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PS3 Firmware Wishlist (In-Game+More Confirmed in 2.40 Update)
Professor Snugglesworth
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So lately I've been thinking about the Playstation 3's periodic updates, in which slowly but steadily more and more features are added to the growing XMB interface. Most of the updates are of the convenient variety, not so much anything groundbreaking, but the latter has been promised for some time, and with the look into future features like the new Playstation Store and Blu Ray copying to PSP, I start to wonder just how far the technology can advance?
So I've created this thread where we can express the kind of features we'd like to see implemented to the PS3. Even if you're not certain if the feature is possible or not, go ahead and share it.
But I do implore you not to turn this into a console/firmware war. I don't want to read any "Well 360 already does that, but better" posts, or any "Sony will continue to suck until they add this and that to the interface" comments. This is just a discussion on the evolving tech of the PS3.
I have quite a few features I would seriously love to see included, and most do seem within the realm of possibility to me.
1. In Game XMB: Yeah, this is the big one everyone keeps begging for. Nothing's more annoying than getting a "message received" icon and having to quit whatever you're doing to read it.
But how about taking this a bit further? Like with the 360, you can open up messages on the spot while playing, but the slider prevents you from reading the message and playing the game at the same time.
So I propose that when you want to read a message but still keep playing, all you have to do is push a single button (the PS Home button, for instance), and the message will display in a tiny little window on the corner. Multi-management at work.
But wait, let's take it even further. For voiced messages, the audio will play in realtime, and with again just a single click, you can respond back (provided you've got a headset on) with a recording of you're on, all without interrupting your game.
2. Custom Soundtracks: Another commonly requested feature, something the competition has been doing successfully. A lot of people believe this will be implemented the same time as In Game XMB, but if it doesn't outright replace the game's original music like Xbox does, it'll be a worthless feature.
Again, I thought about taking it further. For one thing, I won't be completely satisfied to get custom soundtracks for just PS3 games. It would be tremendously desirable to be able to add custom music to PS2 games, or even PS1 games as well. I constantly dream about the chance to replay Kingdom Hearts II using actual music from the respective Disney movies, or the arranged orchestral pieces from Yoko Shimomura's latest CD. I'm really not certain how the process of silencing a game's original score and replacing it with whatever you want works, but if it's possible with older games, I'd love to see it done.
The next feature I'd like to see with custom soundtracks is the ability to set up a "playlist" of sorts. Having to briefly stop the game and load up whatever song can be slightly cumbersome, so how about deciding on the music in advance? Imagine a playlist you can set up before starting where you can choose what song to play in place of a game's original score? For example, you can set it up so the same custom music plays at the same level, or another custom song will always be the default boss theme. Or for RPG enthusiasts, whatever music you want to play in certain memorable cut scenes.
Considering how some PC games, like FFXI, give you access to have your custom song "replace" a certain track whenever it's scheduled to play, I think this is quite doable.
3. Hi Res Backward Compatibility: I was so excited when I read the announcement that 1080p would be included with the PS3's playback of PS1 and PS2 games, but the end result isn't nearly what I expected. Sure, the games receive an improvement, but it's marginal at best. Some games are noticeably better looking, others not so much.
So how about improving on this, and allow full on texture tweaking? There's a certain PC program that's working to accomplish this, and the results are already impressive from just a few tests. So if some tech fans can pull this off, why not let the PS3 handle it too?
There are also "shaders", which basically apply different kinds of filters that can radically alter the game to an artistic preference you decide. There's a slew of filters created for PS1 games that also look nice, and they don't take up any resources whatsoever. Imagine playing Silent Hill or Resident Evil with a static movie-reel effect (something the last three games already have, but could be applied even further for that classic B movie look).
4. Realtime Saving: And finally, taking a page from a recently updated feature. The last PS3 update allows you to stop a DVD or Blu Ray movie, then resume right where you left off. Even if you shut off the system, eject the disc, replace it with another movie and stop THAT movie, it'll still remember where you left off in all your movies.
So how about applying that to games as well? In some occasions, you don't want to stop your progress in a game, but the save point is still an hour or two away and you're dead tired. Imagine being able to stop the game on the stop, then resume right where you left off the next day. It's like the sleep mode in the PSP or DS, except you can actually shut off the system, and play other games without losing your "unsaved" progress in the original game.
So that's it for my most desired firmware features. Let's hear yours.
So I've created this thread where we can express the kind of features we'd like to see implemented to the PS3. Even if you're not certain if the feature is possible or not, go ahead and share it.
But I do implore you not to turn this into a console/firmware war. I don't want to read any "Well 360 already does that, but better" posts, or any "Sony will continue to suck until they add this and that to the interface" comments. This is just a discussion on the evolving tech of the PS3.
I have quite a few features I would seriously love to see included, and most do seem within the realm of possibility to me.
1. In Game XMB: Yeah, this is the big one everyone keeps begging for. Nothing's more annoying than getting a "message received" icon and having to quit whatever you're doing to read it.
But how about taking this a bit further? Like with the 360, you can open up messages on the spot while playing, but the slider prevents you from reading the message and playing the game at the same time.
So I propose that when you want to read a message but still keep playing, all you have to do is push a single button (the PS Home button, for instance), and the message will display in a tiny little window on the corner. Multi-management at work.
But wait, let's take it even further. For voiced messages, the audio will play in realtime, and with again just a single click, you can respond back (provided you've got a headset on) with a recording of you're on, all without interrupting your game.
2. Custom Soundtracks: Another commonly requested feature, something the competition has been doing successfully. A lot of people believe this will be implemented the same time as In Game XMB, but if it doesn't outright replace the game's original music like Xbox does, it'll be a worthless feature.
Again, I thought about taking it further. For one thing, I won't be completely satisfied to get custom soundtracks for just PS3 games. It would be tremendously desirable to be able to add custom music to PS2 games, or even PS1 games as well. I constantly dream about the chance to replay Kingdom Hearts II using actual music from the respective Disney movies, or the arranged orchestral pieces from Yoko Shimomura's latest CD. I'm really not certain how the process of silencing a game's original score and replacing it with whatever you want works, but if it's possible with older games, I'd love to see it done.
The next feature I'd like to see with custom soundtracks is the ability to set up a "playlist" of sorts. Having to briefly stop the game and load up whatever song can be slightly cumbersome, so how about deciding on the music in advance? Imagine a playlist you can set up before starting where you can choose what song to play in place of a game's original score? For example, you can set it up so the same custom music plays at the same level, or another custom song will always be the default boss theme. Or for RPG enthusiasts, whatever music you want to play in certain memorable cut scenes.
Considering how some PC games, like FFXI, give you access to have your custom song "replace" a certain track whenever it's scheduled to play, I think this is quite doable.
3. Hi Res Backward Compatibility: I was so excited when I read the announcement that 1080p would be included with the PS3's playback of PS1 and PS2 games, but the end result isn't nearly what I expected. Sure, the games receive an improvement, but it's marginal at best. Some games are noticeably better looking, others not so much.
So how about improving on this, and allow full on texture tweaking? There's a certain PC program that's working to accomplish this, and the results are already impressive from just a few tests. So if some tech fans can pull this off, why not let the PS3 handle it too?
There are also "shaders", which basically apply different kinds of filters that can radically alter the game to an artistic preference you decide. There's a slew of filters created for PS1 games that also look nice, and they don't take up any resources whatsoever. Imagine playing Silent Hill or Resident Evil with a static movie-reel effect (something the last three games already have, but could be applied even further for that classic B movie look).
4. Realtime Saving: And finally, taking a page from a recently updated feature. The last PS3 update allows you to stop a DVD or Blu Ray movie, then resume right where you left off. Even if you shut off the system, eject the disc, replace it with another movie and stop THAT movie, it'll still remember where you left off in all your movies.
So how about applying that to games as well? In some occasions, you don't want to stop your progress in a game, but the save point is still an hour or two away and you're dead tired. Imagine being able to stop the game on the stop, then resume right where you left off the next day. It's like the sleep mode in the PSP or DS, except you can actually shut off the system, and play other games without losing your "unsaved" progress in the original game.
So that's it for my most desired firmware features. Let's hear yours.
Professor Snugglesworth on
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As far as real-time saving? Well, I don't think something like that has anything to do with XMB. I think all the power for something like that lies in the hands of the developer, unless Sony came out and said, "We'd like all of you to let people save any time they want!" The best they could do would probably be to have the same stand-by/resume mode like the PSP.
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analog and digital audio at the same time (this is a PS2 feature...)
get rid of the download > install nonsense for demos and games (maybe not a firmware thing)
more video/audio codec support
The former, absolutely. It's extremely annoying to bounce between my home theater setup or the TV speakers. Why can't I have it both like with every other system?
The latter, don't really care either way, I just wish the downloads would be as fast as the 360. I once tested this by downloading the DMC4 demo on both systems. 360 finished first while PS3 got up to 25%.
Maybe this will be fixed when the new store launches.
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Doing them both at the same time is a horrible way to test since there's no guarantee they will each get equal bandwidth. My PS3 downloads at 330k/s, which is my bandwidth cap, so I'm pretty sure this is all in your head, hehe.
My PS3 used to be slower than my 360, but now, for whatever reason, it's actually a little bit faster. Though both of them download much more slowly than I think they should.
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Yes! This is a must have, the day I got my PS3 i thought I had a faulty controller because I left the PS3 on for a bit while I had food etc and came back to a dead pad, I thought it had just turned off like the 360 one but no, it had run the battery all the way down.
I've noticed that the pads will shut off automatically after a certain amount of time while watching a movie, but not during any other application.
It seems like this would be a simple fix. A menu option allowing for control of the shut-off time would be even better.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
An inactivity shut-off wouldn't be too bad, but if you know you need to take a break, you can push the PS button and select Shut Down Controller.
Yup, and that's something I do on a regular basis. The reason I'd like to control it is that sometimes I would actually like it to stay on during an entire movie.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
I think the PS3 version of flOw was designed specifically to show off the SIXAXIS, and so as I recall it only has motion control. It's been a while since I played it.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
(edit for dreaming) Removal of HDCP, at least in games, so I can hook it to my monitor via dvi.
In game XMB, which we know is coming sometime during the summer. But how about voice chat? It would be nice to hear the other people when I'm playing Rock Band.
Emulated BC for the 40GB model (or any models without PS2 BC). Heck, I would even be willing to pay for it (if it was reasonably priced...) I've got like 10 PS2 games that I would kill to see upscaled to 1080p resolution.
Rip PS1 games to PSP. So awesome if this ever happened.
Oh, and Linux access to the GPU would be freaking sweet.
On the subject of putting a game in a "sleep" mode, I don't think it would be possible without a hardware change. I'm pretty sure that the psp just shuts off power to everything except for the RAM, so that way when you wake it up (wake up the rest of it), it is exactly in the state that you left it. If the PS3 hardware does not have this ability already, you wouldn't be able to add it with software. The other way to do it would be to store the 512MB of RAM on the hard disk. Then, when it wakes up, you load it back into memory. Of course, this would probably take more time that most people would think the feature is worth.
Auto-shut off of the controller would be great. I can't think of any reason why it couldn't be implemented with a software change either.
As for other stuff I want, I mostly just wanted in-game XMB, a new Playstation Store, more codec support and a lot more backwards compatibility updates. We're getting the new Playstation Store next week (which looks SO much better than the old one) and we're meant to get in-game XMB around June.
Im so used to having it on the PSP I find myself looking to the corner of the screen and going... buwhuuu o_O? Then remembering.
Would like to see both of these as well. I have Ridge Racer Revolution (riiiiiiidge racer) and Final Doom for my PS1 that I would love to play on the go and on the big screen, I have a PS1 but it never setup, and I never had a PS2 so there are some games I would really like to hit up on that (I have a 40gb white ps3, soon to be 120gb mind :P).
I'm fairly certain that all PS3 models support PS1 BC, so pop in that Final Doom and get going!
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
There's also "insider reports" that there will be some new and very exciting features included with the upgrade, and it was even sort of hinted at the PS Blog.
Hopes set to high?
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Maybe they'll start consistantly releasing PS1 games on the PSN... I'm kidding myself aren't I?
Oh and since it was overshadowed in the MGS thread, I'll repost the news here. Europeans get the Metal Gear Online beta for free this thursday, apparently it'll appear on the PS Store and everyone can join. I'm really hoping Aus and NZ will be included.
Sadly I bought my PS3 from Hong Kong before I knew that, and the game is region locked
Thanks for the info tho.
Alas! That is most unfortunate indeed, as Final Doom is pretty awesome.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
The 360's OS is Windows. It's truly multitasking and at any time you can go to the dashboard in the same way you can always press the "start" button in windows.
The XMB, if it's anything like the PSPs, is nothing but a terminate and stay resident (TSR) program launcher. This means it deletes itself from memory when a game is ran, save for a few hooks to restart itself when the application exits. The XMB is not a multitasking OS. The only way you can access the OS is via a low-level syscall hook, and even then, the OS isn't really "there"
In the PSP's instance, this was why you couldn't play MP3s and view pictures at the same time in the XMB. Once you ran one of the XMB's mini apps, the other would unload.
This is also why you probably won't see a sountrack option either. Once you launch a game, the music app will die. It can only run one thing at a time.
One SPE and 48MB of RAM are reserved for the PS3's OS (though apparently Sony have slowly released a few megs of RAM since then), so the situation isn't really similar at all. Besides, Sony have already said that we should be getting in-game XMB around the middle of the year. Somehow, I don't think they'd say that if it weren't possible at all...
Also, were you the guy that said that Sony didn't actually develop a PS1 emulator for the PSP when Sony first released PS1 games over the PSN?
Btw, that "surprise" the PS Blog was hinting at was actually from a Konami employee and it was referring to the "Metal Gear Monday" they'll have on the blog each monday. On the bright side, the new PS Store is awesome, even though the SCEE store is a complete unorganised mess.
Or really, I'd just settle for the damn thing to play avi's.
Edit: Since it was mentioned on the previous page, The new firmware is up and so is the new store. The interface is about 300 times better than before but still not really what I'd call great. Severely needs a way to filter or sort titles.
LoL: failboattootoot
Agreed with Arkady, massive improvement, not perfect, but much needed!
Sony disagrees, since they announced it earlier this year.
Yer, circle for us. It was probably the single most needed improvement. Or at least, it annoyed the fuck out of me more than anything else about the store.
LoL: failboattootoot
Yea, That was me. I made a mistake. I disassembled the header code and only found BIOS hooks. It turns out the ISO was compressed. The BIOS hooks turned out to be a syscall converter to translate PSX BIOS calls to PSP functions. The compressed ISO was assumed to be PSP code.
We all make mistakes.
The thing is, if I had a list of everything Sony has "said" (jazz hands) and what it actually turned out to be, I would have a very long list.
I guess I'm still bitter when Sony said that a PS1 emulator was coming for PSP and on the day of release, only then announced that you needed a $600 PS3 accessory to be able to play the games.
What have the promised me?
PSP movie/TV download? - Nope
PSP Wireless kiosks? - Nope
PSP Downloadable games - Nope
PSP Demos - About 37 over four years (including the Japanese ones)
The 3.0 firmware upgrade was a kick to the dick for PSP owners. The extra features they were bragging about for the last year and a half were locked out unless you bought a PS3. It was Sony's attitude of "Oops! I guess we forgot to tell you that part!" attitude that was a real punch in the cock.
You my want to count how many months it has been since Home was announced. They had an ambulatory demo over a year ago. Where is it now?
Sorry, didn't mean to whine, but I just remember when I had a list of awesome firmware updates that were going to be happening on the PSP. I just don't want you to get your hopes up.
o_O What? Uh, have you heard of the Playstation Store per chance? It's got a bunch of PSP downloadable games there, including flow, Beats and Ape Quest, not to mention the retail games they've re-released on it (like Wipeout Pure).
Oh and I think those wireless kiosks were mostly meant to be for Japan, since they've been available there for a while now.
One of the problems Sony has is that they announce features when they're still in development, rather than when it's actually near completion. So when we hear about stuff like Home, it's still over a year from release.
Arkady: Uh, the PS3 already plays avi files, assuming they're divx/xvid files (and not outdated ones either).
SAdly not all avi are divx, or else I'd be complaining less!
LoL: failboattootoot
http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2008/5/29-48
Seeing how I've been spending a recent amount of time creating new playlists for my Xbox 360 games, I'm really stoked that they'll finally have the feature for the PS3. I can only hope they manage to implement some of my wishes to make the custom soundtrack feature even greater.
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Wonder if 360 users will still find their xbox live subscriptions justified after that.