Sony 'not aware' of alleged PS3 error

The "Red Ring of Death" is something that all Xbox 360 owners dread: seeing the green lights around the console's power button turn red, indicating a fatal hardware error.

In July last year, Microsoft responded to mounting anecdotal evidence of a high Xbox 360 failure rate by stating that there had been "an unacceptable number of [360] repairs." The company then extended the warranty from one to three years.

Now, unconfirmed reports indicating discontent are spreading across the Internet, and this time it's the PlayStation 3 that is alleged to be having some issues. According to posts on various Web site forums, including those at GameSpot and the official US PlayStation forums, several gamers are seeing "error code 80010514" instead of the loading screen of their favourite games.

Game Revolver contacted Sony Support and was told, "The code is not common, and a simple reset of the system and restoral of factory settings should do the trick." However, the writer, Steriotyp, said that this failed to fix the error, which he or she was told is caused by one of two things: The first is a faulty sector on the internal hard drive, and the second is a faulty installation of software or firmware.

The article offers advice on how to avoid the issue, including ensuring that the Internet connection is stable, dusting the machine regularly, and following instructions on installing software and firmware to the letter.

Other users appear to have received error 80010514 after mistakenly installing firmware meant for another region--for example, putting a North American update on a European console.

GameSpot UK contacted Sony Europe to ask about the issue, and a spokesperson said, "I've spoken to our customer-services department, and they aren't aware of this issue with the PS3."