This was a common folk tale amongst my gamer friends growing up. Especially with games with higher difficulties and a lot of fighting games. There was already that issue where the computer knows the move you're doing and its difficulty settings determine if it will auto-counter or let you win. We were always under the impression that the longer the system was on, the cheaper it would get. i.e. "The game's all warmed up now, so you're in for some trouble"