If you already bought your copy of the video game L.A. Noire, you may be about to kick yourself. Rockstar Games has announced that they’ve ported LA Noire to the PC, and it will be available come fall, just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

But why is this so important? What is so special about the PC release of L.A. Noire over that of the consoles? Why, graphics, of course!

It’s no surprise that consoles haven’t gotten a graphics update in forever, while PCs have. As a result, Rockstar has amped-up the visuals of L.A. Noire to take advantage of this, as well as add 3D support. Given the nature of the game, this is likely to concentrate heavily on the facial graphics especially to make them even more realistic.

Will it be enough of an improvement to entice console LA Noire owners to re-purchase the game for their PC this Christmas? Only time will tell.

Reports are filtering in (and simultaneously being squashed by Sony) that the latest PlayStation 3 firmware update, version 3.61, is causing older model PS3s to overheat and shut down. Typically these older PlayStations are the bigger “fat” old-school models, usually with a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. (Umm … like mine. Hmm…) So far the overheating seems to only occur with the new firmware, and can take as little as a half hour to happen when playing games like Rockstar’s L.A. Noire, something that’s probably on many PS3 owners’ agendas!

If you have an older model PS3 it is perhaps suggestible to not upgrade to firmware 3.61 just yet until this is sorted out.  In theory. Unless, of course, you actually want to use your PS3 online, in which case Sony gives you no choice since this firmware update is a mandatory part of their solution to their network being hacked…

Oops!

Sony, Sony, Sony… Seriously? Can you do nothing right anymore?  Your PSN login and password reset pages can be used to hack the accounts that had their data stolen, so you can’t change your password there anymore.  And the other solution, your firmware update, breaks PS3s!  What’s a PS3 owner to do?!

Let’s hope a newer firmware version becomes available soon that doesn’t cause your Playstation3 to overheat so that you can both go online and play games reliably.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is doing only marginally better, as they’ve admitted that an Xbox 360 firmware update may make some games unplayable as they’ve switched to a new Xbox disc format to prevent piracy that some machines just can’t support.  Doh!  Though they, at least, have promised to replace your Xbox should that happen. Although sitting around without an Xbox360 for weeks would be about as much fun as … hmm … sitting around waiting for the PlayStation Network to come back up? Yeah. Something like that.

No reports yet on if Nintendo has royally screwed-up lately. Is no news good news? It might be if the Wii were capable of HD by now… Oooooh.

Yes, that’s right, it’s burns all around for each and every video game console maker today, because frankly, it’s all rant-worthy. I long for the old days when the worst that happened was that you’d need to blow on your cartridge to get it to play.