GTA 5's New Updates Require PS3 Owners To Upgrade Their Hard Drive

If you have a 12GB PS3 that Sony introduced last year as a cheap alternative for those who didn't want to put a lot of money into one of the bigger units, you're going to have to upgrade. This isn't a discussion or something that can be debated. If you want to update to the upcoming patch dropping for Grand Theft Auto V, you will have to upgrade your 12GB PS3 unit.

While most gamers who have focused on embracing the digital distribution age that really lit up during the seventh generation have already upgraded their PS3's hard drive to something bigger and beefier, some gamers may have wanted to avoid treating their home console like a PC or just couldn't afford to throw money into additional spare hard drives. Well, whatever the case, if you're still rocking a 12GB hard drive you'll need to upgrade, pronto.

Over on the Rockstar support page, the company issues a warning for anyone still using the low-GB model PS3, stating...

While it's a nice gesture to warn PS3 owners about the storage limitation, it's also somewhat ironic that the whole point of owning a home console was to avoid having to open up cases and replace parts like in a PC. Yet, here it is that gamers have to open up their PS3 and replace the hard drive as a mandatory requirement if they want to keep playing the latest version of GTA V online.

I just wonder how long it will be before the Xbox One and PS4 are hit with those same kind restrictions or mandatory play-requirements? The broadband internet connection is already one of the standard requirements for most games, and there's usually a bit about the hard drive space requirements, but it usually doesn't go beyond that.

As mentioned by Rockstar on the support forum...

The 12GB units still being on the market seem kind of like a silly thing given that it's barely enough to hold a full-sized game, and really just seems like a slap in the face as far as storage space goes. That's not to mention that I would likely imagine that most people have already upgraded their hard drives at some point after they realized that the 12GB unit wasn't going to afford them much room for either installing games or adding a ton of DLC to the unit.

For those of you who actually have not upgraded from that archaic 12GB hard drive, Rockstar offers a quick-link to Sony's official support site for upgrading and changing your PS3's hard drive.

Hopefully this warning from Rockstar means that they're prepping to drop a pretty big update in the form of the long-awaited heists? Maybe? Possibly?