Firm-worn Out 12.20.2007 11:57pm

20. It's a big number. It was the number of times my old boss went to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in theatres. It was the top speed I was allowed to drive when I first had my learners permit. It was also the number of miles-per-hour I was going over the speed limit, when I got my first ticket...

For PS3 owners, it's the number of times they've had to update their firmware. 20 is a big number. The PS3 is just barely thirteen months old and to average more than one firmware update per month is a little ridiculous. Currently the only month to go with out an update is August, but fear not, there was an update on July 24th and then again on September 4th, so versions 1.90 and 1.92 were only 6 weeks apart; the longest span between updates. The shortest span (1.30 to 1.31) was only 7 days, and that came a month after the system launched.

Sony was averaging 2 updates per month for the first four months of the PS3's life, begging the questions: Did they not have time to finish their product? Would holding it back past the holiday and releasing in the spring have been that terrible?

Updating firmware that often is risky business. First of all, as a consumer I don't ever want to know that a product I'm purchasing is so volatile, or incomplete that the white coats at Sony need to kick out support more than once a month. I don't want to buy something that has potential, something that may work in three or four versions from now.

Some of their releases seem silly. Was "expanded compatibility of PSOne games" so important that version 1.31 needed to come out 7 days after 1.30. They couldn't wait a week on "USB compatibility" and combine the two versions? It just doesn't seem that these updates are even thought through.

Looking over the list of updates at Wikipedia more than half the items on that list should have been included from the start and not several months after launch in a firmware update, scratch that, in 20 firmware updates.