Sony Pulls Console Bricking Firmware Update

The 4.45 firmware update has apparently left many gamers with PS3s they can’t play.

At this point it’s probably safe to say that PlayStation updates tend to fall into the category of annoying necessities. They update and add new features to the various bits of hardware adorned with the PlayStation brand name, but they also sometimes take an ungodly length of time to complete. As aggravating as that can be, there are worse things than having to wait for an update to finish. For instance, you could restart your PS3 and discover that said update bricked your console.

That is apparently exactly what happened to many gamers who, upon updating their PS3’s with the latest firmware, version 4.45, discovered they couldn’t boot up past the console’s initial start screen. On a thread in the official PlayStation Community forums, afflicted users described having to take steps as drastic as reformatting their PS3’s hard drives in order to escape the clutches of the buggy update. Sony, in response, has pulled the 4.45 update and, according to a Tweet, are investigating the source of the problem.

With the problem seeming to be moderately widespread, we’re wondering if any of our readers downloaded the 4.45 update before it was pulled? If so, have you had any problems? Have you found a solution outside of reformatting your hard drive? Whatever your experience, we’re obviously hoping the problem is resolved soon and in a way that’s relatively painless to those with afflicted consoles.

Source: Kotaku