Here's how to fix PS3 consoles bricked by 4.45 firmware update – 4.46 firmware to the rescue!

Sony have just released firmware update 4.46 for their PlayStation 3 console, designed to repair PS3 machines bricked by the company’s previous 4.45 firmware update.

The previous update had caused some consoles to crash and fail to reboot, even after hard resets had been carried out. It had even been installed automatically on some PlayStation Plus member’s consoles, preventing them from avoiding a potentially damaging system update.

The new update should fix the bricking problems, as well as sorting out NAT and “IP fragment issues” too.

It’s quite an involved process to get the broken consoles back to full health however, and will require a memory stick with at least 168MB of storage space available.

Click here to see the full repair instructions from Sony’s official support site.