n00bie little question
 

Say I want to buy MK 9 ang GT5 and my PS3 is on OFW 3.6,do I need to update the OFW to play these games or not?

u dont need to update..

So if there is an update or patch for those 2 games how do I go about installing the patch/update?

Connect your PS3 to the internet and start the game. You will get a an game-update message. select yes and the game gets updated.

To elaborate, you can play the games themselves without need to update your console, without any issues. The problem comes from getting patches, which would require you to connect to Sony's servers (since you don't have the install pkg files option) and that requires an updated console. If you don't care about the patches however, you can remain on your current firmware version without issues. That said, I wouldn't see much point as downgrading from 3.6x is the same as downgrading from 4.xx, and as a result wouldn't harm your position in the slightest, but the choice is yours.

You can update the game from the ps3 on a lower firmware... without install package files option

Ya well I couldn't play GT5 without updating to 3.72....

well update to 4.0 since ur on 3.60 and it won't allow installing pkg anyway
on that fw
i see no point in staying on 3.60