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.
can we have more friends on our friends list :D
we need more friends on our friends list
I think this looks great and will bring better access. I esepcially like the avatar upgrades. I do however think that an option/setting should be put on the system where you can assign a tone or alert to specific friends so you instantly no that there now logged in. If you are not looking at the screen to can miss them logged in. Or some sort of symbol for best friends in the new box display in case you nip out the room and come back. If you are say meeting up to play codmw2 online together, good to no that you no the imstant there online. But as far as the fireware, nice one sony :)
did you guys really film that at 7am? wow, dedication, working at the crack of dawn =]
anyhow, I cant wait for this! it looks amazing, great job as always
today is just such a good day.great news and this is my very first post.
Update looks very cool, but it should come with the PS2 emulator on it:)
still no music in whatever game i want?
$
Sony!!!!!!!!!!!! where BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE PS3 for PS2 GAMES!!!!???? not good for you!! we fans wary wait this!! my PS3 60 GB (november 2006) DEATH!!! and now i wait anonca ps3 slim and BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE!! WAY??????????????????? ((((((((
Wow, i was worried for a second that they hadn’t made it easier for me to look at trophies. I thought they might have added something useless like cross-game chat.
This is all nice stuff, but it’s mostly just aesthetics…can we get some more functionality out of the next couple updates? Cross-game chat would be a nice start.
Now just add cross game voice chat, ipod support so I can easily access my music when I connect my ipod, and the fix for hulu.com. then we are golden :)
So… the new PS3 Slim removes the “Other OS” option. Will firmware 3.00 remove the option on the older “FAT” PS3 systems? I don’t have linux installed on my PS3, I’m just wondering
Wow…. this is a big let down.
Hi Eric,
I really like this update, thanks so much.
But for me I am still waiting for in-game custom soundtracks for all my games. So far we just have rumours and speculation that Sony are not allowed to add this feature to the PS3 duer to Microsoft owning a patent, but this has never been officially confirmed.
Basically all I want is to be able to listen to my music off the PS3 hard drive or off an MP3 player or IPod while playing all my PS3 games. When I get this feature, the PS3 will be the complete console for me.
Keep up the good work though, FW 3.0 is superb.
PS3 Slim “Leaked” Specs
– It is a PS3 that’s been cut down as much as physically possible without preventing the loss of playback of any existing PS3 title out there. It still has blu-ray, it still has wireless, it still has bluetooth and it still has gigabit ethernet.
– “OtherOS” support has been removed.
– Hard drive sizes will be bigger, it will come in 120Gb and 250Gb flavours. It’s still replaceable and will actually be slightly easier as it has been relocated to the front of the console.
– It will NOT have any “new” features, such as backwards compatibility or enhanced peripheral support. It’s just a PS3, but slightly smaller and cheaper.
– The power supply is still internal, but a different power cable will be used.
– Rear ports are still the same: 1x HDMI, 1x Sony AV port, 1x Optical, 1x Ethernet. And of course a power port.
– Release date and official announcement are not final.
– Price is undetermined, but make no mistake, this is a “slimmed” PS3 in ever sense of the word.
– It’s as cheap as can possibly be, so expect it to launch with a smaller price tag than what you’re paying now in your respective territories.
– Internally, several daughter boards have been removed, but all functionality is still there. This is due to a more advanced manufacturing process. It still uses a few extra boards, though, we’re not quite at PSTwo levels yet.
– A Cheaper Blu-ray drive is being used. It wont be any slower, but expect to see similar issues that another competitor had a while ago.
– Touch-sensitive buttons on the front for power/eject are gone in favour of cheaper push buttons.
– It has a slightly different startup screen. Only slightly.
– It’s about 50% smaller than current PS3s.
– It wont be called the “PS3 Slim”. The PS1 “slim” and the PS2 “slim” were never officially called the “slim”, either.
In short: It’s a smaller PS3, but that’s it. No new features, no special hardware, just smaller and cheaper. And it wont have sex with you.
Firmware 3.00 Quotes
Cross-game chat is in the works as part of Firmware 3.0. It wont be out during the summer, but assuming all goes well, it will be out well before the holidays. Current timeframe places it around September, but it’s still very much a WIP.
If there are any major delays, that will slip and if there are very few delays at all, it might even arrive earlier, but don’t bank on it as it is a lot more complicated than you might imagine. At this point, it’s working quite well in the labs and supports several players at once.
It’s targeted to work with all past and future games that support ingame XMB, much like text chat.
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this was posted a few months ago guys and it seems quite accurate. Hopefully cross game chat is in there after all?
Cool but I do wish you would add override directional button control to analog control for playstation classics. it’s a feature every one would like to have in a future firmware update
Firmware 3.00 is pretty nice (I guess you guys skipped 2.90 because 3.00 just sounded better on a conference? :-P), although I’m a bit dissapointed in the new features.
Come on guys, let’s be honest here. You know the #1 requested feature is cross-game voice/partychat. THAT should be your #1 priority.
I realize it’s not an easy feature to develop, but I’m sure you’ll find a way.
Personally, I’d suggest to use Skype and make it available for use while in-game. You just need to link your current Skype account to your PSN account, or create a new one, so we don’t have two seperate friendlists to choose from when we want to voicechat with someone. :-)
I can’t believe theres not a single reply, how weak.
We have to wait until September 1st :(
cool, I look the moving theme the most!
WOW you can see the battery indicator and the clock at the same time…what an amazing feature, why isn’t it called 4.0??
No seriously, 1.0->2.0 was a big deal…this isn’t. Why not make a decent music manager so it is possible to use the PS3 as a media center (no you can’t if you have 5000+ songs). That would be an even greater feature than knowing the time and battery status at the same time.
I love by PS3 and my PSP but this is a sad .0 update…
WEHRE THE HELL IS THE VOICECHAT???
NO ONE NEEDS FANCY FEATURES UNTIL THE CROSSOVER VOICECHAT IS IMPLEMENTED.
AND IF YOU REALLY APPRECIATE FEEDBACK, GIVE ME AN ANSWER ON THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!
WHY IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE A CROSSOVER VOICECHAT??????????????????
What are you there at Sony doing? No, really it seems that you are doing your best to ensure Microsoft and Nintendo to keep selling more consoles units than the Playstation3 ever will.
Firmware 3.00 should have been a major update instead it’s just a list of some cosmetic changes that don’t justify the update at all.
Also the new Playstation3 Slim is going to remove useful features that the Cell in the PS3 was used for like adding a second OS that has been Linux so far—a really bad move and how much will you save on that, $0.50 per unit? Pathetic. Marketing guys there at Sony should get fired immediately, they keep making a lot of mistakes forcing engineers to not do what customers want and waste Corporation resources on nothing and more frustrated customers will be added to the list.
Since Firmware 3.00 is just garbage and doesn’t contain any of the requested features, when are you there at Sony going to release a proper firmware with these most requested features?
– A proper in-game video/text unlimited chat system like your competitors have, Microsoft XBox360 it’s a tiny system with a cheap CPU but thanks to those features is selling more than Playstation3 among gamers, didn’t your marketing guys figure that out yet?
– DiVX 7 with MKV container support
– Bitstream DolbyTrueHD and DTS-MasterAudio thru HDMI. PCM is already supported and it takes a lot more bandwidth on the HDMI connection than transferring bitstream only without decoding which just means that it can’t be an hardware issue preventing bitstream support there but a licenses one, then Sony please pay the licenses and activate bitstream support for HD audio formats on HDMI now, even your cheap Blu-Ray players can do that there is no reason why the Playstation3 shouldn’t. Stop the marketing guys from preventing customers satisfaction!
– FLAC audio lossless format support
– Samba network sharing support to be able to open shared folders on any Windows or Linux system discovered on the LAN and so be able to read files from NAS units as well that don’t come with a DLNA server!
– Folder support for XMB so that pictures, videos and music files could be organized in a decent way for quick customized browsing
– Add a decent picture viewer because the current one just sucks, and I mean it, really. It’s so badly designed and hard to use, who the heck designed that awful UI ?
– Add some well written jukebox application with database management for audio files playback and to organize playlists and such.
The Playstation3 is a great machine but you there at Sony are really sleeping. It’s obvious that marketing guys are behind all the issues that customers have, with all the money spent on R&D the Firmware 3.00 release should have added all the features I kept requesting here and elsewhere along with many of your other customers.
Send your top managers and Sony CEO a clear message: “Customers are not satisfied at all and if you don’t address those issues and add those features then the Playstation3 will result in a huge financial failure in the long run instead of a great success”.
(I had to post multiple messages because this blog now has a limit of just 1,250 characters per post…)
Why has Sony decided to scrap “boot Other OS” – it was one the biggest selling points of the console.
I was expecting something more useful then this lame junk. The new theme looks nice and cool but is not what we (gamers) want damn it. We want Cross-Game Chat and more gaming features. Thumbs way down anther huge letdown don’t i still worship Sony LoL PS3 4 LiFe. Hopefully the next firmware after this mini one hopefully it will add some unbeknown new features for us gamers to enjoy using. Add AOL IM support.
My PSN ID: Ivan- ADD ME.
. On top of that I think that when you get trophies it should count as you earning listen i love playstation 3 i even make videos on youtube repersenting playstation 3. All you got to do is go to youtube.com and type in bigkidbigdog in the search bar too see some of them. But i got to be honest i dont see anything thats soo exciting. I mean the last time we got an ps3 update was around april i think and all we got is this. It doesnt seem enough too me how about we get the voice chat thing like 360 has. By the way i hate xbox 360. But am just keeping it real. We should get that because we can voice message our other friends online when we are in another game. I think we need a bigger friend list as wellsomethin in the playstation store does anyone agree with me.
Too me it’s like when you get trophies what do you really get. It should be able to go towards us gettin something out the store thats what I feel. My last request is that if a celebrity get on the playstation network we should be able to know about it. Soo we can play in games with that celebrity. Also I think we should recongize the people in the playstation community. Like have a playstation player of the week or something you know just too make people feel special. I mean I think it would be cool. Maybe that person could get like 15 dollars towards something out the playstation store. Other than that I am really happy with my playstation 3. Looking foward to all the good playstation 3 exlcusives coming out this year and sum of next year. Once again if you guys want to see my PLAYSTATION VIDEOS. GO TO YOUTUBE.COM AND TYPE IN MY PSN. BIGKIDBIGDOG IN THE SEARCH BAR I GOT VIDEOS ABOUT PLAYSTATION 3 AND OTHER THINGS OK THEN I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED MY BLOG.
what is with the 3 ps store icons i think it just mucks up the xmb with pointless icons what not enuff ppl culd find the old one why do i need it in the vid game and network sections ther all right next to each other 1 icon is enuff 2 is 2 many 3 is over kill
you know something i’ll starting caring about your precious updates once my ps3 is able to be backwards compatible with my ps2 games!
COME ON SONY, GIVE US FEEDBACK!!!
hot
when can i download this update ????
Read this on a forum: “(for those interested, the battery meter has been moved in Firmware 3.0)”
Soooo, then how are we supposed to know the battery level? hmm?
this sounds great.
what i’d be looking forward to seeing would be friend partys. instead of only game parties, no matter what game your friends are playing, still being able to chat to them via the headset would be alot easier and give a very positive user reaction.
Where is the Bravia sync update? How come only the new ps3 slim has it? is this a hardware issue on the old ps3????
pls release it this thursday, can’t wait
Awesome :) Good job Sony BUT where’s the Cross Game Chat?? :(
wow ok this is a very cool update but its not what we are asking for cant you hear our crys sony? ok so we get firmware update every what 6 month? so i guess guys we will have to wait about that long to get what we been asking for since the ps3 release thats a long time to wait. please give us cross game chat
nice update looking forward for it
peaCe
y are people complaning about bc and cross game chat….if u want a bc get a ps3 that has or find a hack patch there out there….and cross game chat…i see there point but really when im playing a shooter those are the people i want to kill….cause they cant hear there teamates used to have a 360 till it took a crap
ALL WE NEED IS A CROSSGAME CHAT. NOTHING ELSE. ALL THE REST CAN FOLLOW!!!!
funny thing…they allways say they would like to hear our feedback but did someone notice that the only answer on the first 3 comment pages after that its utterly not recognized. im still bragging about the PSNstore icons everywhere. damn it…let me decide which icon i want to be shown to me.
people just forget about ingame mandatory music or cross game chatting, they just won’t implement it. hell..i want a logial build ingame XMB why are all icons shown if i only allowed to usw, friends, games and music icons ? just THINK a second…cant you? why do you allways say “we listen to cutomers” and i dont see progress 1-2 times a year.
cross game chat please! i dont want to sound ungrateful i love ps3 i love love love this update an i know we ps3 owners shouldn’t be demanding anything BEING THAT THE PSN IS FREE KEEP THAT IN MIND YOU ungrateful PS3 OWNERS but sony im just asking you please give us what we been asking for thanks
Thanks Sony, awesome update.
A more concrete time for the release would have been nice though.
Why is Bravia Sync exclusive to the new Slim? I bought a PS3 less than a month ago and thought it being a “Sony”, it would work with my Bravia KDL-40W4000 bought last summer, but it didn’t. Now you launch the Slim and update firmware to 3.0 but only include Bravia sync for the slim? Why???
I was informed the original PS3 has HDMI 1.3, so there should be no hardware issue.
Lots of nice stuff, I especially love the dynamic backgrounds idea.
Three things came to mind directly when I heard these. Firstly, what about animated avatars? Secondly, what about making your own avatars, transferring jpegs and even animated Gifs from your computer to make your own. However, I can see the problem with other users needing to download these.
Also, the most awesome thing would be if a “make your own” kit came out with the dynamic backgrounds in mind. It could be a piece of software that you download, collect or make all your own images and background art and have it placed into the system for you!