Sony Pulls Latest PlayStation 3 Update Bricking Consoles (UPDATE)

Sony's latest update to PlayStation 3, version 4.45, has reportedly been bricking some consoles. It's since been pulled off by the company.

An alert came from many gaming blogs, such as Joystiq, to warn gamers before updating the system

A new firmware update for the PS3 is live, but a significant number of reports indicate it's locking users out of their systems. Posters on the official PS3 Support forum noted they couldn't boot their systems after the update, and some users said restoring file systems didn't resolve the issue.

Not every system was affected by the update, and it's unknown what exactly triggered the issues. Sony then responded to Joystiq with the following statement.

"We are aware of reports that the recent PlayStation 3 system software update (version 4.45) has caused the XMB to not display on a small number of PS3 systems. We have temporarily taken 4.45 offline and are investigating the cause of the problem. We will announce when the system update is available for download as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience."

While I have PlayStation Plus, I am unsure whether or not my system updated to the latest version but it was working fine as of late last night. Usually subscribers set the auto-updates in the middle of the night, and it's likely that Sony pulled the update before many consoles could perform the update.

Those that were affected by the update should contact Sony and be patient. Since it's just a software issue with the XMB, it shouldn't be hard to recover the system with a USB drive in the next update.

Still, the hassle is there for consumers, and should be a reminder that every firmware update needs to be thoroughly examined before being released.

UPDATE: Here's a way that unfortunate updaters can "un-brick" their console.

[Source: Joystiq]
[Image credit: Flickr/marc falardeau]