If you had hoped to get a party going for Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara with some of your PlayStation 3 buddies today, you might be S.O.L.
Sony has pulled a firmware update for the console after scores of people were reporting that their PS3 was effectively bricked after downloading the update. They would load up the console, only to be faced with the "flowing ribbons" start up screen, where it would then stay.
Oddly, the patch wasn't some major overhaul. The update was to install system software version 4.45, giving players the ability to slect whether or not they wanted to have the notification displayed whenever they earn a trophy while playing a game.
Dozens of players were reporting the issue over at the official Sony Community boards. At the time of this writing, the thread's page count was at 80, all full of users reporting the issue and looking for an official explanation and resolution.
It's unknown what about the update was causing so many players trouble, but interestingly, it seems (key word) to only affect players who have upgraded their HHD's.
Forum users are reporting Sony support is saying that further research is needed, advising users to phone in later today for a possible solution, as further research is required to confirm if users' problems are firmware related.
If it is firmware related, then a patch is expected later today to fix the issue. Download it to a USB drive, power on the console in safe mode, and upload the patch from there. It's also reccomended that you contact Sony support via the AskPlayStation Twitter account.
We'll keep you posted as Sony makes adjustments to this issue, and provided an update as to what was causing the problem in the first place as soon as the company provides information.