Hi everyone, we’re adding some great new features with the next PS3 firmware update (v2.70) that will continue to enhance your connected experience on the PS3. The 2.70 update brings a new Text Chat feature that enables you to communicate online with your PlayStation Network friends. Now, you’ll be able to chat with up to 15 online friends using the Wireless Keypad, on-screen keyboard, or other compatible keyboard peripherals. Not only can you chat with your friends instantly, but you can also access Text Chat while playing PS3 games and even participate in up to three chat rooms at once.
In addition to Text Chat, we’ve added a few more enhancements:
Friends list on the XMB (XrossMediaBar)
- Sort your friends via their online status
- Attach larger files to the messages you send to your friends (file size will increase from 1MB to 3MB)
Video delivery service on PlayStation Store
- Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future
- Videos you’ve purchased for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback
For a quick preview of Text Chat and some of the other 2.70 features, check out this video:
The 2.70 update will be released soon, and as always, we look forward to reading your feedback.
How can anyone in their right mind say that this is a good update … Seriously, chatting with up to 15 while playing a game :|
This is totally rubbish and i see now why Sony is making losses ….
Here’s some advise Sony, fire your ideas department and setup a new one, you only need a few people to create a team that actually reads users feedback / requests of features.
Text Chat …. All i can think of now is another great feature that got implemented called Photo Gallery which was just as much a waste of space and time.
To all the whiner, stfu. You can’t expect Sony to match Xbox Live. For god sake, Sony only have one person, that’s ONE PERSON, working on the firmware update. You can’t expect ONE PERSON to beat A WHOLE TEAM of programmers that Microsoft have devoted to the 360’s firmware. So just be patient and relax, eventually, we will have Live’s features too. It just takes longer because he’s only one guy. He can’t do that much you know.
Yea thats kool but when will you guys add a firmware that allows you to play your own music while your playing games like you can on xbox-360 thats the only thing that ps3 doesn’t have that they do
Well, i hope this is a april fools joke too.
Text chat? WTF? Why you don’t update more important things?
Looking at the comments, it seem like there is one MAIN feature requested.
GIVE US CROSS-GAME VOICECHAT. PLEASE!
This is an ESSENTIAL online gaming feature.
An once again, the xbox has it, why not the ps3?
I don’t want text chat while gaming, in want to talk. That the only real way.
Please leave a comment a tell me the problem, why you constantly doing firmware updates with features nobody requested?
Good to see Firmware still evolving.
Simple features I’d still like to see:
1. more visual options for music player
2. correct the clock/controller battery indicator overlap
3. choices of style for clock
4. do away with the need for ‘hit triangle/display all’ – let the ‘X’ button “display all” rather than have hidden files!
5. add an option to display all photos randomly on ‘shuffle’ (why do photos have to be played in sequence/from a playlist when music can be played randomly?)
un freakin believable, now i love sony but for christ sake fix your system.
faster in game xmb NOW!
in game voice chat- find a way NOW!
Make it REQUIRED for games to patch in game music NOW!
In game web browsing, probably not possible but would be nice.
DROP YOUR PRIDE AND BUY EXCLUSIVES.
YOUVE ALREADY GUARANTEED LOST THIS GEN, but please make it so people who already own the console get more enjoyment.
WHITE KNIGHT CHRONICLES U.S. NOW!
what the hell good is a playstation without jrpg’s
wanna know why the ps2 sells so much besides the fact its cheap? it has a library of games that would make blockbuster jealous.
You need to start charging for psn, i would gladly pay for it if it meant youd put some freakin effort into your firmware updates
fire whoever the hell does your advertising, it sucks. I now own an xbox, for the sole reason of jrpg’s
durr people will get two jobs for ps3, not with the way your going. Jesus it cant be that hard.
bring some new stuff to the table, maybe in game recording, or jesus make dual login for every game required. RE5 is useless on ps3 for split screen
NO thank you ! Why text chat? we heard rumors overal that you guys where working on a voice chat version, why turn over to text chat. It takes to long and I might as wel use the message system that is already built in. I see it’s a waste of effort.
If that’s all changes which will come with this update then it’s just too less of them, as it is 4 months from the last update.
Very nice and useful for somebody, but, Voicechat in cross game PLEASE. WHEN do you give us cross game voice chat? When I am playing a game and a friend send me a message, I need to stop playing and write the awnser. PLEASE CROSS GAME VOICE CHAT PLEASE
Woohoo – It’s live! Downloading now…
Was hoping for MKV support, but any update is better than nothing.
Nice, but still no MKV-support :(
I want Cross Game invites and cross game voice chat, kind of disapointed with this one, especially because it was a while since the last Firmware update. excpected a little more sony.:(
At first I thought the text chat was nice. But then I started using it and several severe issues quickly emerged..:
1) Line length is *way* too short, so I can’t even write a normal sentence without having to break it up.
2) Private conversations are censored, which is annoying and neither in my or my friends’ interest — how is it in yours, Sony?
After watching the video I noticed this:
3) 3 chats are not enough. Make it 20. Why even set such a small limit? You don’t know how people are going to use this new feature.
Also, I was hoping that Normalize feature would put a stop to me getting startled and falling out of my couch every time I hover a game in the XMB that has a loud title music, e.g. MotorStorm, but too bad I was wrong.
And finally, thanks for mentioning the video backup feature. When is the video download service coming to Europe?
Nice update and hopefully this overshadows the long awaited in-game voice chat.
Also please try to get PSN Cards out in Canada and maybe the video store since its almost been one year since the release. I realize it is hard due to international issues and dollar values especially with the economy. But there is a lot of Canadians who would like to be able to purchase from the PSN Store who do not have credit cards.
thats great stuff but i wish we could take pictures in home and even use our avatars as our id images on our friends list
Thank you, text chat has been a wanted function since the hunt for Xi began.
Wow… I guess we’ll never have Voice Chat in-game. I hear Microsoft patented it, but meh. I would buy a 360 for this, since it had it since Day 1, but I don’t want the console to catch my house on fire 3 seconds after I power it on.
haha aprils fool, you really did release cross game voice chat didn’t you?
if not why take so long between firmwares.. i swear we have been waiting for months.
I was expecting for automatic trophies sync… :(
actually ever since i downloaded the update i have been having trouble with playing movies and also when i play games and try to get the xmb bar it doesnt load the bars or anything and then i try to get back to the game and it freezes
Oh gee, now Sony is a saint all of the sudden, let me remind you your posts in the PlayStation 2 price drop blog.
Thank you Eric and your team for putting so much effort for creating more options on the PlayStation 3. Keep up the good work ;)
The ones that still find the need to whine with every update, be happy with what you get for “free” for once!
I’m still waiting for the video store in Europe and PlayTV in Holland *sob*.
No wonder we never get the features that are most needed, you guys say awesome for this unnecessary features and are so grateful for…nothing!
The update is not what I was hoping for. Text chat is not needed, we are not going to stop mid-action to send a message. We need private voice chat. I sold my 360 to get a PS3 and it is shocking how behind Live they seem just because of this one feature.
No I don’t want to go back to 360, I love the games on PS3 but these features should be prioritised not by development time/effort but desirability.
Please Sony do not work on anything else, no silly features, until voice chat is sorted.
Is this it ? Is this all the huge worldwide announcement was about ?
In the week when Apple released Skype for the iPhone and the iTouch the best Sony can come up with is text chat ?
Sony was ahead of the game with Skype and internet radio on the PSP and I thought that it would be soon after on the PS3 but no. Well over a year later and the thunder has been stolen by Apple.
I like the fact the PS3 can evolve with the firmwar updates and at the beginning these came thick and fast with excellent content. This has changed though. There’s enough posts on the blog with what people actually want but Sony aren’t listening and yet they wonder why the PS3 has hit the levels they predicted. Maybe, just maybe they should give the public want they want instead of what Sony wants to give ?
I meant “hasn’t” hit the levels predicted of course :-)
Sony just stop with the updates, I’m so sick of seeing this community piss and moan like 3rd grade girls about everything they get.
They deserve nothing…Ungrateful children.
Better yet, abandon this generation like someone did last generation, put all the things they are pissing and moaning about on that system. Then just say to hell with supporting the PS3.
Why would anybody want in game cross video and voice chat kinda stupid if you ask me, somebody is always complaining about the updates no matter how good it is. Voice chat i can somewhat understand but video pffff you might as well be playing that game on extreamy easy mode. I think this update is great, people wanted to back up their videos now they can, of course you cant play them on the pc but that will prevent bootlegging and giving them to other people.
@Onna76_NL
What yuou mean free, i seem to remember paying a good bit of money for my PS3!
Believe it or not but the majority of PS3 owners actually bought this as a gaming console and bluray player and not as a chat box!
If you want to chat get onto Home as it’s part of what it was designed for, or you could always do what normal people do when they feel like chatting , load up irc …
It’s people like you praising Sony for rubbish updates that is holding the important things back, and i dont just mean important things to me , i mean that in general.
Who cares about Text Chat if the XMB still keeps freezing up while trying to access it while in a game.
Meh!
Is everyone one here dellusional?
Or maybe you are too excited to read / listen properly.
You do realise that it’s just TEXT chat in game.
Not the much anticipated and widely requested VOICE chat.
I serioulsy hope that this is some sick (late) april fools joke on Sony’s part otherwise they have just firmly illustrated everything that is wrong with the decision makers in that company.
Do any of these people actually play games?
Do any of these people even have a CLUE what the competition offers.
I have voice chat independent of game on my PC and my Xbox… so why… WHY did anyone ever think that text chat would even be useful?
And copy and paste….
Awesome… now i can send the words SONY FAIL to everyone on my friends list over and over and over and over again without having to retype it.
To Eric Lempel,
I have had issues loading up the ‘Photo Gallery’ on the PS3 and it all it would say is “Please Wait…” I contacted Playstation Support and now they may be charging me $315AUD to fix one application :( I have tried to resolve this issue by deleting that software and re-downloading it and installing it and guess what I still get the same problem. Also, restored default settings and also turned off main switch from main power for 30 mins. They have also stated that this has never happened and may be directed to the Head OFfice.
lol….text chat with filter and only 32 chars. cmon sony.
****** is ***** good!
failed!
“Not only can you chat with your friends instantly, but you can also access Text Chat while playing PS3 games”
This sounds great, but if someone’s in a game, actually playing, for example Killzone 2 in multiplayer, so they’ve got their team relying on their participation and they get distracted with text message received notification; then that may not be as good.
The external backing up option is a brilliant facility to have been added – if you can actually make use of it, that is. It’s a useless feature for all but North Americans. :/
I hope Sony will bring cross in game chat soon. Im pretty sure people are buying 360’s, because it has better voice feature. :/
Still ps3 <3
“Not only can you chat with your friends instantly, but you can also access Text Chat while playing PS3 games”
This sounds great, but if someone’s in a game, actually playing, for example Killzone 2 in multiplayer, so they’ve got their team relying on their participation and they get distracted with text message received notifications; then that may not be as good.
The external backing up option is a brilliant facility to have been added – if you can actually make use of it, that is.
However, isn’t it a useless feature for all but North Americans. :/
Which almost tempts me to wonder, if that’s it for the latest x.x0 firmware update? :(
still no ingame voice chat. this really disappointed me sony. why does this simple feature has to take this long?
Make an option where if you press the PS button it goes straight into the chat so we won’t have t keep clicking it would be better. :)
whoever said that, thats a good idea! sony u guys should do this!
would be way faster and easier to get around.
This seems like a well-intentioned, if in the end short-sighted update.
I posted before, but I also want to ask this: How is it possible that a big and successful company like sony (THE last gen dominator) isn´t able to pull out a feature like cross game chatting ? The 360 was released in late 2005 and has that feature from the start.
Why don´t we get skype ?
The future of console gaming is online gaming including communication (mainly via voice).
Other features like photo gallery etc are nice, no question, but communication features are way more important.
Sony needs to realise this pretty fast !!!
I tried a avi file I had that didn’t work before, would get unsupported data error. It now plays, looks like they have improved the codec support also. Not tried any MKV files yet though.
WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So they go from a firmware every month to every few months saying that they will be bigger updates!!!
These are not big updates. Please tell us what you are going to be implementing and stop all this stupid speculation about voice chat and crap like that.
Not up to the mark. Expected more in the updates…..n also still waiting for PS store and Home for India. Just to remind you guys are selling PS3’s in INDIA also…..
Since SONY don’t reads forums Ill do somebody a favor:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=psnetwork&thread.id=416950&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
____________________________________________
Thanx for the update’s guys. You guys make the ps3 even more awesome.
btw people need to chill
these update are freebies, you guys are not paying a monthly fee.
You know what I wanna see on the next FW update, besides what people are begging (x game invite/chat, Music/comic store, PS2 BC)?
– Background downloading while watching a blu ray movie
– Install game while downloading
– User rating system on the PSN store. What I mean is you can rate based on a 5 or 10 star system every game/movie/tv show you purchased/rented, maybe they could even let you write a 2 line comment on it. I think that would be useful.
Any 1 of those 3 will be good for me.
For PSP I want:
– Background downloading
– Trophies
– Home
– Friend List
– Ability to download movies/tv shows (that should be tied to your PSN anyways and have DRM like the games DRM)
– Music Store
– Ebook/Comic Store
– User rating system as stated above
That’s it for now
GOOD JOB NICE!
nice update, not big thought, i really want voice mail like the iphone and more faster performance for xmb during in game
i love sony so much hope they keep upgrading xmb, and surprise us in ps os 3.0!!
Jeez so besides Canadians and Europeans complaining we’ll also get Indians complaining now too?
This is:
blog.US.playstation.com
US.playstation.com
US.playstation
US.
US
Not sure if this has been asked, as there’s nearly 900 comments to read through. And i know this will probably be overlooked, but why are AAC Music files now unsupported?
It’s a major inconvenience to convert and replace all of the affected music :/
I don’t get people. They want a faster xmb and more features? It is like people don’t understand how it works.
What part of ‘FIX THE CLOCK’ do you people not understand?
Awesome work for this update its a great adding yet more new features =o) but what about the features everybody wants? Cross ingame chat, new avatars, cross game invites??