PS3 system software v2.70 is out

12:40 AM on 04.02.2009   |   Samit Sarkar

67 comments

It’s been quite a while since we saw the last PS3 firmware update (v2.60 came out on January 21st). But we’ve finally got a new one to mess around with -- version 2.70 went live a few hours ago, around 10 PM EDT. After the jump, you can check out the summary that the update itself comes with (I’ve transcribed it for you good folks yet again) and a video walkthrough from Eric Lempel, Director of PlayStation Network Operations. And no, it doesn’t include dual logins or any of the other stuff that had been rumored.

The major feature that Sony is touting for this particular update is in-game text chat (you read that right; that’s text chat, not voice chat, the latter of which is something that the Xbox 360 has had since it launched). In fact, if you take a look at the comments section of the PlayStation.Blog post announcing the update, the majority of the posts seem to be rather angry with Sony for disappointing them yet again by not including a feature they’ve been clamoring for -- whether it’s cross-game voice chat and invites, or something as simple as the controller battery life icon being obscured by the notification window.

I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I’ll just say that the text chat feature is neat ... I guess (text chat rooms can accommodate up to 16 users, and you can participate in up to three chats at once). Other features added by the v2.70 update include: quick Internet searches of game titles; the ability to copy and paste text from the PS3’s browser; a normalizer for music playback; and a backup option for downloads from the PlayStation Video Store. As usual, hit the jump for my experience with the update.

Main Features Revised in System Software Version 2.70

You can now perform text chat with people who are on your Friends list. You can chat with them while you are playing a game.
To use this feature, go to [Friends] > [Start New Chat], and then select [Text Chat].

Using the Internet, you can now easily search for the latest information about the games that you own.
To use this feature, select the icon for the game, and then select [Internet Search] from the options menu.

You can now copy and paste text.
You can copy text from the Internet browser and paste it into the text entry field of the on-screen keyboard to make it easier to enter text.

You can now set an option to reduce the difference in volume level between tracks to help avoid sudden, loud output.
You can set this option in [Settings] > [Music Settings] > [Dynamic Normalizer].

First of all, I’ve never seen a PS3 firmware update download this quickly. It literally took less than five seconds to finish downloading, which is amazing, especially since so many people bitch about how slow updates usually are. Of course, this may just be a result of my super-fast FiOS connection; your mileage may vary. After the lightning-fast download, the installation itself took three minutes.

The new search option works just as advertised, which is simultaneously cool and a bit disappointing. It’s really easy to use -- you just go down to a particular game in your XMB, press triangle, and then choose the “Internet Search” option. The PS3’s browser will instantly pop up with a Google search for the title of the game. But it’s not “smart,” so to speak -- it uses the exact text of the game’s title, so when I tried it with the RE5 demo, it searched “RESIDENT EVIL 5 Demo,” as opposed to just “Resident Evil 5.” The search for my current favorite racing game used the term “Burnout™ Paradise V1.7.”

On the other hand, the copy and paste feature is impressive, although I wish there were some instructions on how to use it, because it took me a minute or so to figure it out (and that was only after I started pressing random buttons). All you have to do is hold X at the point you want to start copying the text, and then use the left analog stick to move the cursor to the end of your selection. A small menu will pop up, asking whether you want to copy the text, use it in a search (the browser will perform a Google search with the highlighted text), or cancel.

You can paste the copied text through the on-screen keyboard (there’s a new “Paste” option in the bottom right corner). But the PS3’s “clipboard” isn’t limited to the browser; you can also paste text into a message, whether that’s in a text chat, or a text message to a PSN friend. As for the Dynamic Normalizer, I couldn’t notice a difference between music played with it on or off, but maybe that’s because my music has been copied to my PS3 from my computer, where it was already normalized by iTunes.

I haven’t actually bought anything from the PlayStation Video Store, so I was unable to test that functionality. As far as I understand it, though, content cannot be played from the external media to which it has been backed up; I think it’ll only work when it’s restored to the PS3’s hard drive. And I don’t own a PSP, so I can’t try out the new ability to move videos that were purchased for the PSP to the PS3 (and then play them on the PS3). But the increased message attachment size (it used to be 1 MB, now it’s 3 MB) works just fine. It’d be nice if Sony had raised the limit even higher, to something like 10 MB (so I could attach things like MP3s), but again -- gift horse, etc.

The last new feature in the v2.70 update allows you to sort your friends list by status (until now, it was sorted alphabetically). What this means is that users who have been online more recently will be listed ahead of users who haven’t turned their PS3s on in a while (online friends will still be listed first, followed by “away” friends and then offline friends).