Nearly a year since the release of the Playstation 3, firmware 2.0 has finally been release. With it come some significant updates. The ability to wake the PS3 from sleep mode via a WAN connection with the Playstation Portable is key among these. Now, you can connect to your PS3 from anywhere in the world and access your friends lists, stream media, play games, queue up content for download from the Playstation Store, et cetera.
Another significant change is the ability to customize your XMB menu with your own icons, colors and effects. Compared with Xbox Live’s “pay for new themes” strategy, this seems like a terrific value for Playstation owners. The XMB has a few more new tricks in store with this update. Play lists can finally be created for photos and music. Video and game content can be grouped into folders. Videos downloading from the Playstation Store can now stream as they are downloading. There’s no need to wait until they are done anymore.
A new video chat interface has been added to take advantage of the “Playstation Eye” with even higher quality image and sound. The built-in web browser has been tweaked to load faster, as has the PSN Store interface.
All in all, a good list of improvements has been made. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for in-game custom soundtracks and XMB access to be fully integrated. More on that when info becomes available.
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