Small hard drives in game consoles are largely a thing of the past; while storage remains a concern--I know my Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have been threatening to run out of space for months--it's rare for a single game to be too big for a console's hard drive. Unfortunately, that is soon to be the case for Grand Theft Auto V players on a certain model of PS3, forcing those people to upgrade their system in order to continue playing online.

A recent post on Rockstar's support website (via VideoGamer) informs owners of the 12GB PS3 model that they will soon need to purchase a storage upgrade if they want to be able to play Grand Theft Auto Online. That's because, following the 1.16 patch released on August 19 (the flight school update), the system will no longer have enough space to store future updates and content, which must be installed to play GTA V's online multiplayer mode.

Being limited to the 12GB of internal flash storage won't prevent the single-player mode from being playable, but it will mean you'll be unable to take advantage of any new features or changes introduced in future updates. It also means you'll be missing out on the single-player story DLC we know is coming, as well as the online heists that will be added. Eventually.

Given the size of the hard drive, you could be forgiven for thinking the 12GB PS3 was available at launch in 2006. (The launch models carried 20GB and 60GB hard drives, actually.) In fact, it first debuted in Europe in 2012, before then being released in North America last year. The model is positioned as being ideal for streaming content and playing disc-based games, though, at least in this case, that's not proving to be the case.

Swapping out the hard drive in the super-slim model of PS3 (of which the 12GB is one) is a fairly simply process. You can follow our guide for doing so here, or you can check out Sony's official instructions here.