Guitar Hero II Patch for 360 Bricks Consoles

Game developer Red Octane admitted Monday that an update for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II intended to fix issues with the game instead caused some consoles to lock up.

An issue with the whammy bar in the Xplorer controller was supposed to be fixed by the patch. Instead, the patch caused system freezes and what 360 gamers call the "red ring of death," where the green ring around the power button turns red to indicate a critical error.

In some cases, when this occurs the only way to get the console working again is to send it to Microsoft for repairs. While it may be a minor inconvenience to those in warranty, those with older consoles may find themselves spending a good deal of money to have it fixed.

Across the Internet, in both Red Octane's and the Xbox Live forums, users have been reporting various levels of problems with the game. While some have successfully been able to restart their systems to clear the problem, some are experiencing repeated crashes.

The issue could be that the game is causing the console to heat up past levels of safe operation, one post within the Xbox Live forums indicates.

"As a test, I set a small floor fan in front of my 360 and let it blow cool air on it. I played for about 4 hours straight - no lockups," a user with the handle 'MbkCAD' wrote. "Turned the fan off (to test) and it locked up midway through the song I was on."

Red Octane would not confirm that this was the issue, only that they were "looking into it." No details were available on its plans to handle those who had their consoles 'bricked' by the patch.