SCEE have just announced that firmware 2.40 will be made available on July 2nd, bringing PS3 owners some excellent new functionality. Read on for SCEE’s press release…
Get more from online gaming on PLAYSTATION®3 with the free 2.40 firmware enhancement
PS3™ to give online gamers the features they’ve been requesting: XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) access in-game and trophies available in this free, automatic system upgrade
June 30, 2008: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today announced new online gaming functionality for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™), which will become available on July 2, 2008 with the 2.40 enhancement, an automatic firmware upgrade that delivers several of the features most requested by gamers. Combined with PLAYSTATION®Network’s unique service of free* online gaming, the enhancement makes PS3 an even more attractive platform of choice for the online gamer.
Firstly, the 2.40 enhancement allows XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) access in-game. This means that you can access the PS3 menu at any time while playing most games, simply by tapping the PlayStation button on your controller. With 2.40, you can check if any of your friends are online (thanks to their own user profile), read and send messages, change some settings for games, all without having to quit the game you are playing. While you can’t pause an online multiplayer game involving other people, you can rejoin play at any time when you’ve finished browsing. Along with these enhanced communications features, the Friends list capacity will double to 100 Friends.
2.40 also delivers trophies to recognise players’ achievements in the online arena. Other competitive activities recognise winners with trophies – so why not gaming on PS3? Many online games will have gold, silver and bronze trophies – with platinum available for those who snag all three – all displayed on the XMB for everyone to see.
Super Stardust™ HD, a PLAYSTATION Network-exclusive released last year, will be the first game to leverage the Trophies system and will offer a variety of trophies**. The following first-party games are also slated to offer Trophy support:
• BUZZ!™ Quiz TV
• LittleBigPlanet™
• MotorStorm™ Pacific Rift
• NBA 09 - PS3
• PAIN**
• PixelJunk™ Eden
• Resistance 2™
• SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation
• Warhawk™**
The 2.40 enhancement is just one more reason to join PSN, the online network for PS3 users that lets you game online for free*. All you need to do to join is connect your PS3 to broadband and register, or go to the connection guide at www.eu.playstation.com to find out more.
Once in, you’ll find online matches and leagues for all of your favourite games – whether that’s MotorStorm™, Resistance™, Warhawk™ or Gran Turismo™5 Prologue – absolutely free (although users are responsible for paying their broadband fees) and at any time of the day or night. You’ll also find PLAYSTATION®Store, where you can download entire games as well as extra levels, content for your existing games plus internet browsing, video chat thanks to PLAYSTATION®Eye and much, much more.
There’s never been a better time to join PSN. Sign up now to make the most of the 2.40 firmware enhancement - see www.(website).com to find out more.
baaaaaght tyme
Comment by Mr Jimmy — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
http://www.(website).com hmm
Comment by Geoff — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
Yeah
Comment by davidc14 — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
NICE!
Comment by Mostyn — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
Let’s get rock now………….olèèèèèèèèèèolèèèèèè
Comment by baggio76 — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Will you be able to access and play your own MP3s from XMB in game, like the 360?
Comment by jrp1983 — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Brill update and so soon, people are already complaining about what it doesnt do, but just been able to reply to a message without quiting the game is the best thing i could have asked for…..
Should make getting games with mates a lot easier….
Comment by Nathaniel — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
WOOOOOOOT! AWESOME! TY SONY!!!
Comment by Lubomir — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
Man, no complaints. Agree, this is awesome!
Comment by jrp1983 — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
PS. The end of the press release should contain the foot notes:
—
* No subscription required, broadband fees apply
** Requires a game update to be downloaded and installed
—
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
At last.
Maybe now we’ll get some peace from the “in-game XMB” moaner who’ve been moaning since last year.
On the other hand - they’re now just going to moan about some other useless function.
Comment by Andy — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
The press release says “most games”. Will SCEE be supplying a comprehensive list of which games actually support the in-game XMB feature and which do not, old and new?
Comment by Savage( PSN : CartBlanche ) — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
There’s a small list of 1st party games there, but nothing on whether games in development will have this feature added.
Are Sony going to make it a necessity to add trophies to games? If not, what’s the point?
Comment by Cho — Jun 30, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Booo! Rubbish I don’t want in game XMB. It’s for moaning whinging folk etc……
No but really that’s good news.
Comment by Si Doob — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
go to the us playstation blog, there are video walkthroughs, it looks really awesome.
good job sony and thk god firmware updates are global.
Comment by ThreeSpeechlover — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
Is that the FULL XMB? or just a partial XMB catered around friends/messaging?
Comment by JohnSketch — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
Heres a video of 2.40:
http://gamevideos.com/video/id/19717
Comment by Eararaldor — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
Over on the us playstation blog the walkthroughs mention that developers can add trophy support if they want to patch their existing games.
I wonder how many actually will.
Comment by Savage( PSN : CartBlanche ) — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
PS What a week. DualShock and in-game XMB annonunced within a few hours of each other. All we can hope for now is that Sony steal the show at E3 in mid-July and announce some other great titles for 2008/2009.
Comment by Savage( PSN : CartBlanche ) — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:15 pm
Please forgive me if this has been answered already and I’ve missed it. If a game is patched to support trophies and you’ve already met the requirement for a trophy before the patch was released, will you get the trophy automatically or will the requirement need to be met again?
For example: If Super Stardust HD has a trophy for unlocking all planets, will I be given the trophy automatically as I have unlocked them already?
Can’t wait to get this update, it looks fantastic!
Comment by laughingmantom — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
[...] vom 30 Juni 2008 15:27 Firmware 2.4 kommt am 2. Juli Mal die Pressemeldung wirken lassen: Get more from online gaming on PLAYSTATION®3 with the free 2.40 firmware [...]
Pingback by PS3@MacVillage » Firmware 2.4 kommt am 2. Juli — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Fantastic. It’s been a long time coming and is way overdue but it is good to see Sony will finally deliver. Good news.
Comment by Matt — Jun 30, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
in game chat invites??? back to the drawing board BOOOOH
Comment by Mausse — Jun 30, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
US users get 2 video walkthroughs & they had advance warning from Jeff on the official blog to keep an eye out for it..
SCEE issue a press release.. says it all about the love we get from Sony doesn’t it?
Comment by marvzilla — Jun 30, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
Oh yeah, this is hot. Sony delivers.
Comment by tw33t3rz — Jun 30, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
@20 [laughingmantom]
From PS3Fanboy.com:
—
Developers will have to choose whether or not to include trophy support. However, if any previously released titles get patched (a la Super Stardust HD), players must essentially start anew to get any trophies. Trophies will not be retroactively awarded based on save data.
—
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Jun 30, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
as Ben mentions above trophies can only be won going forward, not for previously completed games.
Before everyone complains, there is a very good reason for this. As many of you may know it is possible to transfer save games from one ps3 to another, and they are available to download form various sources. If SCEE didn’t do this everyone could download GTA IV 100% games and get the trophy, this way it makes sure everyone has actually earned them.
Comment by John — Jun 30, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
finally, thank grud, if only to stop people moaing about in-game XMB…
Comment by mobiletone — Jun 30, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
That’s great but when are we going to get in game XMB!?
Oh.
Comment by Jeebers — Jun 30, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
This is some seriously good news!!!!! im one happy chappy right here!!!
I woke up this morning feeling,,, well like most of us do on a Monday (suicidal).
Then we all get great news like dual shock finally arriving and update 2.40.
And 2.40 will also include trophy support and its out Wednesday which is the biggest shock of all as usually Sony talks about new ideas YEARS before they arrive.
All we need now is a good psn update this Thursday and it would have been the perfect week!!!
well done Sony! keep it up.
Comment by manley — Jun 30, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
@26 & 27
Thanks for clearing that one up for me guys.
No matter how good the reason is (and it is a very good reason), it’s still going to be incredibly annoying to play through games yet again. It’ll save me buying any new games for a while though!
Comment by laughingmantom — Jun 30, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
This is a great week for news, XMB, Dual Shock 3 both this week and the best news of all that Ton Capone has decided he’s not coming to the forum anymore to preach to us! (see http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/06/kaz-hirai-reveals-new-ps3-programme-life-with-playstation/#comments post 13).
Now Sony just need a Home announcement and then everyone on this forum can live in peace and harmony for once and enjoy the PS3 together.
Well I can hope!
Comment by Dave Vincent — Jun 30, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
just read on gamesradar that in order to unlock trophies for a game save u already have you’ll need to complete it again
oh well at least it gives me an excuse to play them all again 
Comment by Andrew — Jun 30, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
Not too fussed about the having to play again thing, but I am worried about the ‘developers choosing’ bit for trophies.
It should be made compulsory, as it is for 360 titles, so that everyone has something to compare, not just a few.
Hopefully I’m just jumping the gun though. Good news nonetheless.
Comment by Cho — Jun 30, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
It only depends on how easy the trophy system is to implement; if it’s a kind of plugin into the game where certain score triggers a trophy, for instance “shoot x amount of aliens” triggers trophy x then I’m willing to think the developers have some max 30 minute job to implement the trophy feature and it will become standard.
If the trophy browsing feature becomes sort of gamecard so that you can use the interwebs to see other gamers’ trophies it will become free advertisements for the games utilizing such feature and thus publishers make this option mandatory for their own games.
Comment by kulmanister — Jul 1, 2008 @ 10:41 am
Silly question…
Am I missing something with the 2.40 update?
My system tells me that I am up to date (v2.36) will not patch to 2.40!
Any ideas?
Many thanks…
Comment by Megapode — Jul 2, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
^^^^
Should have done a bit more digging first!
it appears that there are issues with the update!
Comment by Megapode — Jul 2, 2008 @ 10:19 pm
Aaah. I noticed the network was down at one point last night, I’m guessing this was something to do with it.
I hope developers do add some backwards trophy compatibility system - I’ve kept all my saves specifically for this, even if I have traded in the actual games already…
Comment by Zoob — Jul 3, 2008 @ 9:59 am
As well as the Firmware Revision 2.40 being taken down, the “Super Stardust HD Team Expansion” download is now no longer available either.
Good news for today though…
The European ‘Store update includes “Commando 3: Wolf of the Battlefield” (for GBP 6.99), a “Space Invaders Extreme Demo” for the PSP (for free), and free Add-on packs; Maps for “Rainbow Six Vegas 2″, four “Buzz! TV Quiz” packs, and a track for “Guitar Hero III”. There are also a selection of videos & three themes (one of which is “Elefunk”… but no sight of the game!?!).
Hope the ‘Store doesn’t rely on firmware 2.40 for usage though.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Jul 3, 2008 @ 11:42 am
@ 32
Epic fail at trying to get people to join in your flaming of me Vincent.
Now crawl back under your stone please.
Comment by Ton Capone — Jul 7, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
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