New PS3 firmware spruces up PSN

By Robert Purchese Published 18 August, 2009

BBC iPlayer, voucher cards arriving soon.

Sony has revealed PS3 firmware 3.0, which adds dynamic themes and avatars (both free and premium) and will be rolled out "soon".

That's according to the US PlayStation blog, which has a nifty video to watch showing all the upcoming features.

The post coincided with Sony's gamescom conference keynote, where we heard that the iPlayer will soon be officially supported and that PSN voucher cards will be available in shops from September in €20 and €50 denominations.

PS3 firmware 3.0 also adds a What's New section to keep you abreast of the fresh content sliding in, while Sony has visually spruced up the XMB, added more shortcuts for the PlayStation Store and rearranged the Friends List.

A Status Indicator has been added to the right corner of the screen to show your user icon, friend count, message tray and a scrolling news ticker. Firmware 3.0 also lets developers break Trophy lists into sub-categories for easy navigation, so you can see how many are left to collect.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • StooMonster #1 3 years ago

    BBC iPlayer would be awesome.

  • NorUraeus #2 3 years ago

    The new features shown on the US blog do look really nice, I am a bit surprised though that they bumped to the big 3.0 without including some kind of cross game voice chat functionality as it has to be the no.1 feature request by a gigantic margin. I don't understand why it is so hard to get in place considering almost all PS3 games these days offers voice chat. I mean I can understand that offering it in a way that is also supported by older games is hard, but adding some feature allowing new games to support it shouldn't be that hard, kinda like the custom music...anyway, looking forward to the new theme system

  • jmcflash #3 3 years ago

    Meh, all cosmetic really.

    Cross game chat would be so good :-(

  • SuperBas #4 3 years ago

    Holy crap avatars zomg wtf!??!?!?

    Wait, no.

  • Law07 #5 3 years ago

    AVATARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • sjmlondon #6 3 years ago

    'added more shortcuts for the PlayStation Store'
    That'll be useful.

    Premium avatars you can buy
    Can't wait.

    Some useful that users are asking for.
    Forget it.


  • betahoven #7 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:36:16 17-12-2011

  • bad09 #8 3 years ago

    So with 3.0 I still can't play PS2 through emulation but I can spruce up a Avatar, watch crap BBC output (which I can do on the BBC if I wanted - which I don't) and find out what new stuff I won't want to buy on dreary PSN and checking trophies in easy sub categories while seeing what my friends are doing. Nice, home of the Playstation brand etc....

  • spidermanalf #9 3 years ago

    Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I have been using the BBC iPlayer for ages now on my PS3. Channel 4OD would be nice though!

  • dadrester #10 3 years ago

    they moved the clock... what more do you want!!!!

  • StooMonster #11 3 years ago

    iPlayer is just a link - nothing more. It still loads in the web browser, just like you can do now by typing in the address.

    Oh, that's rubbish then.

    Looks to me like the changes are a bunch of opportunities to sell you stuff "Another shortcut to the PlayStation Store", "You can get avatars from the PlayStation Store", themes like the LBP one are "available from the PlayStation Store".

    Ghastly, like Microsoft with the avatar clothing -- £4.50 light sabre -- on Xbox Live.

  • themorganator #12 3 years ago

    Avatars, achievements... anything else they can rip from 360?

  • GamesConnoisseur #13 3 years ago

    Like others i was expecting a lot more from 3.0 firmware, but better than owt innit?!

  • Mnia786 #14 3 years ago

    @ themorganator - the avatars are just icons, nothing like the blatant 360 copy of nintendo miis....

    Still disappointed no cross game chat but little tweaks here and there are welcome. Would like downloads on iplayer for the ps3 though, that would be very nice (specially if there were psp ready versions too).

  • dominalien #15 3 years ago

    The avatars on the PS3 have existed since the console's launch and they have nothing to do with the ones on Wii or X360.

    The "new avatars" announcement seems just to be that there'll be new pictures to chose from, is all.

  • groovychainsaw #16 3 years ago

    At this rate, they might have something like the xboxs' interface in about... 2 years. The one thing that always has bugged me about my ps3 is how clunky the interface is compared to the xbox one. Sure, it looks nice, but accessing key functions takes longer than on the xbox (and often requires a wait while it loads in the next screen). Direct access to the iplayer would be nice, as thats one of the things I'#ve been using my ps3 for for ages now (for ps3 noobs, just go to the iplayer site, its formatted for ps3 controls and everything...)

  • WinterSnowblind #17 3 years ago

    @dominalien
    The idea still came from the 360 originall. (gamerpics)

    Nobody seems to have mentioned anything about the "what's new" part, which is basically exactly the same as the Spotlight channel on the 360, aka, the "ads" that people have been complaining about for so long.

  • Miths #18 3 years ago

    "At this rate, they might have something like the xboxs' interface in about... 2 years. The one thing that always has bugged me about my ps3 is how clunky the interface is compared to the xbox one."

    I've always felt the opposite - I love the clean look of the XMB and how fast and easy it is to navigate. The one thing I do miss is better playlist and sorting options for music (and a better music player in general), as my PS3 serves as media center on a daily basis rather than just as game console.
    The 360 dashboard feels a bit clunkier to me - albeit visually impressive after the major overhaul it got a while ago.
    But I'll admit this just could be my lack of familiarity with the new interface, as my 360 has spent the majority of year and a half gathering dust (looking forward to firing up for Shadow Complex tomorrow though :)).

  • dominalien #19 3 years ago

    The idea still came from the 360 originall. (gamerpics)

    You mean the idea of representing someone by a pic, which has been around all forums on the net for, like, forever, was now invented specifically for the 360?

  • mcmonkeyplc #20 3 years ago

    Akbar! No wait, Avatar!

  • jefranklin18 #21 3 years ago

    Does seem a bit "feature lite" for it to be considered a new full version. Wonder if they're holding stuff back?

  • dnimkrad #22 3 years ago

    3.0 should certainly have been something more substantial, cross game voice chat or that cell ps2 backward compatibility patent listing that was reported a little while back. i've also had iplayer on the ps3 for an age now, with it being set as the home page. if what's new is akin to spotlight, and forced as the start point like on 360 i am going to be PISSED!

  • Darkjinxter #23 3 years ago

    20 and 50 euro cards, no mention of British Pounds?
    No wait, 20 and 50 euro = 20 and 50 pounds I spose.

  • penhalion #24 3 years ago

    I can't even get up enough enthusiasm to complain about the lack of any substance to this 3.0 update. I'll just do what I always do i.e. download it, use none of the new features and simply prey that it doesn't brick my back compat 60gb unit.

  • KreyAtiv #25 3 years ago

    It'll be interesting to see the kind of avatars they go for look wise.

  • Darren #26 3 years ago

    @WinterSnowblind - On the Xbox 360, if you sign into LIVE you're taken straight to the Showcase section complete with lots of ads... you don't have any choice.

    On the PS3 with firmware v3.0, the machine will still boot to the Games tab (as it always has) and the What's New section ads will only appear if you actually navigate to it and hover over the icon. I really don't see what the problem is, unlike Microsoft, Sony at least appreciate that most people turn their consoles on to play games! If you never go to the What's New icon then you'll never see the ads so why do you think it's a big deal? ;)
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/09 @ 10:43

  • Darren #27 3 years ago

    I loved that LittleBigPlanet animated theme... assuming it isn't too expensive, I'd certainly buy it. Nice to see Sony improving their themes without making the old ones redundant. I wish Microsoft had done the same with the Xbox 360 because almost all of my old themes are now useless, thanks to two-thirds of the background being obscured by the dashboard.

  • Darren #28 3 years ago

    One thing I would like to have seen in this update was the ability to finally display my music by Artist > Album > Track, i.e. display a tree structure so clicking on the Artist takes me to their Albums, displayed as icons, and clicking on one of those displays all the tracks. You cannot currently do that, instead I have my music sorted by Albums in Artist order which makes the list tedious to scroll down because I have over 400 albums on the PS3's HDD!

  • Retroid #29 3 years ago

    Odd to call the pics avatars when they're.... just icons, as have existed on various chat clients for years. They've obviously decided they were missing a trick by not offering them for sale, like MS do :/

    As for the "£4.50 lightsabre on XBLM", it's 400 points so less than £3 actually, and no, I've not bloody bought one they can bugger off. But then, it's probably Sony and Home with its silly clothes and costume prices people have to thank for stuff like that.

    Whichever format you're into, it seems there are avatards willing to buy avatat.

  • Burkey123 #30 3 years ago

    That LittleBigPlanet theme is awesome!

  • SeesThroughAll #31 3 years ago

    @ Darren: I've been waiting for that update too for a while.

  • jefranklin18 #32 3 years ago

    @Retroid,

    That's something I've always wondered: what is the exchange rate for Xbox points? Are they pegged to a base currency (presumably USD) and therefore subject to fluctuations on a daily basis? Are they revised on a quarterly or six monthly basis, hedged against the base currency? Is it possible to speculate in Xbox point futures?

    Regarding FW3:

    I am not that interested in cross game chat. If I am playing (for example) LBP, I do not want a mate bugging me for a game of FIFA - I put on LBP for a reason - and I certainly don't want to have a general chin wag. That's what the pub is for.

  • groovychainsaw #33 3 years ago

    What i was trying to say (before getting voted down by PS3 die-hards) about the xmb is that it takes a while to get into the store and find out whats new, i think from the xbox boot, you press up twice, a twice and you can see whats new. The content is much better sorted and more logically laid out. Whilst you might not agree with microsoft's slightly fisher price look to their interface (the PS3 interface is theone to show off to your friends, for example), the NXE has significantly improved your ability to navigate around their content. The PS store is still a pain to sort by IMHO, and the load screens you have to wait through (albeit short) to access some functions just shouldn't be there. Sorting music or videos is also not that clever and really relies on careful folder sorting on my PC. It has improved a lot but the functionality is still lacking, for me. The 'what's new' bit sounds like an attempt to catch up with the sorting ability on the xbox front end, which I, for one, support.

  • Retroid #34 3 years ago

    Cross-game chat can be very handy if you're wanting to chat with someone but want to play something different, just banter with them a bit. If I don't want to be disturbed I just set myself to appear as offline / busy!

    @jefranklin18: Points cards for the 360 seem to have remained at an RRP of £18 for 2100 since they came out, although a bit of shopping around can usually get them for £15 or even cheaper; obviously making games / DLC cheaper in the process :)