Sony released Version 2.40 of its firmware on Wednesday with the promise of a more collaborative experience to compete with Microsoft 's Xbox 360. But following customer reports of problems with the patch, the company temporarily suspended the download. Sony says only a few consumers have had problems with the new firmware.

"In order to further assess the issue, we have temporarily taken the firmware offline for further testing," Sony said. "We are working diligently to isolate the problem for those few consumers and to identify a solution before we put the firmware back up."

Sony's Black Eyes

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch, called the firmware incident a black eye for Sony that will continue to raise quality-control questions until the company can come up with some answers about what and why it happened.

"No one wants to have their PS3 turned into a PS paperweight, which is apparently what happened to some users," Gartenberg said. "Sony was wise to immediately pull the update for general availability so no one else is affected by it. An official firmware upgrade put out by the company should never, ever damage the user's hardware."

Any time companies update the core part of a technology, whether it's a phone, an operating system, or a video-game console, there is the potential for things to run afoul. Seemingly minor issues can cause entire systems to stop working, Gartenberg said. Sony's disadvantage is the Internet age. Even if the foul firmware only disrupted the gaming systems of a few consumers, the masses know about it.

"The fact that people are communicating on the Internet about technologies makes it all the more important to go through an incredible amount of quality control to make sure problems don't arise," Gartenberg said. "We don't know why it happened yet. There may have been reasons totally beyond Sony's control. But it did happen. It shouldn't have happened, and it doesn't look good when it does happen."

Sony Under Attack

Over the last few months Sophos has mentioned the current wave of SQL-injection attacks plaguing the Web. On Tuesday, the firm noted that Sony's USA PlayStation Web site -- a high-profile site with a large number of daily visitors -- fell victim. The purpose of this wave of attacks seems to be to dupe users into installing the same fake antivirus software Sophos discovered on .MOBI Web sites earlier this week.

"Visiting the affected PlayStation site runs a script that pretends to do an online security scan of your computer, and presents a bogus warning message that your PC is infected with a variety of different pieces of malware," the firm warned in its blog. "Users frightened by the scareware 'warnings' might rush to spend money on useless software."

The fact that the Sony PlayStation site has been attacked suggests that someone with malicious intent could place other harmful malware there, the firm concluded. Considering the number of consumers interested in video gaming, that could lead to widespread infections.