It seems that the long waited firmware version 2.40 for the PlayStation 3 gaming consoles from Sony is not all that players wanted. After the update was rolled out on July 2, a host of console users began reporting issues with their hardware on the PlayStation 3 forums and to Sony's call center.

The issues ranged from rather trivial, like a microphone linked to the PS3 that has problems maintaining a connection, to severe, with the console that refused to go past the initial screens after the update was installed and the gaming device restarted. Various graphic glitches and over heating problems also seem to pop up almost randomly on the devices whose owners have applied the 2.40 firmware update.

Sony moved rapidly to see what was happening and quickly updated its Knowledge Center with news that the firmware version had been taken offline for the moment while the company is taking a cold, hard look at the code to see what could be causing all the issues. It claims that only a few users are affected by the problems, but some estimations say that up to 33% of the PS3 consoles are having symptoms linked to 2.40.

It seems that the consoles which do not boot up after the update was installed should be formatted. Saving games can be done by moving them to an external drive before the format begins. Sony says it hopes that once it pinpoints the problem within the firmware update, it will also release new information on how to restore a broken console.

Firmware update 2.40 is important to all PlayStation 3 owners because it introduces two new major aspects: in-game use of all the features of the XMB and the availability of Trophies, which are Sony's answer to the Achievements of Microsoft's