Firmware 1.90 Coming Soon

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UPDATE: The Firmware 1.90 update is available now; I’ve also included an update below that addresses some of your comments here.

Firmware 1.90 brings with it several new features, many of which readers of this blog have requested – I’m happy to report.

Customization is one new feature: you can now personalize the wallpaper on your XMB with a photo. This was one of the top three requests we received via the blog’s contact form. When viewing a photo, simply bring up the options screen by pressing the triangle button and selecting “set as wallpaper” from the options displayed. Additionally, you can now change the order of the games displayed under the game icon on the XMB.

Another new feature focuses on added communication elements: When you’re sending messages to friends on PLAYSTATION Network, you can now use emoticons. We’ve added a bunch of emoticons that can be easily accessed from the virtual keyboard. Also, another cool addition is, when an avatar is displayed during voice/video chat, the avatar will move in response to audio.

Finally, on the more technical side, you can now play AVCHD videos saved on a Memory Stick or digital video camera, and we’ve added the ability to upscale audio CD output from your PS3. Now, there are two requirements for this feature: the device you’re outputting to must support a sampling frequency of 88.2 kHz or 176.4 kHz, and your PS3 must be connected to that device with an HDMI cable or digital optical cable.

Oh, and one more thing: you can now eject discs using your controller by selecting “Eject Disc” in the options menu after you push the PS button.

Several other minor options will be included in 1.90 including a few new display options that will allow you to adjust your display while playing PlayStation, PlayStation2 and Blu-ray movies.

We’re working on additional features for our next update that will incorporate more of your feedback, so as always thanks for all of your support, and please keep those suggestions coming!

[UPDATE]
The link on the SCEA website is now live, you can get the full info on firmware 1.90 here. Also, I noticed a lot of your comments were directly related to accessing XMB features in-game. We understand this is something you want and we are working on it. For the sake of keeping all the comments below on topic, please understand that we hear this request and are working toward a solution. When I have some more info to share on this, know that I will do so here on this blog.

Now, with all of that said, thanks for the feedback. I decided to address some of the consistent comments in the body of this post instead of within the comments. One thing you have noticed is that under sorting your games, when you sort by creation date, it sorts by the date you downloaded the content. Sorting videos is done by the date that the videos were added to your hard drive. You can also ‘go-to’ a specific time in any of the videos on your HDD, by hitting triangle and then selecting the specific time from the clock at the bottom.

Something a few of you have noticed as well is that you don’t need to have the SIXAXIS controller connected to PS3 through the USB cable anymore to complete the update, which I know is something some of you were asking for.

Comments are closed.

903 Comments

  • Who’s is Eric Lempel?

    I thought these guys did the updates?

    Software engineers for SCE Kawanishi and Kanehide?

    http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/1385.html

  • @ deadxbabiesxinc
    and
    blizzard182

    Yea this network thing sucks… :(
    The nucleus starter pack is so much fun….I WILL buy that game if i could…

    Someone at sony or on this blog… Please address the netwrok problem…
    No support for Latin America/Caribbean :(

    I mean Microsoft and the xbox360 supports us… :|

  • My Wish List:

    – In-game XMB
    – Ability to play your own music while playing a game. I assume this would be possible with in-game XMB
    – Faster store
    – Ability to play all movie files, not just MP4’s

  • Good work sony, keep up the good work!

  • thanks Sony! keep it up.
    As for suggestions, not to beat a dead horse but in-game xmb for messaging and music would be an awesome feature

  • I bet they already have in game xmb, or are working on it. Again IN-GAME XMB is the #1 thing everyone wants. That will be the best feature to add to the ps3 IN-GAME XMB.

  • This direct feedback is amazing. Looking forward to fiddle around with the new firmware and options (& Heavenly Sword ofcourse…) Thanks!

  • I’m just gonna keep asking this until this gets done. PLEASE make the Sixaxis controllers charge when the PS3 is in standby mode. Thanks

  • COLORSPACE BUG ON PS2 GAMES!
    ——————————————————–

    IMPORTANT BUG!

    There is a still a bug as of firmware 1.82 in the fact that PS2 games video output is always either YUV or RGB Limited, even when RGB FULL has been selected.

    Basically with 1.82, everything (XMB, PS1, PS3 and BD/DVD movies) can be displayed in RGB FULL (when BD/DVD is set to RGB too, of course) except PS2 games that are still output as YUV or RGB limited.

    This is annoying because the brightness is way too high and the image washed out when playing PS2 games after RGB FULL has been selected and the TV carefully calibrated for RGB FULL.

    Technically, when RGB Full is selected, the PS3 video output colorspace ranges from 0 to 255 for everything (XMB, Movies, BD Movies, DVD Movies, PS1 & PS3 games) but when a PS2 game is launched, the video output then changes and is limited to 16 to 235.

    Sony, please fix this.
    Thanks.

    —————————————————

  • Good call Sony!

    now you just need to setup a poll for most requested features. We are DYING for XMB access during games. Also, many of us want AVI support for media sharing…. as well as find out why it is crashing Linksys routers.

    I am very happy with your communication through this blog. It is very pleaseing to have so much communication to the end users of such a huge entity.

    You are doing GREAT with this whole platform.

  • I hope the people at Sony are taking notes, becasue it sems like the majority of us are asking for mainly one thing

    In-game XMB access

    : (

  • Great update…

    I would like to see the PS Store integrated right into the XMB. Right now I do not like how I have to go to a separate area to browse demos, game add ons and whatever else. Although purely aesthetic, I do not like how it looks so different than the XMB too. I also think by next year when there are a lot more games out, the current model will be a mess as far as being able to search for add ons and demos.

  • @kodoque

    I second that

  • sweet now I’m happy

  • Very Cool, I love the updates. It keeps the console fresh. Thanks again, guys.

  • \o/ I can eject the disk form the PS menu!
    I’ve seriously been wanting that.

  • @Kodoque

    Thats a good point! I know when I’m done playing a game I don’t keep it on to charge my controller…I turn it the hell off! So charging in standby would be awesome! (Also I turn my controller off when I’m paused for a long period of time or when I’m stuck in a long cut scene lol)

    I’d like customizable soundtracks, a way to reorganize EVERYTHING on the XMB cuz right now…if you compare it to a windows desktop…I just highlighted everything closed my eyes and put em in a random spot…thats what my XMB looks like.

  • I just wanted to pass along that I think in a future firmware update you should have the ability to group friends (with a heading) in your friend’s list much like in AIM or MSN Messenger. I have a full list of 50 friends and I have a hard time keeping track of all of them.

    Another great added feature, much like that, would be the ability to nickname each of your friends. So beside their PSN Name, in brackets you could have the name you know them by so you don’t forget who they are. So for example, on someone’s list I might appear as “David2Crazy (David Doel)” because they chose the nickname “David Doel” for me so they can remember who I am.

  • If you make custom soundtracks for games, don’t forget about the web browser. My PSP won’t let me listen to music while I surf the web, and I hate it.

    Also, make sure we can mute the web browser so while we’re listening to our custom music, we can hear it over that crappy midi someone put on their site.

    I know it’s not the biggest request out there, but seems like a simple one… so.. I hope you can get around to it.

    Thanks!!

    Oh, one more thing… what does this do?

    “Change the folder classification”

  • Obviously in game XMB access is what people want. I personally don’t really care if it is the exact XMB or just how it currently is and let us select the text option for what we want to do. Like friends, settings, and other things like that. It doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to get the job done. Now… an actual XMB would be pretty awesome too, but meh.

    I’d like an ability to not be logged off the server when playing a PS2 game. I would like to continue downloading from the store and still know when i get messages and things like that. I don’t like being automatically logged off. If it works for PS1 games, why can’t it for PS2?

    Everyone wants a custom soundtrack ability. I don’t care about it personally.

    The ability to stream videos from the Store would be cool.

  • I have been waiting for this update, thank you!

  • I wonder if this means that we can chose theme colors too like psp.

  • Wow, Sony is kicking some major ass lately. Especially in comparison to a ‘certain’ other opponent.

    Great Job Eric & co. :). Almost there…. in-game XMB and custom music soundtracks remaining and when that happens. Oh sweet jesus… the joy… THE JOY :D!

  • Give me Divx and Xvid playback. I could care less about anything else, just give me those capabilities and i will play playstion 3 for the next 10 years. This was my biggest problem with 360, if playstation offers it, they will definitly push themselves ahead

  • Thanks for all these new features!
    One thing I think it would be nice is to jump to a specific minute (hour:minute:second) when you are playing a video, so instead to wait while you are seen it in a 10x mode, you could just jump wherever you want.
    Maybe for BluRay movies is not a great feature because of the “titles” but for the other ones videos it would be great.
    Thank you!

  • Thank you. Very nice firmware update, I can see now why these take so long.

    The only other things I need or want at this point in time are:
    1.XMB in game
    2.Custom Soundtracks

    Firmware 2.0? I hope that is when we will all be able to enjoy these fetures.

    Again thanks. Oh its only 9 days untill 300 hits Blu-Ray.

  • Thats awesome now i can spend more time with my lovely ps3 ;D.. But wheres the in-game music access :S???????…

  • i would like to see some polls on this site about firmware updates for the psp and ps3, so you can rate things that we want to add to the ps3 or psp.

  • man…this gravatar thing is a pain in the butt…hey sony…can we just have a profile? Yanno myspace it up a little bit? lol just jump on the myspace band wagon! everyone else is…there’s no shame!!!

  • Very nice update Sony!

    Decoding of DTS-HD MA to LPCM would be a nice feature for the next update though :D

  • Great Update, perhaps you can give us some great game related backgrounds on the PS Store for download to go with these new features. :)

  • @ Eric

    Three Speech

    NEW CONTENT AVAILABLE ON THE PSN – THURSDAY 26TH JULY
    Filed under: PS3 NEWS, GAMES — Three Speech July 23, 2007 @ 11:45 am
    The following content will be uploaded onto the Euro PSN store on Thursday 26th July:

    PS One games:
    – Crash 2
    – Spyro 2
    – Medievil
    – Wipeout 2097

    PS3 Demos:
    – Heavenly Sword

    PS3 Trailers:
    – Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
    – GT5 Prologue

    Will the Heavenly Sword demo be in the U.S. store on the same day? Thank You.

  • Great Heads Up.

    At first based on rumors I though tit wasn’t worth it. Now that you outlayed the features, I think it’s worth it. I like being able to change video settings in game.

    Best feature yet.

  • Very nice. Thanks again guys. It shows we’re moving forward and are listening to what people as asking for.

  • We need In-Game Access Now, please

  • sounds like a great update. I love the new customization options and funny enough, my favorite new addition is the EJECT option in the PS button Menu :)

  • I am very happy with this update. Wallpaper and the ability to customize the look of your XMB is something that goes a long way to endeering people to their PS3’s. After all, its all about options!

    I am sure in game messaging is coming as well as in game music access. Its just a matter of time. Sony is clearly lsitening to its customers and its only a matter of time before these updates are implemented.

    Good work guys!

  • Thank you!

  • @Eric

    Thanks for the update dude, however if we have to use the contact form on this Blog then whats the point of commenting???

    I would have thought the IN GAME XMB or CUSTOM MUSIC would have been a higher request then gay wallpaper

  • Q.
    From that point of view, how about playback of WMV and Divx?

    K1
    The problem with those formats are that they are not industry standards like “mpeg-4”, but format that is locked in by various corporations.
    But I understand the demand (laugh).

  • @78

    Yea I can’t wait for 300 Blu-ray either!

    This is Spaartaaa!

  • I love the update but you know what everyone wants. In-game XMB and cross game invites. If you have that by October than all the main features would be addressed and we can enjoy playing the games.

  • In-Game Access is really needed, then ill be a happy PS3 owner

  • @ERIC

    Dude heres a little analogy for you!!

    Imagine going into a fine dining establishment and asking for the Filet Mignon (IN-GAME XMB ACCESS) and for arguments sake Garlic Mash (Custom Music)…and the server comes out with a fatty piece of roast beef (GAY WALLPAPER) and some french fries (AUDIO/VIDEO TWEAKS)

    Wouldnt you be annoyed?? wouldnt you want to send it back??? especially when your meal costs you $600

  • I will most definately be a happy PS3 owner when In-Game access is finally achieved.

  • LOL…i crack myself up :)

  • You guys are almost there! Here are the updates I want most, after these updates happen, there’s not going to be a whole lot more to improve on.

    1. In-game music (can’t stand Motorstorm’s soundtrack) and I uploaded a good 50GBs of music.
    2. .avi/.wmv support
    3. Ability to arrange Photo folders, and add sub folders (Like Artists – Albums)…also every time I look at my albums I group content by artists, but when I reset the PS3 it goes back to albums, could you fix that?
    4. In-game XMB. I’m not dying for it, but this is obviously the most wanted update.

  • - TechFresh, the Video Game Blog

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  • how about not get disconnected while you are playing
    ps2 games on your ps3.or play ps2 games online on your ps3.i am sure every one else want that to.
    people want there friends to see what games they
    have.compare games to see it short.

    pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase

    eric consider this

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