Tag Archives: firmware 2.40

PSN chief Eric Lempel said in today’s Firmware 2.40 video walkthrough that custom soundtracks will be supported, and alluded to the fact that all games would support the feature.

Up until now no-one was sure whether the feature would be limited to specific titles, but Lempel made no mention of this in his demonstration with his only disclaimer being, “please bear in mind this is a concept and it may not be what it looks like when we deliver it.”

So there you go.

By Mike Bowden

According to this NeoGaf post, Sony will release first official screens of PSN Trophies, profiles and in-game XMB next Monday.

The post also says that a video walkthrough of new PSN features it to be released on the same day.

Behind the scenes chatter in the past day has all pointed to official activity surrounding Firmware 2.4 next week. We can but hope.

PS3F’s posted up more gamer profile pics from the supposed upcoming changes to the PlayStation Network. These follow screens of what were apparently Trophy-related pages. None of this has been verified yet, but those look as though they could easily be real. Take a look.

Here. There’s speculation there that the update’s going to be released over E3. This is what you’re going to get access to in-game:

• Friend category
• View, send, receive messages
• Manage downloads
• Set the vibration feature of the controller
• Sign in to PlayStation Network
• Register friends
• Manage Bluetooth devices
• Terminate the game
• Music category
• Use the system BGM
• Work the system BGM operation panel
• Settings category
• Assign controllers
• View profiles
• Game category
• Set audio devices
• Use the voice changer

PlaystationJournal is reporting that custom XMB music may be included in the upcoming PS3 2.40 Firmware update.

The talk’s emerged following Criterion listing, “Support for Custom Soundtracks on PlayStation 3″ as a feature of one of its upcoming Burnout Paradise updates.

“This could mean a couple of things,” said the site. “Either each game will have it’s own in game custom soundtracks, or Sony have succeeded in making InGame XMB Music possible by just having the developer update the game to make the game compatible with the PS3′s system & settings.”

Purely speculative of course, but this isn’t the first time that custom music support for the 2.40 update hinted at.

By Michael O’Connor

The Playstation Network will be offline today for “scheduled maintenance,” according to Sony.

The service goes offline at 8.00 am and back online at 2.00 pm PST. During the downtime, users will not be able to access Playstation Store or play a game online. Whether this actually is for “maintenance” or has something to do with upcoming Firmware 2.40 is a moot.

By Jerry Burns

On PS3F. There are a few screens through there showing what appears to be some kind of tiered Trophy system, supposedly the PS3 Trophy thingum from Firmware 2.4.

There’s quite a lot of information through there, sent in from an anonymous source. Read into it what you will.

Sony’s admitted that the upcoming PS3 Firmware 2.40 will contain in-game XMB, talking on its US blog.

“We’re… happy to officially report that the 2.40 system software update for PS3 will include ‘XMB’ access in-game,” said PSN operations director Eric Lempel.

“The update will also include ‘trophies,’ an exciting new feature that we’ll be providing more details on soon, as well as some other new enhancements. We’ve talked about some of this on the blog previously and know that many of you can’t wait to get your hands on these features. You can expect us to share all of the official details shortly.”

So there we are. Guess you can trust some rumours, hey?

PSU’s running a quote from an unnamed source saying that PS3 Firmware 2.40 – the software update rumoured to hold in-game XMB and user-soundtrack functionality – will release in June.

“The SDK 2.40 will be available to dev. late in June. The actual Firmware 2.40 might see the light of day a lot sooner (my personal guess would be launch aligned or slightly before MGS4),” said the mole.

We’re waiting for comment from SCEE on a release date, but don’t be holding any breath.

Videogaming247 has learnt that the upcoming in-game XMB – heavily rumoured to be included in PS3′s Firmware 2.40 – may not work with all PS3 titles, and that user-music and Trophies functionality is only being included as an option for Sony developers from this point on.

By point:

• Sony’s currently going through PS3′s library to check whether or not in-game XMB’s full compatible. While it’s expected that the the new menu system, in-game messaging, and so forth, will work with virtually all games, for a minority of titles the current black menu screen will be retained. It’s not known yet which games, if any, won’t be able to use in-game XMB.
• The user-music functionality is only included in the new development tools, which have now gone out to coders. This means that existing games won’t support it unless they’re patched. That’s right: you won’t be able to play GTA IV with your own music unless Rockstar updates the game, if what we’ve been told this morning is true.
• Same for Trophies. They tools required to add these are only just in the hands of developers, which means it’s going to be some time before you see the feature appear in a major game.
• Some aspects of the XMB, such as the photo viewer, won’t be available in-game after the 2.40 Firmware update. If you select these features in-game, you’ll be asked if you want to drop out of your game to access them.

There’s still no release date for Firmware 2.40 as yet, with Sony sticking to “summer” for now. We’ll have more soon, hopefully.