John-ShepardIf you've been anxiously awaiting the next significant firmware update for the PlayStation 3, your wait is over.
SCEA has announced the details for update 2.70, and it includes a bunch of new features "that enhance how PS3 users communicate and interact with their online friends." We don't have an exact release date but we know it'll be "available soon," and we'll receive a brand new Text Chat option for use on the PSN. Furthermore, the Friends list will get a bit of an upgrade on the Cross Media Bar (XMB), and we'll also see "improvements to the video delivery service on the PlayStation Store." If you wish to chat, you can use the Wireless Keypad, the on-screen keyboard, or any compatible keyboard peripherals. You will have access to up to three chat rooms at once, and each room will be able to hold up to 16 people. And yes, you will be able to access text chat while playing a PS3 game, so that's very cool.
As for the Friends list, you will now be able to sort your Friends by online status, and larger files can be attached to messages; they'll upgrade the limit from 1MB to 3MB. Lastly, the aforementioned upgrade to the video delivery service will let you back up purchased files on an external storage device; you'll be able to watch them after they've been restored to the PS3's internal hard drive. Oh, and any videos you bought for the PSP can also be played on the PS3 now. For a full video walkthrough, visit the official PlayStation blog .
SWEET. enough said.
so wait, if my noob teammate in killzone 2 doesnt have a mic i can type to him on the screen with my finally useful keypad attachment instead of always sending messages to each other like idiots?
or am I totally reading the update wrong, or did I read two sentences and skipped the rest in hopes of that's what they'll do? Lol, wishful thinking
It's out
Nice, thanks for letting us know.
In game music? No? Still?
some games do have custom soundtracks. Its just too bad that they dont all have it. Slayer's "Killing Fields" is a fun song to kill people to! lol
The official word (by way of developers Criterion) is that Sony has exposed the custom music functionality, but it is up to the developers of games to use it in their games. So Sony does the heavy lifting, but the Devs must hook it into their game and menu structure.
It appears that Sony does not intend to impose custom music over the top of what a game developer decides to use in their title. I like that because it allows developers to maintain the artistic integrity of their game. Can you imagine Flower with custom music? Or Every Day Shooter? The availability of custom soundtracks is something that really do need to be at the control of the developer – IMHO of course.
Downloaded very quickly for me, i had it done by 10:15pm Eastern time.
These firmware updates are getting ridiculous.
That leaked list was obviously too good to be true, but 2.7 is poor.
Text-chat? What the…?
Ludicrous.
I wonder if you got your PS3 at launch or shortly thereafter? This system has come a long way from those days. We should be thankful that Sony is still working to improve the system's features.
offshore: Reading your posts, it seems you have a lot of problems with the PS3…and a lot of veiled praise for the 360.
…just saying.
…yes the PS3 has never had text chat before and they just added it in the 2.70 update…..
Okay?????
:/
Ben, incorrect, though I'm beginning to realise that I may have picked the wrong console.
No cross game voice chat nearly 3 years after the 360 had it as standard? Terrible codec support when the 360 has infinitely better support, and a frankly sub par online service.
Oh, and the battery STILL covering the clock?
If it wasn't for MGS4, GOW3 and GT5 I wouldn't need a PS3, but seen as I've got one I want Sony to make it worth my while, given that it was nearly twice the price of the 360.
And when the PS3 community has been hammering for cross voice chat for an eternity and we get cross game text chat instead, I don't know how anyone can defend it.
Last edited by offshore on 4/1/2009 10:43:08 PM
oh boohoo, here have a tissue…
@ Offshore
1. That's not what I've heard from 360 owners about codec support
2. Why in the freaking world are people still complaining about that battery over the clock thing?! Do you really need to see what time it is and your battery status at the same time?
3. Do you really need someone to explain to you why it is not twice the price?
4. Sell your PS3 and go buy an xbox.
The grass is always greener…
Offshore you'd make a perfect 360 owner.
There isn't a goddamn thing about Live right now that's "infinitely better" than the PSN. I have both, use both…and it just isn't true.
xbox fanboys really try hard not to give any credits to the ps3.
if ps3 sold 1 billion units, xbox fanboys would still have something to complain about while mentioning the xbox360 being flawless.
why do xbox fanboys hate the ps3? i have no idea.
do we need to talk about what xbox360 'cant' do that a ps3 'can' do?
Go buy an Xbox and I bet you'll regret that in about a month. To be perfectly honest, if what a post I read is right by rufii, that we can just type the messages to each other without having to access the XMB, select the messages, type the message and send it, then good. all of that can be very time consuming, especially when you are playing online. You give the impression that you reluctantly own a PS3. Go and sell it, there are some people out there who really want one and you're holding them back, and everyone else like you.
@offshore
I would trade you straight up for my 360, I'll even throw in LIVE for the remainder of the year. Chat all you want with 8 year olds.
I do have to agree that the clock being covered with the battery is something that should have been addressed. Waiting 3 seconds to see the time isn't a deal breaker by any means but it's kind of a no brainer. Don't cover stuff with other stuff.
Try LIVE. Once you have you will see that it's an advertising venue with some chat features.
Sure the battery covers the clock if you tap the PS button, but if you hold it for half a second longer you skip the XMB and pull up the shutdown screen.
That screen doesn't have an obscured view of the clock.
Or just play GT5p: it has an in game analog clock. 😛
I chime in for Offshore. As much as I enjoy KZ2 my brother is a CoD guy. It sucks that we cannot catch up online while playing different games. Yesterday I was diving into Halo Wars while my buddy was playing Fight Night 3 (prepping for FN4) and it was a cinch to start a party and BS for a few hours. I love the PS3 so pleez Sony just get this going!! Its 2009 already!
@ Ben,
Agreed.
@ Kreate,
Because the really vocal ones are former Segaholics who still resent Sony for killing the DC and Sega as a console manufacturer.
If you're unsure, just ask an Xbot what they think of the DC.
Now, to be fair, I loved both my PS2/DC, just as I love both ny PS3/360; so not every fan of the DC hates the PS3.
But I'm sure many Xbots might fall into the former category.
So let me get this straight…All we PS3 owners have to do now is put up with complaints about the battery covering up the clock? Well that may be true, but the 360's power box is big enough to cover an ACTUAL clock. See? PS3 owners can nitpick too.
Hmmm, so on the screen that explains the update before you download it mentions a feature that lets you "check the latest news on the games you own via the internet by selecting th icon and…" something along those lines. Sounds interesting.
That's one less thing to get an Xbox 360 for..
-in game voice chat-
=D
Nevermind.
It's not the 100% cross game voice chat i was thinking.
Still useful anyway =D
grr the onlything I hate about updates is it takes 3-5 minutes to download and 10 minutes to install. With all this processing power. why does it take so long to install? grrr again this is just as bad as manditory hard-drive installs on games.ggrr again. would some one a lot smarter then me exsplain to me why? not you Ben I still angery about that April fools joke.. lol
Well I dunno for sure but I'll take a whack at it, downloading an update is pretty simple but actually executing it so that it can overhaul the PS3 operating system seems like it might be a semi-large task. Think of a major windows update on your PC, takes just as long.
Yeah, it's such a pain that simple mathematics show exactly why it takes so long to download a 100+MB file. I have fairly typical DSL, 3Mbits or so is the nominal speed. In file transfers that translates to more or less 310KB/second – peak. That's approximately 2.5Mbits/second which is pretty good considering the available bandwidth and all the protocol overheads inherent in an Internet connection. It takes 3.3 seconds for a complete megabyte to transfer (assuming peak performance) so 100 MB takes about 5 and a half minutes at best. Firmware updates are a little bigger than 100MB, and with the variability of the Net, it takes maybe 10 minutes to actually transfer.
Next up, the PS3 has to decompress that update and install it. It's not just flashing the firmware, it updates some stuff on the HDD as well, so it has to be decompressed and then the installation happens. Flashing firmware doesn't happen instantly, as anyone with a flashable BIOS can tell you. All in all the time taken isn't out of the ordinary, or in any way excessive.
@ Highlander:
thanks for the explanation, dude. Guess I really do learn something new every day
One of the biggest things ppl wanted was cross game chat, so yeah, now you have it, and the browser works like a dream now.
If you've been anxiously awaiting the next significant firmware update for the PlayStation 3, your wait is over.
see what I did copy and paste omg.
update nope I guess there is still no voice chat.
copy and poste is amazingly useful! wooo ..my compy just crashed too! like, pretty much 'literally' asploded. Ummm… cross game text chat, dunno how much i'll use that, although after each episode of Lost airs I can jump into a 16 person chat to talk about it, kick ass! But i'd never do that while playing a game lol unless you want to get killed, but ..i'm sure that's just the beginning and we'll see voice chat soon 😀 good stuff Sony! Now to try out this game searching internet thing o.O
Oh, and it took me like 4 minutes to download, and like 2 to install, so ….yeah, dunno what that *copies and pastes* "grr the onlything I hate about updates is it takes 3-5 minutes to download and 10 minutes to install." guy was talking about 😉
I'm always texting people through the crossbar while playing, so this will be useful. I'm assuming there is a decent reason we don't get cross game voice chat but I hardly use my mic anyway so I'm not fussed.
ive heard that reason is microsoft has a patent on it.
If microsoft has a patent on it, Sony should just call it something else and offer a little more with it… like an option to use the PSEye for cross game chat, or something.
I got my ps3 a launch and I was happy with what it had and is amazing how far it's come since.But a lot of the new ps3 owners just moan for features that 360 owners like to brag about.
P.S Ben you could read all of our post,Do I seem like a SE hater.
@ worldsend and Zemus
I was being a smartass—- I was commeting on an someones earlier post… as for this update it was a small one and my remark was for updates in general…you are a luckyones if you can download in 2-3 minutes most owners dont have that type of speed in downloading like you and me.i have 20mps download and 5mps up and for most updates the downloading is the fast part, but my comment on the install is very valid it seems to take much longer then my average pc to install large os update files. thanks for the comments though….
Last edited by artson1966 on 4/1/2009 11:22:40 PM
gotcha, smartassness is hard to get in text form.
artson1966; that should be the least of your worries!
Q!
"i am home"
You may need to change out your hard drive maybe. I got a 500gb with a huge buffer, and I sware the download is 2-3 times longer than the install on everything I get for the PS3.
I recently purchased "Eye of Justice" for my kid. 1284 files later (45 minute download) it installed in less than 8 minutes. It screams! Same 5400rpm speed, just a larger buffer.
Yeah, you've been able to do that since the begining, I think.
No not really. Well sorta. When you sort them by status if your friends are offline they just sort them ramdonely. In this uptade they sort them by the last time the've been on.
It wasn't just random, if they were sorted by status all the online friends were in alphabetical order, and then all your offline friends were in alphabetical order. Sorting by status now sorts your offline friends by the last time they were online.
Yeah sorry Artson 🙂
Umm… what the heck is this? the new IM's are censored 😛 and ..you can only type a few words at a time. It was incredibly annoying with just a SINGLE person in the chat. I can't imagine 16 people trying to type sentences out one short line at a time 😛 I usually try to look at the positive and I don't toss out very much negative towards any updates, especially anything that's free… but …. lame! How long has it been since the last update? I hope this hasn't been all they've been working on! I've already had a few glitches when the screen scrolls too >< but …at least the copy and paste works awesome 😀 love it
Can't find out where to search individual games (or w/e that feature was) on the internet
that feature blows, all it does is punch the game name into Google.
I haven't downloaded the update yes, but from the friends amongst us here… it seems the update blows chunks of Mrs Balls Chutney!
Who is in charge of the Firmware development project plan, they need their heads read!
Q!
"i am home"
Well a few of these features is not relevant to me don't care for them but I'm glad that they're continuing to improve the network it keeps getting better and better
PSN ID Biggest_GMoney