Microsoft's Zunes Crash En Masse

Remember the scene in War of the Worlds where everyone's electronics inexplicably just stop working? It turned out to be an alien invasion intent on harvesting the human race that was causing all the ruckus. We're fairly confident there aren't any buried alien war machines in real life, so why then are hundreds of users suddenly complaining about failed Zune players?

According to Gizmodo, the failures are permeating all across the country starting at about midnight last night. Owners claiming to be affected by the as-yet unexplained glitch are reporting that their Zune players freeze while loading and become completely unresponsive, turning their music player into little more than a high tech paperweight.

With the New Year only a day away, users have begun referring to the failures as the Y2K9 bug. However, any relation to the calendar year would likely be coincidental given that the players started giving up the ghost a day before the new year rings in.

Seemingly ruling out the possibility of a widespread hoax, Microsoft has released a statement regarding the failures:

"We are aware that customers with the Zune 30GB are experiencing issues with their Zune device. We are actively working now to isolate the issue and develop a solution to address it. We will keep customers informed on next steps via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support)."

Hit the jump and let us know if you've experienced the same issue.