PS3 update ineffective in Europe

By Robert Purchese Published 6 September, 2007

Was only for US, Japan.

Sony has confirmed our suspicions by revealing that the recent firmware upgrade for PS3 had no effect on European consoles.

The version 1.92 patch was released to tinker with stability and compatibility issues with US and Japanese games only, we were told.

"All the changes in the firmware update were for the US and Japan, and actually had no effect for us in Europe," a spokesperson for Sony Europe told Eurogamer.

We now feel a little silly for staying up all night trying to work out what had changed.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (40) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • neilka #1 5 years ago

    At least you didn't have to wait an extra month for it.

  • Moz #2 5 years ago

    "At least you didn't have to wait an extra month for it." - LOL

    So I'm guessing it was related to the hardware BC stuff then

  • Darren #3 5 years ago

    Erm... so why did we Europeans have to download it then? /confused

  • thepiedpiper #4 5 years ago

    i thought the ps3 & its games were region free?

  • oreillymj #5 5 years ago

    Well it had the effect of making my PS3 extremely flaky. Sometimes it won't power down correctly from the shutdown menu.

    The green?? LED stays flashing but it never shuts down. I have to power it off at the back. Also the PSN errors out after ~15-20mins and a power cycle is required to convince the PS3 to sign in again.

    I've tried the suggested browser cache work-arounds, but they don't work.
    I'm assuming a repair OS will be required.

    The US Playstation blog says they're looking into reported network issues, but no word back with a confirmation that Sony have reproduced the issue. Which is strange as it happens pretty quickly for me.

    1.92 seems to have been very poorly tested, bring on 1.93

  • dadrester #6 5 years ago

    i thought the ps3 & its games were region free?

    The PS3 and it's games are. However PS1 and PS2 games aren't. You can't play a Jap PS2 game on a Euro PS3, however you can Play a Jap PS3 game on it.

  • Machetazo #7 5 years ago

    "Erm... so why did we Europeans have to download it then? /confused"

    You shouldn't be, really. It's probably just so that when future updates arrive, they'll only need to ensure compatibility with one previous firmware, instead of two or three regional variations.

  • Gurgeh #8 5 years ago

    "i thought the ps3 & its games were region free?"

    The PS3 has more DRM built into it than you can shake a stick at. The Blu-Ray player it comes with has it's own virtual machine that can run programs included on each blu-ray disc to check for hardware or software tampering.

    For the moment Sony and PS3 game publishers have chosen to keep games region free, although they almost cracked over Stranglehold. While sales remain sluggish it's safe to assume they will continue to be region-free.

  • AcidSnake #9 5 years ago

    In somewhat related news (because it has the same word) what about the latest Wii firmware update? What does that do?
    I got the flashy blue light yesterday...

  • zuljin #10 5 years ago

    @Gurgeh
    The main reason Stranglehold was an issue was only because it included a film in the special edition.

  • mcwildcard #11 5 years ago

    Not an entire waste, my UI feels a bit quicker and my pads turn off on their own now.

  • Kiigan #12 5 years ago

    So I was prevented from logging into PSN yesterday, and forced to spend ages downloading and installing a patch which does absolutely nothing?

    Nice!

  • Lim-Dul #13 5 years ago

    The update probably doesn't do anything in Japan and the US either but no journalists over there are complaining hence Sony is keeping quiet. ;-)

  • Darkedge #14 5 years ago

    Sony doesn't care about Europe again perhaps?

  • dazzaman #15 5 years ago

    Borked my bloody Warhawk, ineffective my arse

  • Beano #16 5 years ago

    "Sony doesn't care about Europe again perhaps? "

    Have they ever cared about Europe?

    Cue another dissapointing EU PS Store update tonight....
    Edited by 1 at 06/09/07 @ 12:32

  • Arwin #17 5 years ago

    There's some weird communication going on, because the change does affect the EU PS3 - the controllers didn't power off on themselves before, now did they? Also the webbrowser is faster, the icons load faster, the friendslist icons seem to be cached now (or was that earlier already?) and I'm fairly sure that the sixaxis motion translational sensor responds a lot stronger. Has anyone tried Blast Factor yet after they updated to 1.92? I could swear it reacts much faster now to the movement where you send a wave, has quite an impact on the use of that function in gameplay. There was quite a bit of lag there, and hardly any now.

  • whatevermort #18 5 years ago

    It definitely does something to the motion controls. My imported copy of Lair was utterly useless before the update: now it's just really, really bad. I'm taking bets on how long it is before they add Analogue controls in a patch just to shift some copies of it.

  • b0bb1ns #19 5 years ago

    I've got a Japanese PS3 and I can't see any difference either - nor have I ever had any backwards compatibility problems

  • brooza #20 5 years ago

    Do you mean it didn't do anything, or it just broke systems?

  • Beano #21 5 years ago

    "I've got a Japanese PS3 and I can't see any difference either - nor have I ever had any backwards compatibility problems"

    Because the JAP PS3 still have the emotion engine chip and not emulated thru software like the EU PS3 ?

  • #22 5 years ago

    Why the hell did you stay up all night to find that out?

    Why not read the official Playstation update pages?

    [link url=http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ps3/gu ides/detail/item77969/
    ]http://uk .playstation.com/help-support/p...[/link]

    It says: The PLAYSTATION®3 system software version 1.92 update includes the following:

    Playability

    Playability status with the PS3TM system has changed for some PLAYSTATION®3 format titles*.

    * This does not affect titles in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania.

  • Darren #23 5 years ago

    @Arwin - Why do people keep saying that PS3 controllers now turn themselves off after a period of non-use because they certainly don't for me as I tested it last night by leaving the controller on a static surface and over an hour later it was still on.

    I cannot comment on the improved controls for Lair as I only got the game yesterday AFTER I'd installed the new firmware but the controls are 99.5% fine for me anyway.

    For some reason, I don't seem to be able to login to Warhawk post-update though, I keep getting Network Timeout error messages but that might be coincidental as I can use the browser and PS Store just fine.

  • #24 5 years ago

    Just for the record: I have no problem with my controllers. My PS3 works, to my knowledge, exactly like it did before the 1.92 patch.


    @Darren

    I read some people were having their netowork settings reset after the patch, like proxy, dns, ip, etc.. have you checked that?

    I have no problem with Warhawk but ranks/stats and getting the game full even though the server says 10/24 or 22/32 or something.

    I also found out that if I raise the ping time to 200 I can log on to the SCEA servers, and they seem to work better than the SCEE servers, for me anyway.

    Hope they can fix the ranks/stats issue soon.
    Edited by 2 at 06/09/07 @ 13:13

  • drumbaby #25 5 years ago

    Is it just coincidence that I can no longer log into Warhawk?

  • oreillymj #26 5 years ago

    Strange, some people say the controllers now power down after a time-out.

    For me and others, there's no change to the controller behavior. I also couldn't find anything in the settings menu that might allow you to set a timeout.

    Has anyone else seen a problem with the PS3 not shutting down cleanly?

  • Darren #27 5 years ago

    @Hansi320 - Thanks for that... I'll double-check my network settings later as I have them manually configured. However, I did notice that prior to the update my NAT type was 2 but it's now 3 so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm pretty sure the PS3's IP address was in my router's DMZ as well... :?

    Other than the connection problems with Warhawk, my PS3 appears to be functioning exactly as it did before... although I did manage to freeze Lair on the Lair Network screen with the music still playing, the first time a PS3 game has ever crashed for me. Again, that might just be a coincidence...

  • penhalion #28 5 years ago

    I can say I told you so with a smile. Normally where I work we get info on this stuff from inside Sony and they said nothing about any changes. I then poste a few days ago that there was nothing updated for warhawk etc. etc. and wondered wy people thought there was.

  • kangarootoo #29 5 years ago

    @dazzaman

    "Borked my bloody Warhawk, ineffective my arse"

    No it didn't. Warhawk has its own problems. They just happen to coincide with the udpate.

  • kangarootoo #30 5 years ago

    @drumbaby

    "Is it just coincidence that I can no longer log into Warhawk?"

    yes

  • kangarootoo #31 5 years ago

    @DAMAGE.INC.

    "Sony really suck this time around."

    Yeah, things can't really get much worse than an update that simply does nothing, right? Tantamount to murder in my book.

  • ED209 #32 5 years ago

    So the PS3 really does provide the PC owner experience.

    Come back catridge-based non-networked consoles, all is forgiven!

  • thepiedpiper #33 5 years ago

    "The PS3 and it's games are. However PS1 and PS2 games aren't. You can't play a Jap PS2 game on a Euro PS3, however you can Play a Jap PS3 game on it."

    So it was just a back cat issue then for the firmware. They didn't exactly say that though did they, the swines!!!

    Maybe because they didn't want to rub our noses in it.

  • oreillymj #34 5 years ago

    @ED209

    I totally agree. One of the major benefits of console gaming was that games just worked.

    The whole PC mentality of release it now - patch it later is a pain in the arse.

    While I don't mind the console getting occasional new features, games should be released when they're feature complete and as bug free as possible. I had to download a 100Mb "patch" for Motorstorm the other night.

  • #35 5 years ago

    @oreillymj

    There really are a lot of positive sides to be able to pathch and download updates for games also, I think you agree.

    It's just a new age and era for gaming, online games are even harder to test and iron out all the bugs. It'll get better hopefully when devs get more experienced developing multiplayer online games. Look at games like WoW, Blizzard have had their hands full many times patching and fixing stuff.

    A lot of issues also have nothing to do with the devs. It can be you router, your wireless connection, your isp. It can be that you have BitComet som other shit running on your pc in the background jamming your internet connection. There are a million components that can cause hickups in online games.


    Ofc if you're content with mario and pac man, online gaming is not for you :)
    Edited by 1 at 06/09/07 @ 14:20

  • thepiedpiper #36 5 years ago

    "There really are a lot of positive sides to be able to pathch and download updates for games also, I think you agree. "


    I'd agree with that. If they used their power for good!! As in fixing bugs and ting. Football Manager did it, which I liked. Wish more would, Dead Rising should have fixed that gay text thing.....meh

  • MonkeyMagik #37 5 years ago

    I agree. I actually like the fact that games get improved and patched if necessary. These things only take a few seconds to download and make the whole experience better.

  • Kryon #38 5 years ago

    PS3 ineffective in Europe.

    /Fixed

  • Beano #39 5 years ago

    As I wrote earlier: "Cue another dissapointing EU PS Store update tonight.... "

    Check out today's EU Store update... a reversed Motorstorm track for £4 (!) and a few trailers for the same games!!!

    Where's the new stuff that was released in the US Store last week, Sony ????

  • Aysir #40 5 years ago

    No, it most certainly did have an effect.
    Soul Calibur 3 now runs at full speed when set to NTSC (it was stupidly slow on the last update) and Tekken Tag which was looking awesome in hi-res, but again very slow, has now been made incompatible. I don't see how they can claim it had no effect.