Here it is folks, the real deal for PS3 owners! A good chunk of the features that the PS3 is missing when compared to the Xbox 360 will be introduced in firmware update 2.40, coming on July 2nd! Two days away! I’ll throw out a quick list of the good stuff we’ll be seeing soon:
- In game XMB, akin to how the Xbox 360 can pop out its information blade. Not all features are usable while playing a game, but the XMB will inform you when you select a feature that isn’t usable while playing a game (for example, you can’t watch a movie or play a PSN game from an in-game XMB). You can’t start a voice chat from the in-game XMB either, unfortunately. You CAN check your friend list, add friends, check messages, and adjust Bluetooth headset settings all from the in-game XMB though.
- Trophies! While they are very similar to the Xbox 360’s achievement system, they are still a welcome addition. Each game has a certain allotment of Trophies, and these trophies are graded by difficulty: The easiest being Bronze, the next easiest Silver, and the hardest are Gold. If you were to get all of the trophies in a particular game, you’ll be awarded a Platinum trophy. Trophies also contribute to your “gamer level”, which is basically just there to give others an idea of how many trophies you have collected. Speaking of others, you will be able to look at the profiles of other gamers in much greater depth now, and be able to compare trophy scores and the trophy scores within individual games. Again, very similar to Xbox Live on the Xbox 360, but still a welcome addition.
- Unfortunately, games will need to be patched to take advantage of the trophy system. Games that are to be patched by the time firmware update 2.40 hits are PAIN, Warhawk, and Super Stardust HD. According to Sony, all games are patchable, and many new games will take advantage of the Trophy system when they ship/release, including Buzz!, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, LittleBigPlanet, NBA 2009, PixelJunk Eden, Resistance 2, and SOCOM: Confrontation, for example.
- Some small things have also been added, such as the persistent Google search feature on the XMB that was added for the PSP’s firmware 4.00 update will be added in 2.40 for the PS3. Our friend lists have also been upgraded to allow for 100 friends already. The friend upgrade apparently happened either in 2.36 or when the PSN servers were down for maintenence.
For more information, including walkthrough videos, check out the Playstation Blog for all the info. Links to both relevant posts:
