Insomniac – Sony Japan now paying more attention to Western feedback

About time!

I’ll 2nd that Blerk. How long has the PS been around for 14 years?? About time indeed.

And this was only possible with BluRay ya know

I think they’re specifically talking about the XMB division.

I hope they keep the sparkles!

One of the reasons I started playing on Xbox in the first place was the way the PSone market was so JP friendly. It only got worse on the PS2. And you could see the lack of solid western thinking on the PS3 as well. From online implimentation to the games brought to market. For far too long the west was an after thought. We just didn’t matter, it was all about Japan. So.

When Dreamcast came out I saw the line up and jumped onboard. I played several online games from racers to fighters, to shooters(played Quake and Unreal both online – blew me away at the time) to Phantasty Star Online(read Diablo clone in space). I loved it. The system had JP games too. Loved the Marvel vs Capcom, Power Stone, Grandia 2, Mars Matrix, and more. But unlike Sony or Nintendo at the time Sega gave the western market thought and games. Over here NFL2K took the world by storm – online Football! and it was damn good.
When DC died, I was stuck with PS2, till xbox launched. And then we got right back to western games. Online racers, sports, rpgs, and shooters. I say all of this because some of you think I hate on Sony for no good reason. I don’t hate them, I just understand that for so long they didn’t offer me what I wanted to play and someone else did.

I think Sony, and JP in general is getting better. But that is what happens when you no longer dominate the market. You listen to people.

@ mescalineeyes
No problem with the sparkles. In fact they are the only addition/change to the new XMB-GUI that doesn’t suck. Everything else new is either implemented very badly or plain ugly.

I have nothing against new features and/or interface tweaks but they need to be consistent with the basic elegant style of the original XMB.

So yes, Sony, remove those ugly bars in the friends-list and revert to the old font sizes of the XMB. In addition remove the whole “what’s new” section and go back to one single store icon within the XMB.

Thanks!

Agreed. Sort out the friends list and the font size and I’m happy. The sparkles don’t bother me, as the missus ‘made’ me buy the LBP dynamic theme anyway.

themes should be free on both platforms anyway, it’s like paying for ads.

Definitely, but there was a couple of quid left in the account and anything to do with LBP is usually purchased quite quickly in our house. It’s the only theme I’ve coughed up for, won’t be doing it again!

So now I have Sackboy running constantly in the background, his poor little legs must be knackered by now…

BLERK WTF do you mean about time? You don’t own a PS3!

Here let a true PS3 owner say it…ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!!
Now give us cross game invites and cross game chat. Also re engineer custom soundtracks to work anytime.

It doesn’t just cover the PS3. Sony have been “not listening” to pretty much anyone other than themselves since they started out.

I agree with Quiiick but I like the whats new thing. It doesn’t bother me because I never really see it. They should also stop the advertising up by the clock.

@Tea
If xbLIVE is any indication the advert stuff is just gonna get worse.

You mean the RSS feed thing TEA? You can disable that.

How is that Blerk? they have been stupid at times but they are pretty much delivering. Coding the xmb for new additions must really be a pain considering the memory limits.

They fix the PS store to near damn perfection.
They added trophies
They put some kind of custom soundtrack implementation in
They gave us free tools to create our own themes
They released hom…..umm scratch that sorry
and they’ve kept online gaming free.

Maybe you want the XMB to be the NXE which i have to tell you sorry it’s not happening captain. If you love the NXE’s clutter fest UI then you really won’t enjoy your future PS3.

Gek how do you disable it. I know of the change your date trick but that also effects your player met list. Ex if I change my date to 10/29/2012 then every person I meet online will in 2011. I will have to keep that date if I want to keep meeting new people.

Pracer I don’t think so. Sony knows the XMB is a sleek nice design that’s meant to be easy on the eyes and use.

The way you behave TEA, anybody would that your PS3 is your boyfriend.

Sorry if I like a game console that I’ve always wanted since I began gaming. I shouldn’t even say a gaming console. The fact that it does just about everything you’d want entertaining wise and plays killer great video games is my dream wish come true from when I was little.

I wish the PSP came out when I was in school also. It would have made a lot of classes go by faster

TEA, are you in the US?
My UK account doesn’t have a ticker under the clock but the US account does, if you really hate it set up a UK account and hey presto, its gone. I’ve got a Japanese one as well, try negotiating the Jap store, now that is crazy. I spend an hour every thursday visiting each region store downloading demos, the fun never ends at our house…

You know TEA, i just dont know how to turn that off; I disabled it on my main account when it first came out as that orange RSS thing and it didnt come back with the firmware update. But on one of my other accounts its still there and just tried but cant get rid of it. I think you can turn it off in the “System Settings” as “Display ‘Whats New’” but is dosnt seem to work. I think its bugged or something.

i don’t know what you’re all talking about, is it that orange thing? i just pressed triangle and selected “Do Not Display”

It use to be that orange thing but now its actually just scrolling text under the date and time.

gd to hear is this, they have the best first and second party studios in the world and the very big fanbase. Sony made a lot of mistakes at the start of the ps3s life cycle its good to hear they have corrected some of them

Well it’s about time was the right reponse.

And I am glad it’s finally hapening. Althoguh I didn’t really need it in the PS2, days, becuase hardware, was hardware was hardware.

There was none of this firmware shite.

sennasnit I have a euro (and japan)account. I mainly use it to download euro only demos,trailers,themes and to harrass euors in home . But yea I have notice you guys don’t have it.

Gek consider yourself lucky. I really regret upgrading to FW3.0 but check this out Sony says they are not responsible if your PS3 bricks during a firmware update right? Well how come Tekken 6 wouldn’t let me start the game until I updated to FW3.01. If my PS3 had bricked then I would have slapped Sony with a class act lawsuit. They need to change that in the next update.

PUD you’re right. I miss the days of non DLC. I hate DLC and patches now. Its a basic excuse to rush the game and then complete it after they got our $60. Prime example “Socom Confrontations”

I hear ya TEA, the other prob I have with DLC is the feeling that games now cost around 90usd. 60 at the store and 30 more for dlc. And add to that is my feeling that most DLC should have been on the disc. I have even seen “dlc” that simply unlocks content that IS on the disc.

“Hey lets give them 16 maps, 4 on the disc, and 12 more in sets of 4, charging 10usd for each set as DLC.”

My new NCAA Football game came with features that had been on the disc in the past, but this year they are “exrta” DLC. All said the game was 60usd with upto 50usd in DLC.

In most cases I hate DLC!