Hi again! It’s great to see the positive reaction to the unveiling of system software update v2.40. We can’t wait for you to finally go hands-on with XMB access in-game and the Trophy system – and it’s less than 2 days away. Not surprisingly, a number of you have posed questions both here and on other forums. Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions.
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Will voice-messaging/private chat be featured in 2.40 as well? If not, can we expect to see this feature added in the future?
We are evaluating the opportunity to offer voice chat, but for this update, we wanted to focus on text messaging as the key priority for communications that our users have asked for.
Can you use the web browser in game?
No, you must exit the game before browsing the internet.
Will In-Game XMB come up during playback of PS2 games, Blu-Ray discs, and DVDs?
The XMB is an exclusive feature for PS3 game titles. Accessing the XMB during gameplay was the top request from our users, which we focused on for this update. However, we continually engage PS3 owners for feedback and will evaluate the opportunity to offer XMB access during movie playback in the future.
Can we go to the display settings and change anything there in-game (resolution, input, etc)?
No, you must exit the game before changing these settings.
Will it be possible to change in-game the sound output?
Yes, sound output changes are supported.
Will we be able to access the PLAYSTATION Store while in-game?
No, but you can view your downloads in progress.
Will we be able to stream music (either via media server or USB drive) for custom soundtracks or is it relegated to music stored on the HDD?
Currently only music stored on the HDD is accessible in games that support this feature. We’d also like to reiterate that Firmware v2.40 merely enables custom soundtracks. It’s up to developers to include this feature in upcoming games (or to patch existing ones).
Does 2.4 enable cross game invites? Will it down the line?
No, cross-game invites are not available in this system software update. We are evaluating opportunities to expand on the new features delivered in 2.40.
Will trophies be mandatory for all games release here on out?
We are working with developers to ensure that Trophies are supported across the board in the future.
Where is each player’s trophy stat info held? I am going to upgrade my hard drive and I don’t know if the trophies will still be on my account if I earn some and then get a new hard drive.
Trophies will be attached to users’ PSN ID. Trophy data needs to be synchronized to the online account on PSN to be transferred to the new PS3 system.
Will the patch automatically allocate unlocked trophies according to your saved files or would you have to do it again?
No, Trophies aren’t retroactive.
Can we view PSN profiles/Trophies from a PC using a Web browser? Will there be an API for web developers to access the PSN data, so online profiles can be created?
We’re evaluating these opportunities to expand where Trophies can be experienced.
Can you only compare trophies with friends that are online?
As long as a friend has a PSN account, you can compare trophies with them regardless of their online status.
Is there a limit to how many trophies the devs can put set by Sony?
There’s not a limit on number of trophies, but there’s a value assigned to each trophy. Developers must balance out the trophies that are available to stay within an overall value based on whether the game is considered large-scope or small-scope. Essentially, a user that has unlocked every trophy in one game would have the same level as a user that unlocked every trophy in another title, all titles (depending on scope) have the same overall impact on a users’ level.
Will new games have a cool little icon on the back saying “trophy compatible?”
We’re currently working on how Trophy support will be messaged to the consumer on our software packaging.
When you get a trophy, does it make a noise?
Currently, no.How quickly things can change – there *will* be a sound effect when you unlock a Trophy.
What is Eric’s favorite cheese?
Mozzarella
Once again, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to enhance the PLAYSTATION 3’s system software throughout the console’s life cycle. Consumer feedback has contributed greatly to the contents of Firmware v2.40, and continues to be appreciated. Don’t forget, this Firmware will be available for download on July 2nd.
800 posts .WoW.
Anyway Jeff / Eric — Could you please give us a more complete list of games which will have custom soundtrack support added – and games which will have Trophy support ?
WOW some people are never stratified Ungrateful ingrates
########################
I hope my comment will be read as a potential source of idea for future update.
XMB in-game is a great feature, it was really missing, and here is it.
-Cross over invitation would be a must, OK I’m a Xbox 360 player too, and have to say, its great.
-About messages, would it be possible to add a ‘delete selected messages’ and/or ‘delete all’
(maybe an extension like
Delete > Current
> All
> Selected
I think it won’t be hard to do it, because deleting all the messages of the day after some conversation with some friends is a pain to keep the stuff organized.
Thanks ;)
@Tparsons – Trophy’s/ custom soundtracks/ cross game chat(and invites), in-game XMB in PS1 games, in-game browser support and then pretty much everyone here will be happy.
Yea some people over-do the complaints, but remember the majority of the features people want have been available on 360 for quiet a while (years in fact). So i don’t see whats wrong for people wanting to support SONY and have these features…
Sony is the best! Can’t wait for 2.40, thank you for listening.
“We’d also like to reiterate that Firmware v2.40 merely enables custom soundtracks. It’s up to developers to include this feature in upcoming games (or to patch existing ones).”
That is possibly the biggest let down ever, this was already like this, what is with you all and “up to the developers” so basically we’re still not gonna have in game music, my god just make it play over top of everything and force it on, this is ridiculous.
@750 Aprisaiden_22
So do you want more Ram (256 Mb More!) and a cheaper system? :S
@ Sentry (791)
Okie. You know pretty much know the same as the rest of us, which is nothing, so stop acting like you know something you don’t, and if you do, cough up how you know.
For in-game voice chatting. I’d like you to show me where it states that it is, emphatically, 100% being worked on. What I read was the following,
“We are evaluating the opportunity to offer voice chat, but for this update…”.
In the English language, those words, put together to form a sentence means that they are EVALUATING, not, testing. Let’s see what evaluate means, shall we ?
Evaluate – 1. to determine or set the value or amount of; appraise: to evaluate property.
2. to judge or determine the significance, worth, or quality of; assess: to evaluate the results of an experiment. (from dict.com)
It does not mean that it’s ready and they are “testing” it…no, it basically PR talk for, we’re not sure yet.
Secondly, to your comment,
“OBVIOUSLY they can’t make it forced, or out of the box, because I think that would be violating MS’s patent…”
There’s the word I was looking for… “think”… you “think” it would violate the patent, you don’t KNOW for sure. Do you even know what the Microsoft patent entails, or are you just mimicking what others are saying ? And do you truly believe that Microsoft’s patent is the ONLY way to do it ?
Also, to your comment,
“But if you favorite games get it, what are you complaining about? That Hail the Chimp doesn’t get the feature? Come on”
Absolutely ! First, everyone’s “favorite” game is different. I have a person on my friends list who I’m convinced, just leaves their PS3 on all day while loaded in PAIN because I for one, can’t understand what’s appealing about this game. But that’s me and that’s my taste, they obviously feel differently about it. Sure PAIN already has a Custom Soundtrack option… what, WHAT ? How is that possible, Sony is only just now implementing that feature… NOT ! A game like Hail to the Chimp, a party game, would only benefit from the ability to play my own music, music my friends would probably enjoy more than the campy music that is no doubt going to be in this game (and this isn’t to detract from the work in creating the music). So if it doesn’t get it, that may be a deciding factor against buying it.
I think most of the anger comes from the fact that there is a video, that is still posted, that teases us with something we’re not getting. Even Eric himself said that it may not function like that. Where does a corporation, like Sony, get off showing a feature you’re not providing, and you know you’re not providing ? Why couldn’t they post a final version of it instead ? Why rush it ? E3-2006 anyone ? Geeze Louise !
I understand that all this negativity isn’t great. But it really is Sony’s own making. Why can’t you see that ?
Will there be an ability to view pages on the internet that are larger files? Also, will there be a flash player to view some movies and websites?
What happens with the trophies if you’re playing at a friend’s house? I’ll copy my saves, play at a friend’s and then copy the saves back to my machine. You lose those trophies while playing on another ps3? Do you have to login to your psn account when on your friend’s ps3?
on behalf of crabbz @ B3D
@tristan and others who challenge the patent discussion
Micros patent is pretty all inclusive, if you want to read it yourself i can give you the direct link to the patent office website’s listing of it
What so this now means after i download the update i have to go through and complete all 10 of my ps3 games again? i think that at first it should be retroactive coz most people will be annoyed that they have tried so hard to get all these things and now you have to do it all again? cant it just be retoactive when you first download it then thats it?
Trev
Bottom line:
Sony had an opportunity here to really WOW us with the results of this LONG awaited update. But in my opinion: they’ve really failed to do that.
It’s stunning that they could take 18 months to produce so little.
I nearly choked when I read Eric’s revised answer to the “Trophies and Noise” question:
“How quickly things can change.”
Did he really use the word “QUICKLY”?!!. Sony must have an entirely different idea of what QUICKLY means. Because 18 months ain’t quickly.
Have the delivered some features that we want? Absolutely. But they’ve sat in silence for nearly two years, leading us to believe that they were developing something that would blow the doors off the XBox service.
But the results barely put a chip in the paint of the XBOX.
where is microsofts patent for ingame music
@ 794
Yeah you can change headsets and register bluetooth headsets in-game now.
@ 809
What the hell? LOL, I don’t know what you are talking about all I said is it is easy to allow music access in the XMB now for devs. Sorry if I offended you.
I didn’t take the time to read your entire post, I skimmed, because im in a hurry but here is my response to you.
Firstly, in-game chat IS being worked on, at a time it was going to come in this update, but it didn’t make it. It will come later, so don’t worry about that or count it as a negative thing that Sony didnt think of it, or whatever else people can up with to complain.
And why I said I was assuming in-game music is not forced because of MSs patent, is because if it is such an easy feature to enable now (for devs), it could have been compatible with almost all games out of the box, JUST like in-game XMB is going to be. But why is this? Why isn’t it like in-game XMB and working across all games? I am assuming it is because the patents on the feature, that is a logical explanation in my mind.
What I meant though bro, is that all the major titles coming up, will most likely have support for music in-game. That is all I meant…
People asked for in-game XMB and they got it, what the didn’t get (YET) is in-game chat, and cross game invites. Big deal, voice chat isn’t vital at this point, and neither is cross game invites. First thing is that they have nailed this down, and will add onto it more in the future. Even the IGN preview states this; this is only the first phase.
So before being so negative about everything, remember what you are getting here, for free. Hope you understand where I am coming from bro…
And just to prove to you that not everything is done yet, I could post my several page list of ideas for the PSN and XMB, im no fanboy.
Hey Eric Lempel,
I gave up on playing Warhawk since 2007. My account’s medals and ribbons haven’t been updated since then. I’ve spent months trying to reach out to the people at Sony to figure this issue out but it seems pretty hopeless. So I just gave up on the game and everything else that deals with Warhawk. At this point Warhawk was a total waste of my money…Every time you speak to someone, they send you to another department. It goes on and on! There was even a gentle who prompt me to email him my warhawk account info on here…which I did. I never even heard back from him. He actually works for Sony. LOL
So there wont be any Warhawk trophies for moi! Never again shall I waste my money on an online only title again. I wont be fooled twice!
ROFLMAO @ TouchyEd (814) @ the “quickly” comment. That’s just gold Jerry, GOLD !
Great post ! I think it wraps up the feelings that, I believe, a lot of Playstation 3 owners have.
yet again, xbox1 enables custom soundtracks through developer discretion aren’t Sony violating a patent right there?
…and they really need to edit that video. It’s downright insulting to show one thing and deliver another.
You think Sony would have learned their lesson with the Killzone 2 trailer.
But obviously not.
Sony LOVES to show us “what’s coming” but never actually delivers that future.
Remember all those demos for the Playstation Eye we saw? (Where we could change our hairstyles, etc). But has any of that ever materialized into something that we can use?
Nope. None of it.
Remember all those videos for Home we were watching two years ago?
Has that ever materialized?
Nope. None of it.
as for retroactivity…
PSN is not adding trophys for us all to becom obsessed trophy zombies (i hope)
that is why IF you want to go back and replay games for trophys you can. But you dont have to to. If the furture there will be more than enough games with trophy support… so what if you dont have the points from assasins creed or heavenly, you’ll make up for it
And maybe one day you will go back to play those games (and i hope that you wont be so singlemindly obsessed with trophys and actually enjoy the fact that you are playing a game)
I think that FW 2.4 is a good time for people, developers, and gamers to look towards sony’s future. Yeah i’d love patches to my old games, but what really excites me is the future potential of our system
@ 811
No trophies are linked to your PSN so you cant copy game saves, if you want to play at a friends house, sign into your PSN to do so.
@ 814
I would have to disagree, they delivered MORE then what we asked for. Not just in-game XMB… What did they not deliver that we asked for? Voice chat in-game? Not too important IMO but it is going to come anyways. What else? Honestly I think people are just complaining for the sake of it. Having access to the entire XMB is a big deal, and it is no easy task obviously.
**********************
VOICE MESSAGING
**********************
PRIVATE CHAT
**********************
CROSS-GAME INVITE SYSTEM
**********************
Make it happen Sony!
Sentry, I agree with a lot of your points. But Sony didn’t really deliver “In-Game XMB” if you consider that only two features of the XMB actually work “in-game”.
Sure, we can ACCESS the XMB while in-game. But if none of it works without having to leave the game, then it’s not really very useful, is it?
818, do you guys really take the time to post here?
I mean I understood seeing Xbots on IGN and other boards where a gaming community logs on to comment on gaming news, but this is a playstation blog and you created an account for it to criticize the PS3. Interesting. I learned something new today.
@ 820
How is it false information? Wtf? They showed in-game XMB, and what we will be able to access. He even stated in the video (since the video is like a month old), that this is just a concept and might not be exactly how it works but its what they are planning.
As for the PS Eye video, that shows your ignorance right there. That wasn’t an official video, btw, or a trailer or anything, go back and watch the video again…
Are you working on DLNA music playback in-game?
Sentry, I never said it was “false information”. I said it was stuff that Sony likes to show us but never produces.
What’s the point of showing us a video of something that “could have” been, or “should have” been, but isn’t?
@ 824
We did only ask for those features, did be not? Music, and friends section, they delivered on both. The XMB requires lots of work, it isn’t a one screen menu, it has multiple actions, animations, images, etc. Being able to instantly jump out of the game and directly into a video, or the PS Store, isn’t an east or simple task to do obviously. They gave us access to even more features then we asked. MANY people said they dont even want music just friends list! Now they gave us friends list, trophies, music, some useful settings, and BG DL.
It’s worth it, I don’t see how one can complain if the delivered on the requests, honestly…
@ 827
I doubt it, but seeing I disabled the feature it doesn’t mean much to me (I have all my music on my HDD anyways), but that would be cool for some people.
@Fersis — The extra RAM would of allowed SONY to implement more stuff via the game OS and would also allow PS3 to have texture advantages over 360. As for the console being cheaper i meant for SONY to manufacture. Which would of properly lead to a lower launch price.
And if your wondering SONY could of achieved this had they not waited until it was too late to realize the cost of manufacturing PS3. A retail price and manufacturing price should of been put in place for PS3 years before PS3 came out in order for SONY to have plenty of options available. Look at what Nintendo did with the Wii. They wanted profit from the get-go and they wanted a consumer price of sub-$250.
Now obviously i wouldn’t of expected PS3 to cost $250 … however i would expect PS4 to cost $449 or less — due to the fact that SONY needs to release their consoles at a price point which dosn’t alienate casuals/ some hardcore people and also they need to give themselves the ability to cut prices as they wish. At the moment PS3’s price cut have been driven by consumers and $3.3 bn hole in SONY’s pocket is due to that. IF SONY had of limited their losses per console they could of reduced this loss… and with PS4 SONY cannot afford to spend 2 years in the red. With the third year – aiming to break even provided the competition doesn’t force SONY to cut their cut again… PS4 should put SONY in a position where they control the console price and where the competition fears a price war with SONY – not the other way around.
As for PS3’s launch i must say back then i considered the console expensive but i bought it anyway expecting the games to follow and for me at least SONY has delivered. However in retrospec SONY could of prepared better and I do hope the use PS3 as a lesson of what not to do, thus allowing the PS4 to surpass PS3 for both gamers and for SONY.
Yikes, so according to one of Jeff’s earlier post replies there was in game music for ALL TITLES… but they took it out? Huh?
I’m sure there must have been a huge backlash of devs saying “Dudes, you can’t let people ignore of wonderful music! We worked so hard on coding those 1’s and 0’s.”
In all seriousness though, the Xbot 360 has supported CUSTOM in game music in ALL TITLES from DAY ONE.
You had this in firmware v2.40 but removed it?!?
To Sentry-
Your argument is that most FUTURE games will be patched.
That’s fine and dandy, BUT…
What about the games that we play and enjoy right now? I’m a fighting game nut, so, I play Tekken 5: DR. With Tekken 6 not even having a release date (console wise) yet, it looks like I could be playing this for almost another year before I get that game. Are you telling me that I’m supposed to be satisfied knowing that I’ll get to play a Tekken with custom soundtracks in a YEAR when the one that I’ll be playing up until then doesn’t? That’s ridiculous.
@ 828
You are implying that the walkthrough videos contain something that we are not getting, which makes no sense, because everything he showed is in 2.4. They are showing us stuff that is ‘produced,’ and coming tomorrow. It’s quite mind boggling how you can say that they are showing us one thing, and then delivering something else. Which isn’t the case if you really watched the video. I have a feeling you are just jumping on the complain bandwagon now, but prove me wrong.
#825
You should be damn thankful that a large group of us have been criticizing the PS3 for the last 18 months.
We’re not XBox users. We’re just PS3 users who want the PS3 to get better, and who want Sony to deliver on their promises.
If it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t be getting a version 2.40 update at all.
Hell, without our vocal demands, you’d still be stuck with version 1.40 or something like that.
So, you just sit back and enjoy the fruits of OUR labour. And remember when you’re receiving an in-game text message that it was OUR complaints that brought that feature to you.
please add CROSS-GAME INVITE SYSTEM,
at this firm it is what I was waiting for
and most important feature in my opinion.
thank you and regards
vanace
@Snap — He was using a debug PS3 and patched version of PixelJunk Monsters. If they ever had custom soundtracks working in most/all games SONY would of had to of removed it for some reason (which i hope wasn’t so developers got a choice.)
Anyway its 2 am here so im off to bed – seeya’s
TristanMike & Ed know what’s going on here. Sadly, the rest of you don’t.
Like me, love me, hate me what ever you want to do but deep down the vast majority of you all know I am right about my way of thinking.
2.40 is a complete waste of 18 months time on Sony’s part. I’m not going to blame Eric, Noel, Jeff and Grace for it. I’m just going to blame Sony in general cause they didn’t enforce better work conduct and better strides to obtain important xmb features sooner.
As Ed said –> If we have access to the xmb but only 2 features are available what is the point? I echoed that all night last night.
Some of you say “EVIL” microsoft has a copyright on in game music. Well, if that is the case and I don’t know if it is or not, why doesn’t Sony provide a simply download through their web browser and allow us to “Save target this file to our ps3’s and then open it up and run it and enable in game xmb music access?
All they have to do. Emulation is not so different, folks. People have the choice to download emulators and roms, does Microsoft get sued for it because it is on their OS? Does Linux? no. Of course not.
Sony could enable an emulated version of in game music and anyone who says they can’t doesn’t know a thing about hardware or software or litigation.
Sorry to say 2.40 isn’t jack jimmy spits to me. I won’t use 1 feature of it until they actually patch games worth a damn for trophies and music which, knowing Sony, won’t be for 18 more months.
I hope Sony will look into adding a custom sound for the trophy pop up. Nothing like hearing a FF victory tune. But seriously its a good idea to look into.
To all of the people complaining:
This is phase one of the update, they will most likely add in everything else you’re asking for through future FW updates. Please be happy with the update. Thank You Sony!!
Sentry, come on, you’re being ridiculous. You obviously haven’t been following the blog or the forums if you truly believe that Sony has delivered MORE than what we’ve asked for. Hell, they haven’t even come close to delivering a FIFTH of what we requesting.
As for your “evidence”. They show custom music in PJM by turning down the games music track and playing MP3’s over top.
But this won’t be possible in PJM.
At least not until some unknown point in the future when it may or may not happen.
There. You’re proven wrong.
I would like to ask for an Equalizer in the XMB. All the music tracks sound “normilized,” but if we had an equalizer we would be able to change the way it sounds. Maybe you can add it on the next firmware update…
@ Sentry
no, sorry Jackson. Eric specifically was playing around with in game music off his drive. He went into his drive wile playing “X” game and picked, matched, swapped and played music on the fly. that is not a feature of 2.40 and stop misinforming people that it is or I’m going to be forced to call you SONY!
@ 832
Titles out NOW can get patched to support in-game music, obviously, so big titles, and most PSN titles, will most likely get patched according to many. You want custom soundtracks for Tekken DR, mail them or something. :P Like I said I bet bigger titles will all have them, since it’s not hard at all to enable.
Will this update fix any of the mp4 streaming issues?
Since nobody bothered to read my previous comment, a few pages ago, I gather that alot of you complainers don’t like hearing the truth.
You don’t like the PS3? Go and buy a 360, I couldn’t care less.
@gamesblow, you can lobby all you want, but noone is going to switch from PS3 to the RROD. I don’t care how many features it has!! If the RROD had been a car or appliance there would have been a recall. gamesblow since the other system is so much better, why not go play it instead of annoying people here? Can you answer that question for me please?
All I have to say is WOW! I’m personally psyched about 2.4 and I can’t believe that people are still complaining after all this. We all asked for IGxmb and now taht sony delivers you want more. They are putting this out now for us to use. When its ready they will put it out. I’m sure all of these other features will be delivered in upcoming FW updates. everyone here that is complaining needs to take a chill pixel and just chillax… seriously.
peace,
Lh
LOL TouchyEd, please make us a favour and quit from this blog. Go playing your super XBOX360 and let the Sony guys do his work.
By the way, the Trophy system is much better than the Archivements system, and the XMB-ingame has the same posibilities than the XBOX360 in-game options. Then, I can’t understand what are you complaining about?
Go out and take a breath…
Read 835 again.
And then just thank us and move on.
@ Sentry
“want tekken DA to have in game music, e mail them”
What kind of horse $#*T is thaT? We have to do the foot work for Sony’s incompetence now? What is wrong with you? We paid 600, 500 & 400 for this thing & Sony can’t offer us something in return?
You are Sony’s wet Dream. WOW! Eric Lempel could slap pro sony bumper stickers to your A$$ and you’d walk around with them on all day long.
Eric or Jeff could you tell us whether the cross game invite system is already available for developers.
If they patch for 2.40 now will that mean that in the future they might have to create another patch for cross game invites.
The likely hood of most game developers patching previous titles that often is very unlikely.
It is more likely that they might create one more patch for 2.40 compatibility and dual shock 3 support.
Not all games developers have the resources to be releasing patches to enable features which should have been in day one.
Thats why its very important to just get these features api’s into developers hands now.
Ignore the fact that gamers might be pissed at not having them right now. That is not the problem.
Its all about standard core functions. Not enabling third parties to enable these features in a cost effective way will not only annoy gamers but also make games developers frustrated.
My advice would be to prioritize getting the cross game invite api available quickly so that developers can integrate it now. It doesn’t matter if we gamers cant do it straight away.
As long as games developers have the ability to add this feature with the upcoming 2.40 updates to games at least us gamers will get to enjoy the feature in 2.41 or 2.50.
Ignore what gamers would like right now and prioritize to make sure they get what they really want overall.
Get that api available, look at what has happened with trophy support, people are pissed that there is no support for backdated titles.
Also try and come up with some scheme to entice games developers to patch their games. Discounts on developer kits, financing, something…. Its very important you get this right.
In game music, trophies are available for developer to patch now.
Focus on getting the api for game invites out there. Anything else like the cross game voice chat etc does not need a developer api so it should work universally without patches to games.
Make sure you don’t screw this up. Any feature which requires games developers to patch their game should be put on high priority.
It doesn’t matter if gamers don’t see it straight away as long as its done right to ensure the most computability.
Enable third party support for this staring as soon as possible.
Don’t piss off developers or give they will just leave the platform.