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Playstation 3 Releases Update 3.56, Designed to Shore Up System's Security

Sony has released another firmwarefor their Playstation 3 game console, designed to close security weaknesses in the system. The weaknesses were allowing hackers to use a custom firmware program, called "Jailbreak," to break into the PS3 system. The update, 3.56, is supposed to shut down that ability.

Security breaches in their consoles have been an ongoingfor gaming corporations. The newest update to the Playstation comes a little more than two weeks after Microsoft's Xbox had a required security update of their own, also aimed at shutting down custom firmware and increasing the overall security of the system.

As the number of the update -- 3.56 -- suggests, Playstation has issued several updates for their system designed to stop hackers. The last update,, was reportedly supposed to do the exact same thing that 3.56 is now supposed to accomplish. Both the most recent updates have been issued with little fanfare from Playstation, and deliberately under-described as minor patches.

There has been a slew ofto the system since 2009, when the slimmer Playstation 3 model was introduced. In April of that year, Sony released update 3.21, which removed the previous version of the system's ability to download another operating system to the PS3. This was also supposed to shore up security.

Update, released in September of last year, also was supposed to target the hacking firmware known as "Jailbreak," that allows Playstation users to use borrowed (or pirated) games on their systems. It also impacted users' ability to play games that they had created themselves.

All of Sony's Playstation updates are required downloads if a gamer intends to log in and use the Playstation Network. This tends to upset users every time that Sony issues the updates, because many of the patches that the company has issued have been accused of downgrading the playing experience overall, not improving it. Norway's Consumer Councilthe fray after receiving complaints from gamers about update 3.42, which removed the ability for users to download other operating systems.

Sony has to this point refused toits procedures in lieu of customer complaints. So far, all of Playstation's updates have been hacked again within days, sometimes hours, of the patch's release.