issue. But Nintendo doesn't need to live in the modern age, right? Right?

" Why don't they just make a save file available for download? Have it include all the items up to that point that a player could/should have, even if they weren't found by the player. I know this opens up an exploit. But, we didn't screw up the game either. "

Someone should upload and distribute the patched save file on a website. 

Somebody needs to send Japan the Haynes guide for the internet.

Agreed, just offer the save file up on your website, may not be a great solution but sending your sd card off to japan?

I realized as I read about this glitch a couple days ago that I had just saved my game right after getting the ice beam.... and not going through the referenced door. 
 
Sure enough the "rare" bug is exactly where I left off, and I can't fathom listening to Samus whine like a 5 year old throughout the first few hours again. 
 
I am horrified that I just wrote that about a Metroid game. Thanks for really fucking up my Metroid, Team Ninja; shame on you Nintendo for not paying the needed attention to this game, bug and all.

For what little I can impact this fiasco, I will not be including "other M" in my personal list of proper Metroid games. Maybe as a gaming community we can banish this thing from existance.