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.
Besides, this is just a “preview”. Did Sony EVER say there is “NO” cross game chat in the video? Answer that for yourself. Its comin with this update. Ready for the slim.
Looks like Sony just tapped out…
900!!!!!
And this update sucks!!!
Where is the voice messaging and party system? Let’s not forget… the cross-game invite system as well.
Anything new & free is great for my PS3.
forget these other people! you guys rock! keep up the good work! and thank you for all your hard work!
looks nice next features should defiantly cross game voice chat so i can talk to my friends in other games like x box live i would love to use this feature
Great job, Sony! You guys are amazing! This news and the PS3 Slim announcement made my day. Of course, i already have a PS3, but that doesn’t mean i can’t be happy for your potentially successful future and other people’s awareness and hopeful enjoyment. ;)
nothing special..i mean im glad theyre updating it..but 360 already had all this stuff and more..
wow this is going to be so live with the 3.0 amazingly different view of the PlayStation 3
Some nice features here. Also a few that I would have considered to be a fairly low priority.
Will this update allow future updates to be delivered as small, incremental patches? Please implement this and save us all some time and bandwidth.
EEE please
(emotion engine emulation)
There are one or two things that I’d like to see happen with the XMB.
1. I’d like to be able to access music from an external HDD in games, and number 2. I’d like a more comprehensive playback system for music, that incorporates not just songs on the PS3 HDD, but ones on the HDD. For instance I’d like to be able to make playlists from an external drive.
Beautiful, now I can see who is online quickly. You all have addressed my concerns.I just hope those avatars are not all premium. Some free Sony characters please.
this update looks sick especially the moving theme hopefully this update will let u listen to musinc while were in a chat room
I personally like everything that is going on here I like what i see and i know that i will enjoy the new update…Although, I NOTICED THAT THE PLAYSTATION OFFICIALLY CANNOT DO IN-GAME CHAT.
@906 … “360 already had all this stuff and more..” and you have to pay $50 a year to enjoy that “stuff”. While PS3 is almost on par for FREE, again, FREE. You can not even play online games on your 360 out of the box without spending money. If you can’t play online games without paying a fee, what good is “all that stuff”?
This is another great FREE update. period.
You are not entitled to anything, because you don’t pay for anything once you buy the system. Sony NEVER promised you anything other than what is on the PS3 box that you paid for.
Also, what is the deal with BC? why does everyone have a treasure chest of old PS1 and PS2 games but NOBODY has a PS2 system? If you are looking to play all these old games for so long and you still don’t have a PS2 to play them on, AND you’re waiting for a PS3 to have these features… You are stuck in the last generation of gaming. seriously, everyone and their mother has a PS2. Im sure you could buy a new one for $99, or find a used one somewhere. really, no…..really.
I’m so pleased to hear about this… I wanted to get a new look at my PS3 for a long time… now with the introduction of the PS3 Slim… Sony is catching up, and I can feel they listen to us… :D
Eric Lempel, you have redeem yourself.
But I have a great suggestion :
You know how PlayStation 3 Theme has:
Install >
Original >
Air Paint >
[INSTALLED THEME #S] >
======================
Since we now have Dynamic and Classic we should have:
Install >
Dynamic :
Original
Air Paint
NASA Earth
Classic:
Original
Air Paint
[INSTALLED THEME #’s]
Basically take the visualizations Earth made by Nasa and add the Globe instead of the wave to create a free dynamic theme
It shouldn’t be a problem or a issue, Since it can already be accessed by USER setting their Time Zone
The question is when? Is this something am going to download tonight or in December?
good work just add 2 more things in game music and cross game chat
This is merely an aesthetic update… which the XMB did not need.
Instead of features like cross-game chat – you now tell us that our PS3 will launch directly to the “what’s new” section to SHOVEL ads (face it – that’s what they are) for stuff down our throats?
SERIOUSLY?
Sony – seriously now… get with the program.
sony will be on top again!
sweet. the dynamic themes look nice.
They should make it Like the nxe when u see ur friend on ur list u see there ps home avatar and if they are in a voice chat u see there avatar + the other person’s avatar. That would be really cool.
The theme thing is awsome though.
See new avis I think thats dumb I want them to make a system that lets u put your own pics as a avi like pics saved on your ps3 as a avi not dumb avis like they have on the PSN come guys your telling me u couldn’t do that? =/
oh my gosh!!
this is awesome!! this news and the slim/$300 ps3!!
wow!! this is awesome!!! thanks sony!!!
Thanks for bubbles in the background Sony. I’m sure Microsoft is scared to death.
Where is cross game voice chat?
Where is cross game invites?
Where is voice messages?
It’s been 3 years and we still don’t get the important features.
Thanks for the update… two of my biggest wants were animated backgrounds and new avatars, so this is what I wanted. To the whiners that are on every stinkin blog post, please knock it off already. They know you want your stupid cross game chat or whatever the hell it is… I still think that is not really needed to play games, as long as you can chat in game and chat out of game, why is it so important to talk to people when you should be “ENjoying the game” or “working with your squad” on mp games? Don’t you guys have phones if you need to talk to someone that’s not in your game your playing? It makes me think that the whiners are xbots who come to this board on daily basis to troll, as they never say anything nice. Whenever something new comes out, no compliments , no thanks for this, just moan and complain….very annoying!
man what a let down. I thought this update was going to add voice chat for anyone on any game. All I see is nothing i need. There was alot of hype but I don’t see anything that will benifet my playing experiance.
THIS IS AWESOME!!
but does this mean i can hear music while playing games?
cause to my mind that is what really separates the xbox to PS3. so if we do… PS3 WOULD BE ON TOP..
even though it already is!!! (^_^)
— important to who? I could care less, I got all the gaming functionality I need, it does what pc does which is where I came from before ps3… I don’t see why it’s so important to have voice chat with people that aren’t in your game.. Isn’t the most important thing voice chat in game, which is already there. Or voice chat when not playing, which is already there… is it just to “have” it. I bet if they released that feature you guys wouldn’t be happy , youd’ find the next thing to cry about. I don’t get why you guys complain ALL the time. For one you get all this for FREE, if you want non-essentials and to be milked for all your money and not be able to play online for free, and have a 54% fail rate, you know where to go…just saying.
Please tell me that this won’t bring forth ad’s on the menu like some other console.
I would be really sad if that happens, XMB is just too gorgeous to have ad’s on it!
Nice update! Hopefully I can get my hands on the new theme developing software so I can continue to create my own personal custome themes. ***** (5stars)
Sony needs to get real and at least add the features that the PSP already has to the PS3. It’s lame that the PSP has Skype, internet radio, and the ability to add a jpg image for cover art for movies stored on your memory card (some of us have a lot of home made videos stored on external harddrives that would be great with thumbnails, like birthday parties, etc). Plus, the PSP has visualizations for music that the PS3 doesn’t. Come on Sony and spend the 2 hours to port that stuff over. Also, Sony needs to highlight how awesome remote play is, but the crap is too hard to set up. I’ve gotten it to work successfully before, but there are tons of people I know who wouldn’t know the first thing about port forwarding, etc. Also, give us something to browse our music and movies like you did with the photo gallery. Sony touts how great the PS3 is as a media center, but it is lame without an interface to browse through your movies by genre, etc with cover art.
i hate people that question the value of a feature that is important to me or others. i mean, if new avatars are on top of ur list, great for u. as long as the features we want don’t impede on the ps3’s greatness and instead, improve it, why r u complaining? on top of it, the great thing about it is, the update will be mandatory but, its voluntary to use the features!!! look at that, so if ur tired of our whining, wait for the next firmware update and we can do a x-game chat while i play the new god of war (thats probably when we’ll finally get this update, haha) and u play Haze…
very nice udate.
very nice udate.
lets get that 1000 comment post….
Hello, can you please add the ability to have instant messages (both text and/or voice) to your friends when they’re online?
@900 why are you here? You are you here just to troll? do you even have a ps3? Seriously, cry some more.. “Boo Hoo, crapbox that dies 54% of the time, has x-game chat, boo hoo” Can you talk to others in your game On PSN? Can you talk to others when not in game on PSN? Yes and YEs, Is the ps3 more reliable? Yes, have more Features? Yes, More bang for your buck? yes, Free online Yes, is the compeition free online? NO….. end thread/
just exactly how soon is soon?
@932 Lsiten I don’t care if people suggest stuff in a nice matter, but i come here all the time and see people acting like immature kids… without ever being thankful. That is what gets me upset. I could care less about people asking for x-game chat, if people would be a little bit more mature about it, and not whine or complain all the time. I am sure the feature will come eventually.
Very Very Very Very nice guys. This is exactly what I’m talking about with the release notes. I also love the animated backgrounds and the status bar. But we are still majorly lacking some ps2 music capabilities here.
Nice work!
@914 and anyone else who doesn’t understand the usefulness of PS2 BC:
Having backwards compatibility in the PS3 means:
– Only needing space on the entertainment unit for one console instead of two
– Only requiring one AV input on the TV instead of two, or eliminating the need to share one input with two devices.
– PS2 via HDMI
– PS2 with wireless controllers. Not having to keep two sets of controllers around.
– Virtually unlimited memory card space on the PS3 hard-disk.
– No need to hope that your aging PS2 hardware doesn’t die
No, I’m not stuck in the last generation of gaming. But I do still have a few PS2 games I intend to finish, and my PS3 is the most convenient way for me to do it. Especially the more recent games, such as Persona 4 which was released well into the lifetime of the PS3 (Dec 2008 in the US, March 2009 where I live!). You (@914) make it sound like I want to play games I found in an archeological excavation.
The only comment I can make to those on this thread who want PS2 BC is: Why didn’t you buy a PS3 back when BC was available? If it was so important to you, you should have bought one when you found out that BC was being discontinued. That’s what I did.
I dont really like having the playstation store icon in the game and the video tabs. I dont know, it seems too cluttered. I shows me that you really really want to sell me something, beacuse you want me to see it everywhere. Before you know it, the playsation store icon will also be selectable when you customize your theme…see what I’m trying to say?
i dont understand why they dont have party chat and game invites thats all we ask for.
without cross game or party chat any update is pointless in my eyes. i want the social gaming experience of cross game chatting with friends.
Not ALL the PSN members are whining about not having cross-game chat and invites. It really isn’t a big deal… please just improve the load times and performance speed overall of the XMB functionality (and trophy load times).
And it’s all good if you take your time with BC. The PS2 is $99 for Pete’s sake.
Well done Sony. Keep it up.
@914
for me BC is a convenience thing. sure i have a ps2 but i would be nice to be able to play all my PlayStation games on one machine and also have unlimited memory card space.