It’s only been two weeks since Sony updated the PlayStation 3’s system software to v3.00 — with a few hitches. Tonight, they threw up a surreptitious update under cover of darkness, bringing the console’s firmware to v3.01. The new update seems to have gone live shortly after midnight EDT on September 15th; it took me about 25 seconds to download and around four minutes to install.
We don’t yet have any official word from Sony on what the v3.01 update does; presumably, it fixes the v3.00 issues that they were looking into, but we’ll let you know as soon as we hear something concrete.
[Update: A newly minted post on the PlayStation.Blog explains that the v3.01 update, which is apparently optional, “improves system stability during use of some PlayStation 3 format software” — Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, perhaps? Curiously, there’s no mention of problems with DualShock 3 controllers. And by the way, for those asking, the obnoxious gray bar friends list sadly remains unchanged. -Samit]
[Update 2: Apparently, the What’s New option came with v3.00, and I just didn’t look hard enough in the menus. The article has been updated to reflect this fact. In addition, Director of PSN Operations Eric Lempel confirmed in a reply to a comment on the PS.Blog post that the update fixes issues that people were having with Uncharted. Finally, I wonder how many more times I can use the word “update” in this article. -Samit]
