(Warning) PS3 update 2.4 renders system useless

PC world ^ | July 03, 2008 | Ian Paul

[edzo4]

Sony has pulled the latest PlayStation 3 firmware update after complaints that it is causing problems with the game console and sometimes bricking (cannot function in any capacity) PS3s. It's unclear how widespread the problem is. Sony claims problems with its PS3 firmware (2.4) have only affected an isolated number of customers' machines.

There have been a number of people on the Sony PS3 forums who have described problems with the PS3 update made available just yesterday. One camp of PS3 users complain of their consoles are freezing up. Others have had better luck, but report once the firmware has been installed games such as Metal Gear Solid 4 will produce errors delivering a black screen.

No official word yet from Sony on the root of the problem or a fix. Sony will post updates to its official blog as more information becomes available.

As of this morning Sony has not said when it anticipates to have the problem solved or what, if anything, it is going to do to help out the users with bricked systems. In the meantime, you can see the effects of the 2.4 bug here.

[doorgunner69]

What the hell is a PS3? A Laptop or something?

[doorgunner69]

Never mind, I see it is a gen-X/Y/Z toy of some sort..........

[EasySt]

I happen to own 3 PS3’s, all updated to 2.40 without incident. I had also pinged my son and my brother to update theirs.

All of them are happily folding proteins, problem free after the update.

Sony pulled the 2.40 update, so if you missed it while it was available, no worries. For those that did update, but are still ok, there should be a new update soon.

[cdbull23]

Completely agree! I have a 360 and a Wii ... obviously, games on the 360 are going to look better. I love the 360, don't get me wrong, but like you said, the graphics don't make the game -- the GAMEPLAY does.

I mean, C'MON. Zelda: Twilight Princess is just an incredibly awesome game and the graphics are decent. Though the graphics may not be as great as those on the 360, the game itself is probably better than 90% of the games on the 360.

[HamiltonJay]

Agreed, Zelda is absolutely insane.. Metroid Prime 3 is also a great game... yes sadly there is a lot of crap out there for WII... but there was a TON of crap out there for PS2 as well... you get crap when you are the most popular system out there, hell you get crap no matter what.

Is Guitar Hero an insane cult following game because the graphics are great? Of course not, graphics for the game could be nothing more than dots appearing on the screen and nothing more and it would still have a huge following... (Frankly I’m amazed it took someone so damned long to figure out letting kids pretend they are rock stars might just be a winning formula for a game) Don’t think I am remotely against new games, or that I can’t appreciate great graphics, I can.. but they don’t make or break a game.. Gameplay matters.

Does BOOM BLOX break any graphical ground? Nope, but its definately a puzzler that would not even exist without the capabilities that WII brought to the home system. And yes, its fun too.

I freely admit I am not someone who plays games constantly, rarely do I anymore, but when I do, I want them to be fun. The fact I can enjoy them with my whole family as well is a huge benefit. The WII has been so successful because it isn’t a game you play by yourself with the lights out late at night against the computer or against someone over the internet. Its success has largely come because it makes gaming fun for the whole family.

Of course this isn’t overly suprising, Big N has been pushing the gaming as a group activity for years... MARIO PARTY etc... Now they’ve just gotten the hardware to a level where gameplay is intrisic to nearly anyone... no need to learn 14 button combinations to do the simplest things etc. So anyone truly can play.

I give them major Kudos, and they are being greatly rewarded for it.

I’m sure I’ll wind up a PSWii household eventually... when the cost of the PS3 isn’t so rediculous, and I have an HDTV and need a BD player.

[Nowhere Man]

Yeah, I’m sticking with my Intellevision until the technology stabilizes and proves itself.

Oops, forgot my smiley. BTW, do you still have an Intellevision? I still have my Atari 2600 and a Pong game somewhere. I also have one of those 94 in 1 game units as well.

[Nowhere Man]

also with PSP I can play my old PS games through the PS3 wireless connection from any wi-fi spot in the world a feature called remote play which is very cool

Ever get into Final Fantasy VII and VIII? Right now, I'm running Final Fantasy VII, I'm trying to breed me a Golden Chocobo.

[Nowhere Man]

Remember when the 2600 was just called the VCS?

Yeah, I believe mine says that, it is the four toggle switched model that came out in 1980/81. My friends had the old 6 toggle switched model that had a metal case. Theirs was branded "Sears Telegames" though, since that's what Sears rebadged their Atari systems.

[Sgt Joe Friday 714]

Oldschool!

[Publius Valerius]

Its success has largely come because it makes gaming fun for the whole family.

Agreed. My baby-boomer (almost too old to be so classified) parents visited me not long ago and played the Wii while they were there. They went out and bought one the next weekend, and these are people that had never played a video game in their life.

Years and years ago, there was a marketing speaker by the name of Mike Vance (I think he's still around). One of his stories was when he was tasked with selling chainsaws. He went to his marketing people and said "who are we going to get to buy chainsaws?" They said, "well, people that want chainsaws." He said, "we don't want to sell chainsaws to people that want chainsaws, we want to sell chainsaws to everybody."

Microsoft and Sony were the marketing people that said "we'll sell video game systems to people that want video game systems." Nintendo said "we'll sell to everybody." It's working out really well for Nintendo.

[Nowhere Man]

I’ve been playing games since the late 70s, and I know young folks who think they are “elite” gamers think graphics make a game, but I don’t remotely agree. There are great 8 bit games that from a pure enjoyment standard are far superior to the vast majority of crap published today for any hardware.

I’ll take original DK, Galaga or MS Pac Man anyday over 99% of the 20-50 hour mega crap put out today, and yes I own full size origional arcade versions of these. Yes there are good games today too, but most of it is complete wastes. Graphics don’t make a game, if they do, its a rather poor game to begin with IMHO.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy rachet and clank, and yes the graphical power of the device are impressive, but the graphics don’t make a game... and yes when the price point stops being absolutely absurd and I go to HDTV I’ll most likely buy a PS3 to serve the dual purpose of BD player and game system. However the Wii is way more fun for the whole family. Kids don’t just sit there on the couch mashing buttons for hours.. and nothing is more fun than an adult party after a few coctails and breaking out WarioWare Smooth Moves.

Agreed. I'll br 42 next Tuesday so we must be close to the same age. I have an Atari VCS/2600, a Pong set, a 94 in 1 handheld unit (has a lot of old 8-Bit Nintendo games on it with others), and a Playstation PSC. Economics affects me a bit in acquiring a PS2 or PS3, but I do enjoy the old PS1.

I'm playing Final Fantasy VII right now and one guy I talked to didn't like the graphics, the characters look like they have "Popeye arms" although they look more realistic when a movies is played or in a fight scene. Well, the game did come out in 1997 plus I think the storyline is great so graphics do take a back seat. I do admit you start off working for a group of eco-terrorists but it comes much more than that right away.

[HamiltonJay]

My Favorite PS1 game is still to this day one of my top 10 games of all time...

Spyro: The Year of the Dragon

Flying Penguins with Rocket launchers? Rhinoceruses slapping bears in tutus across the ice? What’s not to love?

[HamiltonJay]

This was the first home game system I had:

Later it was replaced with a 2600, and then by a C= 64...

The C= 8 bit days were still the most fun I have ever had programming (yes had the 128 too...) and I do it for a living... if only it were still that much fun...

Damned OO languages and code libraries... let me back at the chip registers and bits I tells ya...

[HamiltonJay]

Yep,

Sony and MS continued to go virticle... Nintendo went horizontal.. and they have forever changed the market.

[edzo4]

lol, wario ware smooth moves?

sorry I prefer my video games to present a fantasy type world not replace something I can do any day of the week and your kids are still STANDING inside mashing buttons instead of being out playing golf tennis etc. for real

weee lets play balance the broom

wario ware screenshot

simulating bowling or tennis etc with a stick figure is pretty lame, maybe if I was 5 years old it would entertain me for 5 minutes

but resistance fall of man

drakes fortune

heavenly sword

and metal gear solid 4

are some of the best games produced ever both for graphics and gameplay

as far as price wii bundled with mario galaxy is $399 same as the 40 gig PS3 of course the PS3 includes the HD Blu Ray dvd player which would cost another $300+ to purchase seperately and the wii games are $40 to $70 new same as PS3

resistance fall of man screenshot

any ways have fun with the broom I have a planet to save from an alien invasion

[Nowhere Man]

Spyro: The Year of the Dragon

Flying Penguins with Rocket launchers? Rhinoceruses slapping bears in tutus across the ice? What’s not to love?

Sounds cool, I'll have to keep my eye out for it. There is still a place around me that sells PS1 games. I also liked this one game called "Drol," it was for the Apple ][ series first and later ported to the Commodore-64 and Atari 400/800 series. You're this guy in a robot-like suit and you have to rescue a little girl, her pet alligator, her brother and his pet and finally Mom. Your opponents were these guys that look like headhunters, jumping scorpions that resemble "Garfield the Cat," flying snakes, flying turkeys (if you shoot one, you get a turkey dinner) and a whole butt-load of flying axes and swords. I might have it here somewhere.



Drol at Mobygames

I also remember "Jawbreaker" on the Apple as well where you are a mouth with teeth going around eating all the good food but if you hit a jawbreaker, your teeth fall out and you lose a life. At the end of every level a toothbrush comes out and brushes your teeth.

[HamiltonJay]

Yes, we get it you like sitting alone in a dark room alone mashing buttons, I enjoy interacting with other people in the same room while we play games together.

You seem to think that for someone to be pro Wii they must be anti-PS3. Not remotely true. Keep sticking to “graphics are king” arguement. I’ll keep watching Nintendo win the war.

Running around shooting things in a FPS is your thing, great run with it. For me that got tired and boring and repetative after DOOM. Been there, done that, more realistic gore and more buttons to mash doesn’t change it.

Like I said before, the graphics make games argument is a foolish argument. Gameplay is what makes a game worth playing. SONY and MS are doomed to a 2 and 3 finish this generation because they decided that they would just ask the question “WHO CURRENTLY PLAYS VIDEO GAMES?”... and their answer was “PRETTY MUCH SINGLE GUYS 8-35” And they decided to just stay niche... Nintendo said “WHO DO WE WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES?” and the obvious answer from their perspective is “EVERYONE WE CAN”. They then set out to build a system that would be fun and open for anyone. They cast a wide net, while SONY and MS just lowered their baited hooks deeper in the same spots. No suprise who’s winning and why.

If you want a gaming system for the entire family the winner by far, hands down is the WII.. if you just want to sit alone at night mashing buttons in front of a TV with the most realistic gore you can find, then yes, the PS3 is the better choice for you.

[HamiltonJay]

Never heard of DROL, but jawbreaker sounds vaguely familiar.

Two of my favorites from back in the C64 days were LOADRUNNER (make and save your own boards, after you complete all 100 or whatever that came with it? Copy them onto another disk and share them with your friends? Awesome)and Jumpman.

[edzo4]

sorry you fell for the hype about wii being a revolutionary game, but it is lame

the sixaxis controller works very similar to the wii controller but the games are much more than complex than balancing a virtual broom on your virtual hand

graphics do not make a game but good graphics can enhance a game as much as wii's lame graphics can take away from it

why don't you go get your wii fit and lift some more wii weights tough guy

oh and by the way now that the christmas hype is over and people have seen how lame wii really is

check out his head line

"PS3 Catches Up to Wii, Xbox 360 on Life Support"

but if even if wii sold a thousand times as many games as PS3 I would always prefer to have a Ferrari over a Hyundai

what I find much more important than graphics is gameplay

so what "game" are you playing lately

put in grannies teeth?

giving the dog a high five?

or are you using your virtual hula hoop?

OMG these games are soo stupid, I out grew them 20 years before doom came out

and I'm sure you will find these wii games fascinating for years to come, I mean how can you outgrow or get bored with a hula hoop?

maybe after I play REAL GOLF today, I will go kill some dinosaurs

I'm sorry your wife would only let you get a video game system that the rugrats could play too but have fun with the hula hoop

maybe i'll watch a HD blu ray movie while you play PONG 2.0 I mean wii

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[HamiltonJay]

If you think the sixaxis controller is the equivalent to the WII ir, you are obviously very uneducated or ignorant of how the two technoligies work, and frankly have never played with an the IR. Detecting location relatively to 3 dimentional space is a completely different event than sixaxis can povide. Again you seem stuck in teenage argument mode, which is perplexing for someone trying to convince others of his position. You seem obsessed with graphics, and then attempt to counter your arguments by choosing alternatives that are not remotely graphically reprepesentative of the horsepower of the machine you try to bash. You may want to keep track of NDP sales numbers if you think the PS3 is going to be the winner of this generation. Its not. Installed base Nintendo has this generation won, it will not even be close. PS3 will take a solid second place, leaving MS with another losing system this generation. You are welcome to prefer whatever you wish to prefer, I have never said there was anything wrong with someone who wishes to sit in the dark by themselves in front of a tv screen mashing buttons. I personally don't find that all that enjoyable.. Like I said, FPS became passe for me in the mid 90s, upping the graphics and gore doesn't do enough to make it worth my time. Christmas hype is over? Let me see, released in Nov 2006, it is now July 2008. In that time, the Wii has outsold not only the PS3 released at the same time, but also the 360 which was out for over a year prior. The week of Jun 28th, Nintendo sold over 500,000 units worldwide... PS3 about 160,000 and the 360, 130,000. I'm not sure what numbers you are talking about but selling at a rate of over 2 Million per month when your 2 competitors COMBINED are selling maybe 1 Million per month is hardly evidence of some slowdown of the Wii juggernaught. As to graphics, please tell me how you feel this:

from the PS3 is so much superior to this

Wii game?

No one is going to argue PS3 has better graphical HP and better processing HP.. but when you continue to latch onto games that clearly are not meant or intended to be graphical heights as representatives of the WII ability, you just make yourself look foolish. Gamplay makes games, all the graphics HP in the world can't make a 3d sonic game fun.