Millions of Playstation 3 owners can rejoice finally as the Holy Grail of firmware updates hits this Wednesday, July 2nd. Firmware 2.40 brings in-game XrossMediaBar (XMB) access along with infrastructure for the achievement trophy system. If you have eight minutes to kill, watch the video above for a walkthrough of the XMB features, otherwise here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what you can actually do with the new XMB access in game:
- View your friends list and send/receive text messages
- Play your own music stored on the hard drive while playing a game that supports it (The list of games supported is unconfirmed right now)
- Connect/fiddle with your bluetooth device settings – this is most likely going to mean hooking up your bluetooth headset for voice communication in game
- Check the progress of your queued downloads from the Playstation Store
While this goes a long way in bringing the online feature set of the PS3 to parity with the Xbox 360, it’s still missing a few key features. Namely:
- Private voice chat
- Voice message capability
- Invite friends to a game
Arguably, these features are the most important for an easy online gaming experience. I always use private voice chat whenever I’m playing with a buddy because you can talk with them through game loading screens and such – something that you can’t do if you simply use the in game voice communications. Text messaging on a console is just a pain and being able to send invites directly from a friends list is a no-brainer. Still, one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess, as being able to see and communicate with your online friends in any form is better than the status quo.
Read the rest of this entry »