After sending mixed signals last night that PlayStation 3 firmware 3.61 was causing some PS3s to overheat while running L.A. Noire, Rockstar Games said today that the firmware isn't the culprit.
"We have received a very small number of customer support questions about PS3's overheating or shutting down while playing L.A. Noire," the company said in a statement on its blog which is jointly attributed to PS3 maker Sony. " At this time, Rockstar Games and Sony can confirm that neither L.A. Noire or firmware update 3.61 are causing the PS3 hardware to overheat. We are both committed to working hard to find solutions to this and any issues that may arise."
That's a very different take than the statement that briefly appeared on the company's official forums last night. It read,in part: "We have confirmed locally that multiple games (Rockstar and non-Rockstar) overheat or freeze only when 3.61 is installed." That statement was soon retracted.
We've been running L.A. Noire without any hardware problems here at Kotaku on both a PlayStation slim model and an original 60GB PlayStation "fat," both running 3.61. We had zero incidents of overheating despite playing the game for a couple of hours at a time and leaving it idling, on its menu screen—a process that engages the system's disc drive far less frequently—for longer.
Rockstar urges anyone with overheating problems to contact the following:
Rockstar Support
Rockstar Support on Twitter
PlayStation 3 Support
PlayStation 3 Support EU