Sony Confirms Firmware Withdrawal After PS3 'Bricking'

by Rob Walker | July 3, 2008 at 03:28 pm | 840 views | 15 comments

While the Playstation 3 is a great system, has a blu-ray player and some fun games, some users got a surprise when they updated the most recent firmware: it stopped working.

The firmware is basically the software that runs the drives and such, tells it how to power up, what controllers are connected, what tv is hooked up, etc.

None of those things were apparently working after the update was downloaded. Sony quickly pulled the update and is inspecting it for any issues.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch, called the firmware incident a black eye for Sony that will continue to raise quality-control questions until the company can come up with some answers about what and why it happened.

"No one wants to have their PS3 turned into a PS paperweight, which is apparently what happened to some users," Gartenberg said. "Sony was wise to immediately pull the update for general availability so no one else is affected by it. An official firmware upgrade put out by the company should never, ever damage the user's hardware."

It's not uncommon for firmware updates to go wonky, and apparently Sony's 2.4 PS3 update is no exception. The PlayStation forums are scattered with various reports of bricked PS3s—users report that upon booting their system, the SIXAXIS controller will not sync and the video signal is blank with no sound. Unfortunately, you can never tell how widespread these issues are when the sampling is just one messageboard. And I've updated my 60GB launch unit without issue. Suckers.

"I downloaded version 2.40 ... and I get a black screen forever," one customer wrote. The problem was first reported by the video game site Joystiq.

A Sony spokesman confirmed that the company pulled the firmware off its servers while it investigated the problem.

"In order to further assess the issue, we have temporarily taken the firmware offline for further testing," the spokesman said, though only a "limited number of consumers" experienced the problem.

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hikes

at 15:31 on July 3rd, 2008

good stuff:

Rob Walker, thanks for posting this!

I was so lost and confused about what a firmware was. Thanks for explaining!

JeffHuang

at 20:16 on July 3rd, 2008

Thank goodness I didn't do any updates! So the ones that did the update had their PS3 ruined?

thejerico247

at 22:46 on July 3rd, 2008

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thejerico247

at 22:47 on July 3rd, 2008

all of my friends ps3 were bricked cept mine

mine is the sole survivor lol

dsky

at 23:27 on July 3rd, 2008

dsky has contributed a photo to this story.

dsky

at 23:27 on July 3rd, 2008

For the record, my ps3 has not been bricked by 2.40.

dioramist

at 23:39 on July 3rd, 2008

I think this PS3 could buy three or four more.

dioramist has contributed a photo to this story.

Andrew Harrington

at 00:17 on July 4th, 2008

I havn't gotten around to download the new firmware update for my playstation 3 60gb. I actually have heard that the update works fine on the 80gb ps3's.

GemMoth

at 02:43 on July 4th, 2008

I'm a french user, so I have a different PS3. In France, they don't sell the 60 GB version. We only have a 40 GB version WHICH is not compatible with PlayStation 2 games. I've heard rumors that the firmware caused more problems in the US. I don't know much. Personaly, I know no one who got this problem. Here the PS3 costs 399 euros... which is about 260 US dollars. So, I pay more and my upgraded (2.40) PS3 haven't been affected, but I'm not very happy when I see what Sony does. Now I'll be more cautious, I'll wait a days before upgrading firmwares.

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Wyckthöor

at 08:43 on July 4th, 2008

Thank god I haven't installed the 2.40 firmware yet. Unfortunately, here in Brazil, there's no official Sony support. So I guess I'll wait for Sony to fix this problem... Anyway, the Xbox 360 had a similar problem some time ago, if I'm not mistaken.

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cifra

at 10:21 on July 4th, 2008

Truth is, Sony has been excellent in costumer service to me, so far. I got my PS3 replaced twice already (despite the timing, but they say it's difficult to find a 60Gb nowadays). Also, didn't have any problems when I had problems with my PSP.

Having said that, it's really worrysome they would allow such a deficient firmware to be distributed WITHOUT testing it first... I still prefer to "risk" my money to Playstation rather than to XBox 360 (with also worrysome problems plus the "doubts" that Microsoft always inspire me) or Nintendo Wii (seems cheaper at first glance but once you get into the extra gadgets the price skyrockets)

Leoyde

at 06:08 on July 8th, 2008

yeah, I had this problem after updating to 2.40. UK Sony care seemed to know nothing of the issue but a fly around the web shows its worldwide. Have reset the system since the weds of the update and its ok at the moment although I am starting gaming at the beginning. At least my purchases are stored via PSN so I didn't lose out financially...

Backup your game saves!

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Anonymous (not verified)

at 02:00 on July 9th, 2008

I upgraded to the newest firmware this afternoon (7/8). I wish I paid attention to what version it was. All I know is, I left my PS3 and TV on to do the download and upgrade and went away for several hours. When I got back, I have a blank screen. The PS3 no longer responds to the PS button on the controller, and powering it off and back on revealed that I have no sound either.

Leoyde, how did you reset the system when the screen is blank? I don't care if I lose all my game memory (fortunately I'm not in the middle of any game) - I just want to get my PS3 working again.

Anonymous (not verified)

at 05:32 on July 9th, 2008

i downloaded update 2.4, no problems so far!....none of my mates had issues either....

it is great not having quit games to read and send emails...

hope the guys at sony sort it soon firr everyone

Patrick Eddy (not verified)

at 16:39 on July 27th, 2008

I updated my 40GB to 2.4.1 2 weeks ago and everything worked well until today, then my controllers would quit working once the game started. Everything would be fine until trying to actually start the game then pressing the start button had absolutely no effect. After restarting the system several times I finally reassociated one controller to position one and was able to start the game with that one. Never had that problem before. I was always able to just grab any controller and run with it. Anyone else ran into this problem?