January 11^th, 2006 (11:10am) - A week ago, a forum thread titled "WARNING: DOA4 has a major glitch" popped up on GameSpot’s community. The original poster, gintheplacetobe, said that he had spent hours going through all the story modes and unlocking almost all the characters. "I played a few more sessions after that, and then booted up the game again only to find out that all of my [DOA4] save data was gone," wrote gintheplacetobe. "All of my unlocked characters, costumes, leader-board achievements, online ranking, ALL GONE!"

Was gintheplacetobe’s experience an isolated case of bad luck, or a more widespread problem? As we know a few days later one of our very own board-dwellers lost the content of his entire hard drive! After a several-day lag, a Tecmo rep indicated that there is a problem with some copies of the game. "We’re aware of the issues you’re referring to," the rep told GameSpot. "We’re working to identify and resolve the potential problem with the technical folks at Microsoft." The rep said a patch would be coming soon. I suppose this is one reason the game wasn’t available at launch.

So what can DOA4 players do in the meantime to ensure their hard-fought DOA4 victories don’t vanish into thin air? Tecmo technical support says to do the following: (1) With your copy of DOA4 already inserted, turn on your 360 by pressing the "open tray" button. (2) Wait until all the information from your Gamer Profile is fully displayed on your Gamer Card, including achievements and other awards. (3) Close the tray again with DOA4 still inserted.