PS3 owners have been complaining about the PlayStation Store for practically the console’s entire lifespan so far, nearly seventeen months in North America. The interface was serviceable, but any acclaim ended there; navigating through the web-based store was slow and unintuitive. It’s been a long time coming, but Sony has finally remedied our concerns with today’s v2.30 update, which installs the updated PS Store as a native XMB application.
According to a tipster, the update went live as early as 1:05 AM EDT, which is an hour earlier than the time that Sony originally gave us. As for me, I stopped folding proteins and downloaded the update just after 2 AM (it took three and a half minutes or so). I installed it as soon as the download finished, and that process took all of about two and a half minutes. Here’s the entire laundry list of features included in the system software update, copied straight from my TV screen just before installation:
Main Features Revised in System Software Version 2.30
PLAYSTATION®Store has been updated.
Usability has been improved for a more enjoyable shopping experience.
As you can see, there was nary a mention of the DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD HR audio compatibility that Sony also included; I guess it just wasn’t enough of a “main feature” to be explicitly stated in the list.
Anyway, the new-look PS Store is absolutely fantastic. It now has pretty audio cues for every “click”, including opening up the store! Browsing is a breeze; most pages take less than a second to load, although most of the icons for the items themselves don’t show up for a while (up to 15 seconds in some cases). In addition, many of the thumbnails aren’t displaying correctly at the moment; you’ll see numerous “missing image” placeholders instead. But again, the overall “shopping experience” is indeed more enjoyable — you’ll quickly find yourself wondering how you ever survived with the old store.
[tips courtesy of Jasson Andrade and Jason Beson — thanks, guys!]
Contest:
2:04 AM on 04.15.2008
| 
COME ONNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
PS2 system data is for games that required the PS2 Hardrive add on, like Final Fantasy 11.
You are funny, I think I'll rape you.
oh, and i thought i'd never say this but navigating through almost felt BETTER than xbox live marketplace.
kudos Sony on finally getting it right.
Too bad the actual store update is still Thursday...
I have my cake... I want to eat it too!
This is after I saw the post on Dtoid too. So I wonder why some people get errors and tons of missing pics?
I love the update, but that statement is far from true. For some reason, people seem to wear rosy-tinted glasses when looking at the 360 online store in comparison. I have a few problems with the old PS3 store (primarily having to restart at the home page of the store front once an item is placed in your cart rather than going back to the last page you were viewing prior to placing the item in your cart), but it was still faster to navigate and buy from the PS3 store. I still have slow load times on the 360 store and I despise that I have to wait for the scroll effect in order to read the full description of a product I'm interested in getting, let alone finding more than just games in my search under the games heading.
I never considered those problems with LIVE marketplace, but now you mention it, you're right, its fucking retarded.
04/15/2008 03:33
nice xbox live rip off
loll you should see the rip off ,of the wiimote from M$ ... GO PS3 GO :))))
No, I'm with mistic on this one. If PS3's are still released without any of the updates then it would take a very long time to bring one up to speed, especially considering you have to babysit the damn thing for each update. Download the update (10-15 min)reassign the controller to install the downloaded update (5-10 min) and then reassign it again once the system restarts. I might be exaggerating but whatever, it'd take all day to get from launch to 2.3 and you'd have to be sitting there with it the whole time.
@Robbo_the_hood: You don't patch each firmware update individually, so when you first buy it you only update once. It may take longer considering how many updates there are, but you don't have to do all 15 or so firmware updates at once. I got my PS3 set up in less than 20 minutes, including patching all of the firmware updates and configuring the display/audio. I've only had about 4 updates (+1 when I get home tonight) since then (last November) and spent less than an hour on them compared to the hundreds of hours I've spent gaming on the system, especially with Rock Band and the ever-so-lovely DLC.
If it's taking you longer than that (10-20 mins, max, most times it's around 5-10 mins for me using the built-in wireless card) to patch your system, then it's your internet connection that's probably slowing you down.
the PS3 will take a awhile to catch up to the 360.
the 360 interface is way ahead cause they've been out longer.