20 May

Originally believed to be the cause of the PS3’s recent 3.61 firmware update, released to beef up security, copies Rockstar’s interactive detective drama L.A. Noire now appear to be the true culprit of many consoles overheating. The developer has recently updated its support page to reflect the change of reasoning, after it was discovered that similar problems were being reported on Xbox 360s as well.

“Rockstar have now updated their FAQ on the matter, have admitted that it is a fault with their latest title LA Noire and have offered a workaround,” read a statement from Sony. “It should also be noted that the issue with this title is not PS3 specific and is also affecting other consoles.”

Rockstar’s Original Statement, since redacted from the official Support Website

“We have received some reports of PS3s overheating while playing LA Noire or beeping three times before shutting down/turning themselves off, mostly on older 60GB and 80GB fat models,” reads the official statement “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 2 hours. We have confirmed locally that multiple games (Rockstar and non-Rockstar) overheat or freeze only when 3.61 is installed.

The statement continued, “At this time we are recommending contacting Sony directly to report the overheating issue. However, this is not the end of our support; we are continuing to test LA Noire on all firmware versions and hardware models to isolate the issues and see what can be done. As always, we will update this article as soon as we have updates.”