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Firmware Troubles For Old Xbox 360s, Possibly PS3s As Well

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-it-ain't-broke dept.

Several readers have tipped news of firmware updates causing problems for both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. The Xbox issue was caused by a recent update thought to be preparing the platform for a new disc format that gives developers another 1GB or so of space to work with. As it turns out, the real purpose seems to be piracy countermeasures. Microsoft acknowledged the issue and promised that affected users would receive a new 360S console and a free year of Xbox Live to compensate. The PS3 problem was highlighted by reports of overheating consoles while playing L.A. Noire on the recently-released 3.61 firmware. Rockstar Games initially confirmed that the firmware was causing the overheating, but later backtracked. They issued a joint statement with Sony saying that neither the game nor the firmware was the culprit, leaving users wondering what else it could be.

9 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Not the new update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://majornelson.com/2011/05/18/clearing-up-some-confusion/ The new update is not what is causing the problem it was a previous update. It also explains this at the bottom of the gamasutra article

  2. joint statement with Sony by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Rockstar Games initially confirmed that the firmware was causing the overheating, but later backtracked. They issued a joint statement with Sony

    So, Sony talked to them nicely, convinced them with irrefutable logic that neither the game nor the firmware was the problem, and they skipped happily, hand-in-hand to the podium to announce it jointly. Sony would never be so evil as to threaten Rockstar Games with new firmware that prevents all Rockstar Games' games from working at all.

    1. Re:joint statement with Sony by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sony would never be so evil as to threaten Rockstar Games with new firmware that prevents all Rockstar Games' games from working at all.

      Even Sony wouldn't be that stupid.

  3. Say what you like about Microsoft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...but this is how you do customer service.

    Microsoft acknowledged the issue and promised that affected users would receive a new 360S console and a free year of Xbox Live to compensate.

    Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.

    No nonsense customer service, and it gives gives them good PR.

    Compare that to Sony...

    1. Re:Say what you like about Microsoft... by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.

      To be fair, Microsoft have had quite a bit of experience with replacing defective Xbox consoles. This is probably the second item on their customer service checklist after turning the unit off and on again fails.

    2. Re:Say what you like about Microsoft... by tophermeyer · · Score: 3, Informative

      I like that you were modded Funny for that. Having experienced two Xbox failures, that is just about exactly what happened.

      MS left me with a sour perception of their testing/manufacturing standards, but their customer service is pretty darn good.

    3. Re:Say what you like about Microsoft... by peppepz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.

      No nonsense customer service, and it gives gives them good PR.

      They're not doing anything good. That's the minimum they can do for bricking their users' consoles. Hadn't they done that, they would get sued, lose, and then they'd have to pay both a new console and the lawsuit costs.

      Compare that to Sony...

      ...who only gave away 3 high rated games, one or two months of free premium service, a year of credit card protection, and other junk I can't remember for 3 weeks of downtime of a free service. Those bastards.

  4. This Is Indifference by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are millions of game consoles out there - millions - and yet there aren't very many revisions of hardware per model. It's not hard for the manufacturers to test how these required updates are going to affect their hardware. But here we are again, a story about revisions of two major consoles having serious issues with a firmware update.

    These required updates are ridiculous. We wouldn't put up with having to take our cars back to the dealer to have required maintenance done that would take away some feature or option we paid for, let alone having the maintenance leave the car in a troubled or non-working state.

    There needs to be some sort of consumer protection to prevent these types of things. What's next, an update for our phones that prevents us from dialing 800 numbers because they are costing corporations too much money when we call?

  5. Re:that doesn't make any sense by wastedlife · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The discs are still dual-layer DVDs, but the new "format" is a different partition scheme that opens up an extra gig of space for game data, at the expense of space that was dedicated for some other purpose. That seems like it should be a pretty minor change, so the rest of the update probably slips in other changes such as DRM.

    The theory on why this is requiring a hardware replacement for some users is that this forces a flash of the dvd drive firmware. Some revisions have a dvd drive that is incapable of being flashed, so the firmware may be causing those revisions to be unable to read disks.

    --
    Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"