Rockstar Games: Sony PS3 overheats with firmware 3.61

Rockstar Games, the brains behind Grand Theft Auto, has reported that the firmware 3.61 update might just send your PS3 into throes of hell – via overheating, of course, and we are not sure whether Sony will follow after Microsoft’s footsteps to replace their unit with a new one. It seems that PS3 consoles will need to be updated to firmware 3.61 before it is able to live out the good times with the PlayStation Network, but owners of older PS3s have reported some more new problems arising from this update. 

Rockstar’s LA Noire which was released this week saw some PS3 owners finding it difficult to play the game, as their consoles tend to shut down mid-game, with the Rockstar Games support page suggesting that the culprit behind this could be the firmware 3.61 update. While the original post does seem to have been removed from the Rockstar Support website, Eurogamer had apparently preserved the text as follows.

We have received some reports of PS3s overheating while playing L.A. Noire or beeping three times before shutting down/turning themselves off, mostly on older 60GB and 80GB fat models. Primary reports seem to be that updating to firmware 3.61 will cause PlayStations to overheat. There have been various reports of this on a few different games now, all reporting their PS3s turning off or ‘Red Lighting’ after having installed 3.61. This can range from games randomly freezing to PS3s turning off anywhere between 30 mins use to two hours. We have confirmed locally that multiple games (Rockstar and non-Rockstar) overheat or freeze only when 3.61 is installed.

LA Noire fans will be pleased to know that the first LA Noire patch is already in the works, where it will “addresses a large variety of general game stability issues as well as specific problems.” So who do you think is at fault here?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: PS3, Rockstar, rockstar games