[UPDATE] David Karraker, senior director of corporate communications with SCEA, responded to Next-Gen's inquiry regarding the TGS overheating accusations in Gibson's aforementioned report.
He called Gibson's comments "unsubstantiated" and that "comments related to the alleged failure of PS3 units at TGS are also not attributed to a source."
Karraker offered up SCEA's official defense of the PS3's TGS performance to Next-Gen:
* Despite the report from Macquarie Securities implying that they had heard of reports of PS3's needing to be rebooted at TGS, SCEI are not aware of any instances of this occurring at TGS, nor have we received any reports from third parties to such effect.
* On the Press Day on Friday, and throughout the weekend the PlayStation stand was inundated by specialist gaming media, the majority of whom would have noticed if there had been a general problem with console overheating.
* The environmental conditions at TGS conspire to test any electrical item. In the case of PS3, the combination of pre-production software, running on pre-production debug units, enclosed in demonstration units without ventilation, and surrounded by so many eager fans that on Saturday and Sunday it was almost impossible to move, are bound to prove a challenge.
* If indeed, there was the occasional unit that needed rebooting, it was due solely to the adverse environmental conditions within the Hall and not to any more general problem with PS3.
* PS3 does not suffer from an overheating problem.