PS3's 2.4 firmware dated
In-game XMB and trophies this week.
Sony has announced that the 2.40 firmware for PlayStation 3 will be released this Wednesday, 2nd July.
The update will introduce the long-awaited in-game XMB functionality as well as "trophies" to "recognise players' achievements in the online arena".
Yesterday Sony posted an in-game XMB video on its blog showing how you will be able to pause your PS3 game and see who's online, read and send messages, change (some) settings and even switch games.
The blog's been updated with another video today to explain how trophies will work. "Many online games will have gold, silver and bronze trophies - with platinum available for those who snag all three - all displayed on the XMB for everyone to see," says Sony.
Super Stardust HD will be the first game to offer trophies, and others to follow include Buzz! Quiz TV (out this Friday, 4th July), LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm Pacific Rift, NBA 09, PAIN, PixelJunk Eden, Resistance 2, SOCOM: Confrontation and Warhawk.
As previously mentioned, 2.4 will also up the friends list limit to 100 people and add a "mini-control panel that you can use while playing music" and a Google search option similar to the one recently added to PSP.
2.4 will also introduce "a few more minor enhancements", but we'll have to wait until Wednesday to see what they are. A pony!
We found some PS3 firmware 2.4 pictures you can look at, too.
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Comments (94) Latest comment 4 years ago
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Good News.
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I have to say I am very disappointed, as for the update, its about bloody time! w00t!
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tut thought i was gonna be first
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+1
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Have people got this many friends?
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I've had nightmares trying to organise online games with friends on the ps3 so far. To be fair, I only recently got a ps3, but the 3 online I games I have, it hasn't been easy. With Everybody's Golf - which doesn't include any voice chat whatsoever - my friend and I even went as far as using the 360's private chat whilst playing on the ps3, that can't be a good advert for Sony...
This new update does seem a step in the right direction though, even if it is a little late. Let's hope they keep up with these improvements.
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Sounds like we see the same thing from different view points. I like the extra complexity of this system over gamer score points. That said, I don't much personaly care for achievements or trophies, but I can see the benefit for gamers that do.
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[link url=http://www.joystiq.com/2008 /06/30/ps3-firmware-2-40-the-good-the-bad-and-the-belated/ a>
]http://ww w.joystiq.com/2008/06/30/ps3-fi...[/link]
Ok, it's a HUGE achivements rip-off... I must say... more ammo for the Sony/PS3 haters
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The Trophy system sounds intriguing too if only because they're not attached to some pointless score like the 360 so there's less reason to cheat and exploit your way through the games just so you can show off your Gamerscore to a world where no-one else cares about it but YOU! LOL
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I also update at mornings (when I know a new firmweare is about to be released) since afternoons and evenings are very busy. I expect this one to very popular and download times to be long
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"Our feelings about this latest PS3 update are mixed. On the one hand, there are handy features such as the ability to communicate with friends without quitting your game and on-the-fly accessory adjustments. On the other, the update still seems decidedly behind the curve in several areas. There's no private voice chat across games, no auto-pause when the XMB is triggered, custom soundtracks are not available in all games."
As I expected this update only lays the foundation for the ingame XMB but it'll be a while before it measures up to the standard of LIVE's equivalent features. Of course, access to PSN is completely free so you can't really complain too much although it's stupid how the game doesn't automatically pause when accessing the ingame XMB... that's a pretty obvious feature to overlook IMO.
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About bleeding times too! Trophies will certainly add to the replayability as Achievements had done for X360, only disappointed that it came at the same week as I am starting a new big job and thus would have far less time for gaming from now on!
Though backdating would help and hope will cover a great majority of games I had played.
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I'd really like to play my PS2 copy of outrun: coast to coast
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The Trophy system sounds intriguing too if only because they're not attached to some pointless score like the 360 so there's less reason to cheat and exploit your way through the games just so you can show off your Gamerscore
That's actually wrong as tropies are attached to your profile level. You gain levels for getting trophies (hence my gamerscore/trophy whore statement earlier). There will be just as much reason for people to cheat, because it will increase their level, thus showing that they have completed more games etc. etc.
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Well... today existing/old games aren't PS-button-aware and doesn't know that the PS-menu is activated. If the XMB just simulated a START-button press, it would still not guarantee a game pause, and just pausing/freezing a running game when the user press the PS-button, could ruin a running game... especially a online game which does not know to handle this.
I'm pretty sure this isn't a oversight but a known limitation that they are well aware of. Hopefully future games can hook into the PS-button/XMB-menu-activation and do a clean pause when nessesary... just like 360 games does.
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I'm pretty sure this isn't true, I'm 99% certain I've got a game or two that has paused itself when I've hit the PS button.
Assuming games are PS button aware, it's not Sony's job to make the game pause anyway, it's the developer who has to decide how to handle the button press. What about games that don't have a pause mode? Online games don't for a very good reason, so these need to be left playing in the background. Having the PS3 trying to pause one of those isn't going to go down well.
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The BC site is just not maintained to reflect this.
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TheSixthAxis: "We've just been told that Trophies will not be awarded retrospectively, you'll need to start the game again to obtain any Trophies that game may offer. This is a bit of a shame, but with the ease of save game sharing on the PS3, it's only fair."
source
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However, I hope that the PS3's trophy system isn't as easy to exploit as the Xbox 360's near-useless Achievements system which means that one person can play five easy games for 5,000 GPs while someone else struggles to get 250 GPs because they're playing Gears of War, Ridge Racer 6 and three other "hard" games. It's one of the reasons I've stopped caring about Achievements now, particularly as I've noticed people with high scores tend to be those people that have played games like Surf's Up and Open Season, presumably for the easy 1,000 GPs. I did think Achievements were a neat idea at first, particularly as they encouraged me to finish games or get more out of them, but now I barely notice them to be honest. I couldn't even tell you what my Gamerscore is! LOL
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Anyway, there's a difference between pausing (a game-specific pause menu pops up) and halting a running process/game. If the system/OS just halted the game, this could cause problems with online games since the online communication would stop.
Also if the OS just triggered a virtual press on the START-buttton, this would not ensure that the game actually paused... it could even cause the game to un-pause if the game was allready paused before the user pressed the PS-button
Basicly the OS does not know that the game is paused, and vice versa.
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I'll have to check later but like I said I'm fairly certain the PS3 tells the game that the PS button has been pressed, and it's up for the game to decide what to do with it. I'm pretty sure this happens on Motorstorm, if you're racing and hit the PS button the game goes to the pause menu, but if you've already paused and hit the PS button the game handles it correctly and knows not to do anything special.
Again I can't say I know this for certain as I'm so used to pausing the game first anyway as a precaution.
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I can its.. 27176
I really like the way Live links in with EG. Might the XMB be able to do a similar thing?
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Secondly: "Many online games will have gold, silver and bronze trophies - with platinum available for those who snag all three - all displayed on the XMB for everyone to see," says Sony.
Surely you don't have to get all trophies in bronze, silver and gold in order to achieve the platinum trophy. It would make more sense if getting all the gold trophies gives you the platinum one.
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But games that are not PS-button aware today will still require to be paused manually.
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I doubt it... at least not from the start. Sony have to make PS3 PSN profiles and trophies available via the web before EG can integrate it
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You can't just "copy" and "reverse engineer" xbox live there's a whole infrastructure in place in the background on xbox live which makes it tick. IIRC all games are on closed XBOX servers too (hence the subscription fee) and not independent servers like PS3 games. Now this makes interoprability between games and unitiy much easier as Microsoft have complete control over servers and the framework they need to use (to actually work on these servers).
Saying "reverse engineer" the Xbox 360 is like asking a builder to re-construct the golden gate bridge from a picture without looking at the design plans!
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edit: I stand corrected - there are pretty little icons for each trophy. Phew
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Congrats Sony!
Welcome to 2.4 years ago!
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That's kinda the point i was making (somewhat poorly). It's taking them a long time to catch up (the 360's been around for nearly 3 years now), it would have been easier if they'd have put a more flexible/useable architecture in there in the first place. They're not software guys though, and that is somewhat their downfall i suspect, this generation, they always seem to be trying to catch up with the (admittedly slick) xbox's front end and features.
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EDIT: Just to add that the original Xbox was laying the foundations for what you see in the 360 online today. They were already building an advantage back then and is why they are so far ahead today.
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Yep in that case totally agree with you mate. Would of been easier for them if they had this infrastructure but i guess that's where Microsoft excel themselves and pretty much fine tuned the approach in the original xbox infrastructure before the 360. If Sony get on par with Microsoft regards functionality and usability with the online component then that will be some achievement! (excuse pun!)
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Also a nice step towards Home of course, where I'm sure we'll be able to see a nice 3D rendition of those trophies somewhere this fall.
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Ironic you don't use full stops but when you do there are 10 of them! \o/
I think there are benefits to having a trophy system and i don't think people will just finish games to get points. Well.. maybe a few will
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Oh and.. "Playstation 3 Owners - Welcome to the Year 2005!"
At least if it was 2005 you may just be in warranty for your RROD'ed machine
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i have had both machines and both are great!
each has good and bad point im not gonna get into!
just enjoy the update if ur a ps3 owner.....and if your a 360 owner go away and enjoy that!*
* will still get millions of fanboy comments!
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Platinum Trophies!
My god they sound awesome... Although I feel now I will become a trophy whore and not actually play game properly anymore, similar to what I did with the 360.
Oh well.
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Do I detect sarcasm?
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I have a 1st gen ps3 w/ full backward compatilibily + imported DS 3
FAIL
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...please keep up with the news dude!
'RUMBLE'
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Launch EU PS3 never offered "full" BC
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Starting to get ridiculous? Perhaps. As is the criticism that a console is adapting a successful feature.
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However, I hope that the PS3's trophy system isn't as easy to exploit as the Xbox 360's near-useless Achievements system which means that one person can play five easy games for 5,000 GPs while someone else struggles to get 250 GPs because they're playing Gears of War,etc,
I feel the same way, I gave up on Achievements becasuse I felt the same way... the XBox Gamerscore is a very weak metric, it doesn't mean anything. The Achievments themselves do offer some insight into what friends have done but you have to ignore games like Teenage Ninja Turtles... it's quite obvious that seeing a 30 something educated gamer playing games like that just smacks of Achievement whore :-D
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Touché.
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I guess it will be July the 2nd which is tomorrow ;o)
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Although I'd bet millions someone will post that as I type.
EDIT: And my millions would be safe, thanks to Deucalions prompt posting
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I'm sure the PS3 will have kids games with easy trophies but I'd hope most of them will be bronze ones as opposed to platinum ones to reflect their low difficulty.
Are you counting on developers to always take this care?
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I guess it will be July the 2nd which is tomorrow ;o)
Afternoon? It's Tuesday, it's not out til tomorrow Moz, though i thought it was Wednesday this morning and was well miffed it wasn't.
Ah yes that would explain it!!! don't know why but could have sworn it was the 2nd today!!!!! *sigh* oh well not working tomorrow so will get to have a propper mess about with it!
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