Talk Playstation 3 News

In a recent interview with PlayStation: The Official Magazine in the Holiday 09 issue, Eric Lempel explains how future system firmware updates are planned and released.

We go about doing that in a few different ways. We do consumer research in addition to following our roadmap. We’ve had a very had a very long roadmap that we’ve wanted to roll out, and clearly all of them couldn’t be rolled out day one when the PS3 launched. So we’ve been implementing these features as we go along and some of them, and some of them take longer than others.

Of course time and manpower always factor in because there aren’t limitless resources. And are sometimes key features that must go out in Firmware updates. For example, you saw on September 1, we released a 120GB PS3 and we did a Firmware update, and there were some enhancements in that specifically to bring on the new hardware.

We absolutely read all the feedback that we see on our blog when we do firmware updates. We have people who look across different forums and different sites. And we also do our own testing – some very extensive testing..

But in some cases, we can’t do complete testing because you never quite know how things will work until users have it.

I think it’s incredibly popular. We know users want it, and like lots of other things that work cross-games, technically, it’s complicated. But it’s definitely something we’re looking at.

Source.

No not your personal information but based on those SCEA was able to figure out what the typical (US) PSN user ‘looks’ like.

Right now [the userbase] it’s primarily male. The average age is 28 years old, in usually the middle- to higher-income range. They over-index against those with graduate degrees.

But it’s not sticking to this category alone, Eric Lempel who was SCEA’s spokesperson in this interview says

What we’re finding ever since we’ve introduced services like the video download service, we’re getting more of the household on the PlayStation Network. Some of the top rentals and sales on the video side have been content that probably doesn’t appeal exactly to that 28-year-old male. It’s more those movies that are geared toward women

We’re now waiting on the European and Japanese figures to get a global view of this.

Source

After rumours and subtle hints Eric Lempel let know what feature we could expect from the next ‘big’ update.

By using a keyboard (on-screen or usb/bluetooth) or keypad, you’ll be able to chat with up to 15 friends (16 including you) in your friend list (PlayStation’s version of MSN/AIM?). You will also be able to chat in three rooms at the same time and access Text Chat when playing a game.

But that’s not the only thing it’s bringing. You’ll also be able to sort your friends via their online status. Add to that a increase of file attachment to messages.
For the people in the US (or with a US PSN account), Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future. Also videos you’ve purchased for PlayStation Portable system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback.

Check the clip out, to see how you will be using these new features.

Following the latest firmware announcement for the PlayStation Portable, Eric Lempel also announced the arrival of firmware 2.60 for the PlayStation 3. In this firmware the biggest additions are guest logins onto the PlayStation store and Divx 3.11 support.

But that’s not the only thing the update will include. Also included is a new Photo Gallery application. With this SCE is really focusing on getting the media side of the console to a proper level.
Digital pictures can be organized in groups according to various criteria, including the camera used to take the photos, the event date and time, colors in the photos, as well as the number, ages, or facial expressions of the people pictured. You can also create slideshows set to music and build photo playlists with an easy-to-use interface.

To use the application you will need to install it separately from the XMB after the update, just like with PlayStation Home and Life with PlayStation.

And with this announcement the PSN ID required login has gone active but it seems it’s still having some issue. People’s original blog nickname are still being shown instead of their PSN ID. According to Eric Lempel their working on it.

We hope the firmware has more features (including the cosmetic error of the battery icon over the clock) and fixes.

Source

Eric Lempel announced on the official PlayStation Blog that the PlayStation Portable will receive a firmware update very soon. It’s a small one to fix some security issues and improve system software stability during use of some features.

Eric Lempel let know on the Official Playstation Blog that we can expect firmware 5.02 for the PSP very soon. The update will improve system software stability during use of some features, including the PlayStation Store.

Source

The Playstation Home Beta is still on schedule for release later this fall. Home has been delayed a number of times before but Eric Lempel, Director of Playstation Network was keen to assure Playstation fans that Home would be worth the long wait.

“The Home open beta is still on schedule for release later this fall,”

“The reason we’ve been delaying [Home] is so that we can deliver a high quality service that the users will enjoy. Even though it will be in beta, it will be a fair representation of what the service can be and its potential, so it won’t be a 0.5 release, it will be a fully robust service.”

So it looks like everything is on course to be released this fall in Beta format. Read more at next-gen.biz.

Now that Firmware 2.40 is officially live Eric Lempel wants to share some more information on why firmware 2.40 represents a significant step forward for Sony’s online service.

In an interview with next-gen.biz, Lempel said:

“We’ve delivered a lot of firmware updates to date, but this latest one is really significant in that it plays to a lot of the features that consumers have been asking for and really enhances the overall gaming experience,”

“We definitely consider this a big deal and a big leap forward for the service.”

Lempel goes into detail on which games you’ll be able to earn trophies for after you’ve installed firmware 2.4.

“Right off the bat when the firmware update goes live we’ll be patching Super Stardust HD, so that game will include Trophies from Wednesday. We’re also patching Warhawk and PAIN, while Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, a completely offline title, will also be patched over the network, so it’s definitely an option for developers and we’re fully supporting first and third parties that want to patch, and of course those that want to implement this system going forward with new titles.”

Eric Lempel says that there are more features to come and are currently on their road. He can’t exactly say what features they are currently developing but he can say that theres more to come.

“There are a lot of features that are still part of our roadmap. When we release new features we want to make sure that we have a baseline set of features to put out there and that they work properly. We feel that these new features are ready and that they offer consumers a great advantage over what they have today.”

And lastly, Eric Lempel speaks about the pricing of Playstation Network and states:

“We’re happy with what we’re doing right now and we’re going to stick with it,”

“I think being free is always an advantage. The fact that it’s free is nice for consumers who want to try out the online experience, those who may be new to it and may not be ready to commit to spending dollars, and that’s a really good message for us. Being free also gives them the opportunity to spend the money that they may have spent on a subscription on online items or online games instead. We have a ton of games for the price of a subscription and offer a significant amount of great original content that you can’t get anywhere else.”

So it looks like its going to stay free and free for a long time but things can easily change.

Read more over at next-gen.biz.

Gamespy were able to have a little chat with the director of Playstation Network, Eric Lempel. There were a lot of unanswered questions answered in this phone interview and here are the highlights.

GameSpy: We saw in the video that you pulled up messages in-game. Will gamers also be able to initiate voice chat with buddies as they play?

Eric Lempel, Director of Operations, PSN: No, they won’t be able to yet. This is phase one of our project, and we’ll be rolling out even bigger plans for the future.

GameSpy: Are there future plans to implement an automated pause in the game to access the XMB?

Lempel: Some games will do that, but others won’t. It’s not really our decision to make, as much as it’s a developer’s choice.

GameSpy: What is the current level cap as of the 2.4 firmware launch? What’s the team’s schedule for raising it?

Lempel: The way it’s set up, there’s no way for anyone to hit the current cap for quite some time. In the amount of time it would take someone to reach that height, we’ll be watching players’ levels closely. The system is built to scale, so we’ll monitor the overall progress and adjust level caps accordingly. Ideally, no one will ever hit the level cap due to our adjustments over time. We have some real long-term plans in place for this.

Looking good already, i’m liking the fact that there basically isn’t a cap on how high the levelling goes. Read the rest here.