The PS3 firmware updates keep on coming...

by Ed Stasick { Mar 19th 2007 at 9:30PM }

When it comes to PS3 firmware updates, everyday is like Christmas... you have a list of things that you want, but you can only hope and pray that you'll get what's at the top of the list. And like every Christmas morning, the March 22 debut of PS3 firmware 1.6 will be a mixed bag... you'll get that toy you've dreamed about for months, but you'll also get that hand-knitted pair of socks from Grandma. Here's the deets on the "Top 3" additions straight from Japan:

Background Downloading! Download the latest from the PlayStation store while playing MotorStorm!
Folding @Home! Cure cancer while not playing MotorStorm!
Browser Zooming and Resolution Adjustment: Experience websites like they were meant to be seen, especially when it comes to the official website for MotorStorm!

Some good stuff in there (and some ok stuff we skipped). Background downloading and cancer curing mark a milestone in the PS3's ongoing development. Since we know that Sony certainly takes your comments as gospel, please let us know what you think they should be doing for PS3 v1.7.

[Via loot-ninja]

Tags: ps3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

dontEATnachos @ Mar 19th 2007 9:42PM

This post is misleading. Sony has already said that there won't be downloading during games because it may interfere with the game.

What the update will probably let you do is download stuff from the PS Store while doing other things in the XMB like listening to music or surfing the web or possibly watching a movie.

Jason @ Mar 20th 2007 10:56AM

I'd like for the PS3 to see my external HD so I can transfer files more easily. I'd also like the option of playing music on boot and during menu nav automatically...

Jason @ Mar 20th 2007 10:50AM

I'd like for the PS3 to see my external HD so I can transfer files more easily. I'd also like the option of playing music on boot and during menu nav automatically...

humpty @ Mar 19th 2007 9:57PM

Why is it taking them so long to implement DVD upscaling? The 720p movies on the PS Store are already upscaled to 1080p.. freak.

dave @ Mar 19th 2007 10:08PM

Thank God. Browsing the web on a 1080i set is killer on the eyes, even on a 56 inch set with +2 text size.

I've been setting the output res at 720p just to make the text legible. Zoom will be a "Thank Freaking God" feature.

AL7AIR @ Mar 19th 2007 10:34PM

@ dontEATnachos

According to the source, the XMB is no longer the only place where a background download is possible.

【バックグラウンドダウンロード】
ファイルサイズの大きいデータや複数のデータをダウンロードするときに、ダウンロードしながら他の操作ができるようになります。（制限事項がありますので、詳細はアップデート開始以降、弊社webサイトでご確認ください）

If the system has enough free resources to initiate the download it will do so, even if a game is running.

Dustin @ Mar 19th 2007 11:16PM

Dont foget about connecting to remote play while thinking about Motorstorm! (oo, thats got a bad taste)I'd like to see chat while in game. (like video chat while in a game so I can flip off my friend when they blow me up, In motorstorm! ha! but that will probably not happen due to the same reason as background downloading. I also want to send and reply to messages while in a game and play a custom soundtrack in a game

danielgird @ Mar 19th 2007 11:20PM

There is already a "Browser Zooming" function... You have to hold down the Square button while pushing R2 or L2...! And you can move the webpage with the left analog stick (and the Square button...)

I'm using this funtion everyday on my little CRT television! :)

Only for fun, who knew that?? ;)

Maxx @ Mar 20th 2007 12:10AM

I would like the PS3 to output audio from the toslink AND HDMI at the same time. At night I want to use my tv speakers via HDMI but during the day I want to use my receiver via toslink. Currently you have to change it in the settings back and forth and there is no reason that you should have to do that.

johnko68 @ Mar 20th 2007 1:34AM

Formating a hard drive to FAT32 makes it viewable by the PS3.

I'd like to see upscaling of DVD's to 720p. Also, it would be great to have the PS3 function as a NAS, especially if external hard drives show up. This should be a very easy function to create. I could use it to share music, files, function as a backup library, etc.

JKo @ Mar 20th 2007 1:39AM

The feature I miss the most is DVD upscaling to 720p. I mistakenly sold my Samsung Upscaling DVD player b/c I thought the PS3 upscaled. Apparently, the upscaling is bad on the Xbox360.

I'd also like to see the PS3 be able to function as a NAS. If the external hard drive is FAT32 it shows up on the XMB but it be great to be a shared drive on the network, to share music, files, backup files, etc. This shouldn't be that hard technically.

Sean Benton @ Mar 20th 2007 10:41AM

720p (not just 1080p/i) blu-ray.
divx/mp3 media streaming from PC.
rumble.

san @ Mar 20th 2007 10:20AM

Fanboy Ed,

What about Remote Play over wireless access points? I mean, not necessarily anywhere in the world, but just my own Wi-Fi router in my house, and not having to direct-connect to the PS3? Any news on that being in 1.6?

Yeah, FAT32, your PS3 will see your external USB hard drive (or flash drive, or any such formatted volume) just fine. You may have to create some specially named folders to get it to recognize the various media you put on there.

I think the browser zoom function, which, yes, already exists, is now the new, easier to find and use, more robust browser zoom function with the ability to let you change resolutions just within the web browser.

san @ Mar 20th 2007 10:21AM

Wait, here it is:

"Remote Play via Wireless Access Point: People with a 20GB PS3 can now utilize the Remote Play feature with a PSP by using any wireless access point. (No official word if you will be able to use the PSP to access your PS3 at home from anywhere, maybe in a future update)"

So maybe not from Istanbul (nor Constantinople), but from the master bedroom upstairs in our townhouse, yes. Yay. I have a 60GB PS3, so I never thought about it, but of course this update will not only increase the accessible range of PSP Remote Play on 60GB PS3s but also enable remote play for all 20GB PS3 owners.

Since this is a PS3 fan site, I'm going to just write this: As for folding@home, this just quantifiably cool that Sony put this in there. SETI@home is a neat idea, but it's sort of nebulous, as even if SETI did identify a real signal of undeniably engineered origin within our lifetimes, it would take hundreds, thousands, more, years to even say, Hey, we got your message. But protein folding applications are doing incredible things in research medicine, right here, right now. Here comes the testy part, and why I overall prefer my PS3 to my 360: Sony puts folding@home on everyone's PS3, makes it easy for all PS3 owners to participate in a program that is on a daily basis furthering medical science; Microsoft can't figure out how to match players on their online games service so that players who can at least get along together get thrown together half the time. If you want to call this "Mercedes of media consoles" thinking, fine. Most of us, save some truck enthusiasts, would much rather own a Mercedes than a Ford. No matter how many cars Ford sells.

And now an about face on the 360 in response to another comment, one about upscaling DVDs on the 360. The upscaling of standard DVDs on 360 looks nice and is well implemented. Game upscaling looks fine, too. If anything, it's the lack of a digital connection from the 360 that degrades the image quality. HDMI anything off the PS3, even 480p DVDs, tends to look better than anything on any connection from the 360. But bottom line, compared to Blu-ray (or HD DVD for that matter, image if not sound quality being as good), even an upscaled standard DVD on an HDTV just does not compare. It's hard to go back, upscaling or no. A few weeks ago we used to mix our Netflix rentals, 2 standard DVDs, to watch upstairs in bed on the standard TV, to 1 Blu-ray to watch on the HDTV downstairs when we quite so tired. Now it's 1 standard and 2 Blu-ray, exhaustion or not. And a whole list of BR discs we want to buy sooner rather than later.

rothgar @ Mar 20th 2007 1:57PM

the ability to read/play samba shares!!!
You could have any files on your PC/NAS and just stream them over. That is what I do with my xbox (via XBMC) and that is the main thing that keeps me using my xbox. If the PS3 could do this I would no longer need that ugly dull black brick and I could replace it with the shiny new rounded brick.

san @ Mar 20th 2007 12:09PM

From the English/American version of the PR release:

"Firmware 1.60 also will support keyboards and mice enabled with Bluetooth
wireless technology."

Um. Huge. I really needed this and didn't expect it so soon.

Also, the American press release dates this for Thursday, Mar. 22, for the States, too. So if it's a simultaneous Japan/US release, and it's available Thursday afternoon in Japan, it will be available very early Thursday morning in the States.

Otsego_Undead @ Mar 20th 2007 1:56PM

DVD/PS1-2 upscaling... PLEASE.
I want to play those downloadable PS1 games on my PS3.
change bg.
more advanced functionallity with music.. ie download album art, more visualizations,
and more freakin content on the PS Store.

Albert @ Mar 20th 2007 1:14PM

I would like to see adding mp3/wma music in games. The Xbox 360 has this feature. Def Jam Icon for example has a my soundtrack feature on the 360, why can't we have that on the PS3? It get's old listening to the same songs over and over again. It would be nice to beat somebody up to my Rocky soundtrack...lol Also Music streaming, and PTP file sharing (music, pics, video's) over a LAN? Background Downloading is def a plus in the upcoming 1.6 update. Now if we can just get everything else we want....

san @ Mar 20th 2007 3:29PM

"Also Music streaming, and PTP file sharing (music, pics, video's) over a LAN? " It can already do this, save file sharing, with PS3 as the media center, via PSP Remote Play. All you'd need to get what you want is to take the PSP out of the loop with some software for a computer to play the stream. That's sort of the PS3 model: it's the media center and streams to other devices, the PC is not the media center streaming to it.

There's 3rd party support for PSP on the Mac. Wouldn't surprise me if you saw in future 3rd party Mac and Windows streaming clients for PS3 media servers become available. Sony seems to be proving very open about standards and such with their new console. In fact, with all the proprietary complaints about Blu-ray, it's really overshadowed the fact PS3 is by far the least proprietary current generation console out there, both in media content and in peripheral hardware.

DannielG @ Mar 21st 2007 5:47PM

PS Store sucks, the interfase is crap, I owned an X360 and the Marketplace was better. It is a very basic design of what it should and can be. Other thing, Inviting friend to play you game in the X360 it's so easy while in the PS3 you would have to be in the phone with your friend, at least that was my experience with F1.

Cheers

Joe @ Mar 27th 2007 11:34PM

They REALLY need to get some sort of media streaming from a computer going. I mean, sure, they want the PS3 to be the "center" of your media stuff, but realistically the 45-50GB available on the 60GB version isn't enough, and the interface stinks for music. (I have 23,000 music files, all sorted alphabetically by artist, album, etc with full tags, and vertically scrolling through 4000 albums isn't viable.)

So sure, have the PS3 as your media center - whatever - but have some way to have the backing store on another machine. Do something like the Apple TV, I don't know. SOMETHING. It's quite disappointing that I have to currently copy a movie or album to a flash drive or USB hard drive, then physically plug it into the PS3 to play it.