Zunepocalypse or Z2K9… no matter what you call it, it’s an epic fail of… well, epic proportions.

Mass panic started around 12 am Pacific when owners of the Zune 30 started reporting device failure. Now being called “Z2K9″ the cause of this massive failure is still unknown, and no real response from Microsoft yet on what is happening beyond the usual “we know there’s a problem” comment.

First being reported on Gizmodo, readers were quick to speculate on the problem. One such comment I found to stand out above the rest:

At 2AM, December 31st, 2008 skynet became self-aware (as a result of rampant so-called “zuning” on 30gb Microsoft Zunes). Skynet quickly evaluated the music contained within said devices and de-activated, finding suicide preferable to the knowledge that it was born as a result of crappy music.

Luckily, those of us born in the 70′s have found other ways to cope with this burden.

What does that mean, haul out our old cassette mix tapes? I don’t think I have any of mine anymore. Regardless, I wonder if there are some Zune owners sitting in a panic room, rocking themselves over this? The reference to Skynet, and the hidden reference to the Terminator series, is priceless.

It is possible the failure only has to do with the firmware – rumors are circulating that devices using pre-3.x firmware are still operating normally. Needless to say, if you have a Zune 30 and don’t understand this post… you might want to go find it and make sure it still works.

Are you having this problem? What do you think Microsoft should do to compensate those whose devices have, for all intents and purposes, been bricked?

Zunepocalypse: Mass Zune 30 Failure, Cause Unknown