Hi everyone, PlayStation 3 (PS3) firmware update (v3.00) adds a number of great new features that we’re excited to share with you. The latest update incorporates changes that improve navigation on your PS3. First, you’ll notice some cosmetic changes to the design of the XMB (Xross Media Bar). We’ve enhanced the look and feel of the XMB so that it’s easier and even more intuitive to use. We’ve also added network improvements and personalization options to help enhance your PS3 experience.
Additional highlights from update 3.00 include:
- “What’s New” – The “Information Board” will be replaced with a “What’s New” section, which allows you to enjoy interactive PlayStation news every time you start the PS3 system. Located under the PlayStation Network icon, “What’s New” displays the latest and greatest game, video, PlayStation Network and PlayStation news and releases, as well as your recently played games, in a sleek, new animated format.
- Status Indicator – In the top right corner we’ve added an indicator bar, which displays your user icon, friend icon, the number of friends you have online and a small message icon to let you know if you have any new messages. The indicator also includes a scrolling ticker that features the latest news from PlayStation Network. In addition, when you press the PS button, the battery life indicator will no longer cover up the clock.
- Friends List – Now your PlayStation Network friends will appear in a slightly redesigned format on your Friends List. Also, messages will now be viewable from each of your friends’ respective profiles.
- PlayStation Store Shortcuts – We’ve added a handy shortcut icon to the PlayStation Store under both the Game and Video categories so you can access the latest content quickly and easily.
- Personalization – Personalize your PS3 with new dynamic custom themes and avatars. Dynamic themes as well as free and premium avatars will be available through PlayStation Store. A dynamic theme takes your screen to a whole new level as it incorporates animated objects into the background.
- Trophies – Showcasing your hard earned trophies just got better. Update 3.00 gives game developers the ability to modify how they display trophies for add-on content. Base and add-on game trophies will continue to be combined into a single list so you can see where you stand in a game as a whole. Within that list, trophies will be broken out into subcategories—base trophies and add-on trophies—that way, you can easily view the percentage of your base game trophy collection, and separately track your trophy progress in add-on packs. Look for this enhancement to be included in upcoming games.
To get a preview of what’s coming in update 3.00, check out the video below:
We’re looking forward to releasing firmware update 3.00 soon. As always, we appreciate your feedback.
The message indicator is great but for the Playstation@Store icon that will be everywhere can we disable this ?
Not bad. BUT….it could be better.
Let my pessimism be a driving force for you guys to keep the goods coming.
Nice job, just barely.
Really? This is great from what I hear but stop complaining also is adhoc under network settings availabe yet? You guys should have bought a BC PS3 but stop blaming sony for things most of you get from rumor sites that aren’t official and I have a lot more to say to all you damn cry babies but I won’t.
fail update wheres my xcross game chat and invite
People really need to stop saying “make the PS3 like the 360 Dashboard”. if it were like the dashboard it would have every error and problem in the book, do you want a RRoD, E7, disk eater?
Does post 500 get a free slim PS3?
I Hope there will be some new themes that are free
Yes! Finally! An update worth waiting for! This is going to be awesome! New PSN icons/avatars also new and improved XMB bar!
Will this update allow 2 users to sign in into the PSN at the same time with their own PSN IDs? I don’t like my brother getting trophies for me while playing RE5! >:(
bc ps3 were expensive and were hard to find in europe
Bad move adding all the extra psn icons especially if you can’t disable them but wait til you guys get a hands on and then complain.
Good updates, but I still would like a party system where me and some friends can decide what game to play before hand, and then pop the disk in and play as a group online.
Any improvement is good, so this is a welcome update. I like the new tab showing your messages, and animated backgrounds look great. I was hoping the methods and speed of comparing trophies would get revamped, and while I don’t care too much about it personally, cross-game voice chat is something people are really itching for… Any chance we could be seeing these soon?
Create video rental monthly pricing option or access to netflix, if can’t do that- bring back hulu! if not that, it is time to make a deal w/blockbuster! i bet, they’d already have a proposal as to better compete w/netlix
No b/c in the fw update? The Sony conference announced everything I was expecting except the ONE THING I actually wanted. OH well, better luck next time I guess..
Finally JESUS but good work… Friends indicator and message indicator are key now all we need are some games you can invite friends directly from the xmb. Uncharted 2 is one of those games.. can’t wait.
Here is some feedback.. PLEASE add Party chat rooms for voice.. Please easy “Invite” or Join games.. it is hard to convince anyone to hop on PSN without these features. Most of my friends favor these types of features over what is presently available. I would love to know that you are actually planning on implementing this sometime very soon.. Thank you.
I like this a lot! Awesome job!
Sony, it’s becoming much more clearer that you guy’s are clearly having some challenges with adding features like cross game chat. I think it would be in your best interest if you would simple let us gamers know it. I think more people would be more understanding if you simply were straight with them. By the way, I’m not one of these people that are constantly complaining about the lack of the feature. I just think you can get alot of people off your back if you were just straight with them.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love updates, especially dynamic ones. Great job PSN. You guys are makin this network better and better. I know its comin slow, but we are gettin there.
so…When is it going to be released?
(And I’m guessing the Slim ships with this firmware?)
Really good update sony, really nice. Now i will like to know when does cross game voice chat would be available
I think it’s pretty much a given now that the way the PS3’s infrastructure is set up when compared to the 360 is clearly posing some serious challenges for Sony. Which explains why some of the most wanted features have yet to be implemented.
Clock is Fixed!
BEST FIRMWARE EVER!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some constructive criticism for you folks, myself and my friends purposely do not buy games for the PS3 simply because we do not have the option to chat with each other freedly in a party type system.
We have actually even used our 360’s to chat in a part while using the PS3. If we could simply have the ability to chat with each other (using our headsets) all while doing our own thing.. ie, one person plays a game, one person watching a movie etc. We would be more likely to continue to purchase non-exclusive titles.
For us, this is the ONLY thing keeping us from choosing the PS3 version of a game VS. the Xbox version. I’m sure we can’t be the only group with this complaint.
With all of that said, I am looking forward to the new firmare update, but if you folks really want to stick it to microsoft. Please allow us to have a social gaming experience, outside of home and other strangers. But with our own friends and family. It may also help encourage people to buy a PS3 to know they can talk to their friends and family without long distance charges all in their gaming system/blueray player.
Just some food for thought, thanks for listening.
Flabeo
LMAO..@518..and 514..thanks for the crazy off the scale YEAH! lol i just had to do it too :p
Excellent work Sony! Keep at it.
Holy guacamole!! Awesome updates today. I especially love the animated themes and the new “Whats New” section. Incredible, thank you.
One word…WHEN!
The New Themes are Awesome
Poor Update, we want Crossover-ingame-chat! Who needs animated Background in themes??? No one!!! I thougt there comes some exiting new content but the same old song again :-( – i don´t need this. hope 4.0 will surprise us but this is boring stuff.
Thanks Eric! This looks like a fantastic update. Can’t wait till it comes out.
Once the kinks are all worked out maybe we can see the cross game voice chat, which would give those 360 owners a run for their money lol. But also could we see an organized download list in the Playstation Store? Like set up a tabs system to keep demos, add-ons, & games all seperated. Maybe be even by game title. But thanks again for 3.00, it looks great!
Its evident from scrolling through the comments that Sony has failed to address a few key concerns of PS3 gamers….
1)cross game voice chat
2)cross game voice chat
3)cross game voice chat
4)voice messages
5)an invite button for MP games
no more cosmetic changes please, just add these features to simplify the hassle of sending text messages and such just to start a multiplayer game.
I need the ability to LOCK or PROTECT videos from being deleted. lol Due to a scare I had the other day, when my sister deleted my PSN Video Store downloads.
could use cross game chatting but thats still cool
ok this is amazing and all but if sony’s really trying to 1up the xbox… then i’d say the in-game xmb would need a new more modern look, and in game cross chat would be nice, but this is only my opinion.
Awsome update Sony!! A good thing that would be cool next would be rss feeds . Same thing as sony ericsson phones with live news feeds etc??
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Will this firmware have AVI, Divx and other media server supports! Why did those go away!!!
Its a really sweet update, really a great job sony, but as an idea for future reference for next update after 3.00 you guys should put the ability to listen to music while on online or possible solo gameplay because to me its really important to listen to music while playing it really helps some people while on gameplay.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate your work, and I’m also sure that there are thousands of undocumented bugfixes (which I unknowingly appreciate more than all these “additions”), but seriously guys…
For me the only really useful change (“addition”?) here is the battery/clock issue.
Okay, the Friends related stuff are probably good news to many of us.
But for the others…
“What’s new”? I bet 90% of PS3 users hang on the net 24/7, may that be at work or home or school or mobilephone or pretty much anything, so seeing what we already know when we just want to play doesn’t really make it news again.
Shortcuts, Personalization, Trophies redux? So basically we’re just talking about visual customization? I may have looked at too much (linux) kernel or other softwares’ changelogs but shouldn’t _major_ version number increases incorporate _major_ changes?
How about BASIC file management? Renaming files for example? Or sorting our cr*p the way we want it (a.k.a. directory creating)?
And believe me, there are many-many ppl who aren’t your average PS3 “newbies”. So please, we do want real changelogs (obviously not disclosing security risks are forgiven), because it gives us boners ;)
NO CROSS-GAME CHAT FTL!
Why isn’t this coming out tonight or so? Why are we waiting until September 1 if this is ready now?
Very solid update. Surprising that you didn’t add Cross Game/Party Chat, since pretty much the entire Playstation Community has been begging for it, but oh well.
Please ADD new HD resolutions for monitor screens!
like 1680×1050
Do people who currently own LittleBigPlanet get the sexy theme?
And are you serious about charging for premium avavtars guys really, those premium avatars better do something special…can you give us a estimated of how much those premium avatars & dynamic themes
wow!!
AMAZING!!
thank you, you fixed the clock! =D
as for the rest, it does really look cool!!
way to go!!
ehm, question, will we ever see PLAYSTATION HOME on MEXICO? been a year since you guys promise it
^^
I think you complainers need to shut it!
Obviously Sony is trying to leverage some Advertising ability from the PS3.
They did JUST DROP THE PS3 PRICE 100$.
Can’t any of you people think “Business” and not the normal idiotic pre-teen gaming banter?
I want the Gaming features as much as anyone else. They are gonna come in time. Just chill out. They know what is wanted, but they also have to Turn a profit!
I wonder if you can access the XMB while playing PS1/PS2 games now, i really hate how i have to completely exit a PS1 or PS2 game just to check my freakin messages man.
I was hoping to hear something about this but i didnt. I hope they fix this because it would make playing PS1 games a lot easier, especially if you have a bunch of friends that are trying to send you messages at the same time.