by: Brandon Hill
PS3 game Trophies
2.40 firmware bricks some PS3 consoles
Many rejoiced late last night when Sony posted the 2.40 firmware update for the Playstation 3. The 2.40 brought a number of improvements to the platform including in-game XMB accesses, a new Trophy system similar in concept to Xbox 360 Achievements, and the ability for gamers to use music playlists within games (provided that the game developers provides a patch to support the feature).
Shortly after the update went live, many users began reporting problems with the update. A thread over at the official Playstation 3 forums is currently up to 61-pages and is filled with a number of irate owners.
According to Kotaku, the update is causing some controllers to malfunction, and in many cases, it bricks the system altogether. All Playstation 3 systems -- 20GB, 40GB, 60GB, and 80GB -- have an equal chance in having problems with the update, so no one is safe.
There are currently numerous theories and workarounds being proposed by forum-goers, but no one fix has been found to fix everyone's 2.40 firmware woes.
Because of the widespread problems, Sony decided to pull firmware update. In a statement released this afternoon, the company said, "In order to further assess the issue, we have temporarily taken the firmware offline for further testing. We are working diligently to isolate the problem for those few consumers and to identify a solution before we put the firmware back up."
No other details were provided on when the "fixed" 2.40 firmware will be uploaded or if a 2.41 firmware will simply be issued to address the problems at hand.
