PS3 full-screen Flash "coming soon"

By Tom Bramwell Published 26 November, 2008

But Sony site changes mind about date.

Sony's PS3 firmware update site claims that full-screen Flash playback for the internet browser is "coming soon".

The page reportedly said yesterday that a firmware update, 2.53, "was [sic] released on November 26, 2008", but that bit has now disappeared and the "full-screen mode for Flash Player content" is now listed as "coming soon" instead.

Sony's 2.5 firmware update for PS3 quietly introduced windowed Flash 9 content support alongside a raft of other changes.

However, the experience has been mixed for those who use the internet browser to access Flash 9 content (try comparing this Papervision demo running on PC and PS3, for instance), so hopefully full-screen support is coupled to some performance updates as well.

There's no word from Sony yet on whether 2.53 will go live today and when we switched on our PS3s this morning we got nothing. Apart from the serene intro music, obviously. Uuuuuaaaaahhh!

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • kangarootoo #1 3 years ago

    Christ, could you possibly have chosen a more obscure reference tune?

    I thought it sounded more like Warfair by Clawfinger myself ;)

  • Doctor_What #2 3 years ago

    Nah, it's the sound of valkyries descending after battle.

  • bdc #3 3 years ago

    Need my flash porn on my HDTV, hurry uuuuuup

  • Darren #4 3 years ago

    I'm getting fed up of these minor incremental updates that are still over 100 MB in size, why the hell don't Sony just add more features in fewer patches instead like they said they would a year ago? Does full screen Flash video support really warrant yet *another* update? Why not add it to the v2.6 or v3.0 firmware along with more new features and bug fixes instead of releasing one everytime a bug is discovered or a single feature is to be added?

    OK... I'm fine with doing firmware updates if they add significant new features but these vX.XX ones don't and every firmware update carries with it a risk of something going wrong. This *should* be kept to an absolute *minimum* IMO, not come out every bloody four to six weeks!

  • Ryze #5 3 years ago

    Amazing innovation there.

    Teh n3xt gen is coming!

  • rotmm #6 3 years ago

    @Darren,

    What, you're not happy with the 34th firmware update in 2 years?

    Sheesh, some people.

  • oreillymj #7 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo - I'd hardly call Arcade Fire obscure. They're pretty popular and anyone who pays more then the slightest interest in music beyond the "charts" will have heard of them.

    I fired up the track on my iPod and have to admit that there is a strong similarity between the start of "Keep The Car Running" and the PS3 start-up sound. But Sony got there FIRST!!!!

    I was hoping for 2.6 this month with something a bit more substantial. Personally I couldn't give a toss about the PS3's browser. I've only ever fired it up about 3 times, but I know a lot of kids use it. I'd much like to see x-game chat/invites and a fix for the poor folder structure for videos/music & photos. After all the screaming about in-game XMB, it hasn't been the promised cure for cancer.

    Give me a PS2 emulator for my 80Gb model.
    Edited by 2 at 26/11/08 @ 11:05

  • Beano #8 3 years ago

    @Darren: I suspect they have some stealth bug-fixes in the update and only add a few new features to make it sound less like a service pack :)

  • Beano #9 3 years ago

    "After all the screaming about in-game XMB, it hasn't been the promised cure for cancer."

    What's your point ?

    In-game messaging was a major improvement.

    Reg. the browser, it's pretty good for checking news, reading reviews/articles, etc. Also quite user friendly, even with the controller when you get the hang of the button-mapping. I use it all the time (almost daily) and I'm far from a kid :)
    Edited by 2 at 26/11/08 @ 11:35

  • Darren #10 3 years ago

    @rotmm - Oh I don't mind getting firmware updates at all, it's just that they're too frequent and lacking in features on the PS3 to justify the risk that installing them usually carries as there's always a small chance that something with go wrong, or even that you have a power cut during such an update which will result in a defunct PS3. Keeping them to an absolute minimum is a *must* IMO, like Nintendo and Microsoft do with theirs. Sony take it to the opposite extreme if you ask me.

    It wouldn't be so bad if these minor updates were incremental but they're not, they require the downloading of a 100 MB file each time and that increases the risk of stuff going wrong during an install.

    *sigh*

    I guess like a lot of things with the PS3, there's a sense that things haven't been thought through properly like they have on the Xbox 360, for example taking almost two years to add an auto shutdown feature for the console and controller, which should have been there as standard - and as such the implementation of certain aspects of the system come across as unnecessarily clumsy and badly thought out.

    Fantastic machine otherwise though, don't take my comments the wrong way.

  • oreillymj #11 3 years ago

    @Beano. My point about in-game XMB is that there were howls of protest over every FW update up to 2.4 asking when the feature would be added, but it's addition hasn't made a huge difference to gaming on the PS3.

    ok, you can send messages to your mates without quitting out of your current game, but the onscreen keyboard is a pain in the arse to use. Even the T9 implementation is poor. it gives you a choice of words, but you need to scroll across out of the keyboard to make your selection.

    It hasn't fixed the underlying problem of relying on devs to sort out their own system of setting up online games.
    Sony should take a look at the best implementations (Warhawk/Resistance) and put something similar into their SDK (making it's use mandatory) so that devs implement something better then what we're given with COD4. Regular matches in COD4 work fine, but I've rarely been able to get into the same match as a mare or set up a private match/party. COD5 doesn't seem to have improved either.

    There's plenty of OS improvements Sony could be working on. I don't think having full screen Flash on my GAME console should be one of them.

  • coojam #12 3 years ago

    @ oreillymj

    "@kangarootoo - I'd hardly call Arcade Fire obscure. They're pretty popular and anyone who pays more then the slightest interest in music beyond the "charts" will have heard of them."

    Anyone who pays interest to music IN the charts will know who Arcade Fire are. Keep the Car Running was a big song when it was released.

    Oh also, the PS3 start up sounds just like this too, I agree.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/08 @ 12:26

  • avatarirl #13 3 years ago

    re: frequent, (relatively) large, and (sometimes) silly updates
    I think its agile vs traditional software development and nothing else. Frequent small updates are easier to develop and release than large quarterly ones. It's unfortunate the updates are so cumbersome though. Why can't it dl in the background and update on restart/when you choose like M$ windows (admittedly still dreadful) system?

    Arcade Fire are superb.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/08 @ 13:00

  • oreillymj #14 3 years ago

    Forum ate half my last post ????

    I have a pretty poor (by European standards) 3mb line here in Ireland. It takes less than 10 mins to download the firmware updates on my PC, then transfer them to the PS3 via memory stick.

    Useful link : http://ww w.jp.playstation.com/ps3/update...

  • Beano #15 3 years ago

    @oreillymj : 360-style voice messaging would be nice, true, but you seem overly negative.

    I have no problem using the on screen keyboard for short messages, and for long messages I use my bluetooth keyboard which is always close at hand. AND... some games use the XBM messaging for sending invites. Another useful thing with the in-game XMB is the ability to configure headsets.
    Did anybody expect (or promise) in-game XMB to revolutionize online gaming?... NO, it did what was promised... but it was still a big improvement and I'm happy to be able to send/read messages while in a game.

    I agree on your other points though reg. delivering standard online functionality in the SDKs like MS does... but that doesn't change the fact that in-game XMB messaging was a big improvement. No need to bitch about it.

  • callum9999 #16 3 years ago

    I don't really mind the frequent firmware updates but it would be better if they weren't so big in size. Are Sony getting us to download the whole OS again or is there really a need for 100mb+ updates?

  • rotmm #17 3 years ago

    @callum9999,

    I dunno. I mean, if MS can get a whole new GUI in place for about 7mb, you'd think that Sony could make smaller incremental updates than 100mb.

  • Ryze #18 3 years ago

    ...and the moral of the story is... Sony are shit at software and network services, so if this is what you want - you have the wrong console.

    /waits...

  • shimeehoho #19 3 years ago

    what i'm still waiting for (and hoping might happen) is the ability to play music over any game and not just set ones. the 360 has it so why can't we? (i gave up on the 'plug an ipod into your ps3 and stream the music off it' hopeful feature a while ago)

    the other thing which would be useful would be the ability to drop into the xmb mid-game and open your browser to check a website quickly (walkthrough guide, cheats, latest footie scores etc.). though i suppose it's a case of crossing the fingers and hoping yet again

  • rotmm #20 3 years ago

    @shimeehoho,

    Both of what you are wishing for are unlikely to ever make it to the PS3 because of memory management issues.

    The problem is that MS implemented all the necessary features, such as voice chat, in-game messaging, cross-game invites, music player, etc. into the 32MB set aside for the OS. Therefore, every developer makes their game to fit inside 512MB-32MB. On the PS3, the OS was originally larger leaving less usable memory to start off with, but other things, such as the music player you're speaking about and things such as friends lists, were not included inside that. Therefore, to include these extra memory has to be set aside on a title by title basis and tradeoffs have to be made. However, for Sony to force it across the board means that many titles already released won't work because they are expecting that memory to be usable.

    As for using the browser when in-game, that utilises even more memory and just couldn't ever work. There was a recent comment by a Sony dev on the browser stating that one of the hardest things is fitting everything within the usable memory of the system itself. So for a game to be running (and using most of the memory available) and then opening a browser, one or the other (or both) would just crash.