There’s an ever-growing thread on the the Playstation forums that suggests a recent firmware update may be killing the system’s Blu-ray drive. Several forum users have noticed a reproducible bug in which the system freezes at the end of Modern Warfare 2 matches once the update has been applied. The problem then carries over into other games, which has led some users to believe it’s a problem with the drive.

It could be. But this could also be one of those situations where someone comes up with a potential solution or reason for a problem and everyone else jumps on board just to have an answer. It seems strange that a firmware update in conjunction with MW2 would actually ruin a Blu-ray drive. Of course there is the chance, however remote, that all these people having old enough systems that the drives are failing from old age.

Source: Playstation Forums

Sony’s 10-year plan for the PS3 finally seems to be coming together…halfway into its life cycle. As a Netflix press release announced today, the PS3 will be adding the ability to stream content from the rental service. The new feature will be offered free of charge to PS3 owners;all that’s required is a subscription to the Netflix service, which can cost as little as $9 a month. By contrast, the same service for the Xbox 360 requires that users have a gold subscription to Xbox Live, which runs $50/year.

There is a catch, though. While services like that on the Xbox 360 give users access to BD Live content, the PS3 version requires a special disc for the drive in order to access BD Live content. It’s a small trade-off, particularly if you consider the $50 upcharge for the 360.

At any rate, the PS3 is finally becoming the console we all wanted it to be. Sure, it’s all coming a bit late, but better to have these things than not.