THIS is the reason?

Well, it's legitimate. Over the top, but legitimate.

"Cough" red ring of death "cough"

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Support/System-Software-Update-PS3-v-4-45-SCEA-Update/m-p/40721809#U40721809
The official stance is "would you kindly STFU"

That's Xbox. PS3s die with a YLOD. But there are more reasons really. It's fun to watch the way Sony promotes the online features of PS4, while their current store is a broken mess.

I have it installed on my Slim Ps3, no problems so far. Might only be the fat, and super slim models have this problem? Or maybe I'm just lucky, but I doubt that, I really do. =n=
Edit: Oh I see, nevermind, it seems it was a HDD issue then, I need to L2Read. ^-^

Can you hear that sound? That's the sound of seppuku by a few head honchos at Sony HQ. Heads will roll for this, that's for certain.

Oh no, many other reasons. There media software really messed up one of my computers. They also dont really make anything that i want to buy. Im a PC gamer, so i have no interest in consoles or handhelds. Other companies make better TVs, computers and electronic devices. I have no reason to ever buy another Sony product ever again :)

Beautiful, really. After all the PS4 raving, in one day MS does a 180 on DRM, which Sony used for PR, and Sony themselves show that it doesn't take always-online to brick a console.

The PS3's manually update the firmware from external storage, so unless this update has broken Safe Mode and/or the updating process itself it should be easy enough for those affected to replace the faulty firmware themselves once Sony releases a newer version.

If only the people who called support directly weren't told to format the HDD...

That's a rather extreme solution (which their website indicates should be a last resort), but Sony doesn't offer any other solution due to not having having a newer firmware version yet (from what I understand you can't install an older firmware over top of a newer version even from Safe Mode, which would otherwise be an easy way to fix this problem) so for those wanting the console to be working right away this is the only option short of swapping in another hard drive temporarily.

2300 posts in that thread now.
Apparent.y, some can't even access the safe mode menu.

So, someone read on the Japanese PS website that the fix is coming. June the 27th.
http://www.jp.playstation.com/info/support/nr_20130621_ps3_update_v445.html

omg... when will people shut up about "broken" PS3s because of this update.
There's an option to boot to some sort of emergency-mode and flash a new firmware via usb.

read the f ing manual :)

I haven't updated my PS3 yet. I have a 120 GB model. I heard this update only affected models where it was 500 GB.