System Update 4.10

I guess this to change "PSN" account to the new rename "SEN" account. It would be great if this update also include Dolby Digital Plus.

Improved browser. Haven't tried it out enough to get a sense for how good it is, but I'm pretty much over the moon that they are focused on improving the software experience, especially the free one. Seems like the last year or so has been focused on "upsell" opportunities. If they keep focusing on improving the integrated experience I'll have a PS3 in every room I have a display.

Icons in the store are a lot nicer looking.

PSP stuff is finally in its own folder !

The best change is the automatic clock updating every time you sign into PSN with your SEN account. The PS3 has a horrible internal clock, nice to see it'll now be kept updated without having to do it myself.

Heh, I turned off the auto clock right after the update. I prefer having the date set five years ahead so that I don't have to deal with the ticker scroll in the upper corner. Yeah, my saves are date stamped wrong, but I don't care about that. The less kinetic advertising the better.

+1 LOL I do that too but I only set it a year in advance.

It seems like they may have updated the Flash player. Last week i tried to watch videos on cbs.com and they wouldnt work. I tried again last night after the update and it worked.

Yeah, at NeoGAF they've posted results of a bunch of browser integrity tests as well as tried a number of complex websites; so far the new browser tweaks are doing a pretty decent job they say. Also, there are comments that there are likely still significant improvements coming for it, perhaps sometime this Spring.

Some people don't have their PC connected to the big screen, so improvements like this to make it easier to browse from the comfy couch are welcome.

Thumbs up for browser improvements! Update still not on the website though, hopefully by the end of day.

Yes..there is nothing I like more than when I look at the clock and see that I have about an hour to jump on and play....oh wait...an update is required...oh well didnt take long.

How many games require the update?

Any games you wish to play online. The system won't let you sign into the SEN (aka PSN) until you update.

How the the stability? Any freezes or other game-related glitches?

it's been out for almost a day now, if there was a wide-scale issue, I'm sure it would have been posted all over forums/news sites.

I do notice a very good improvement in a lot of areas but still not perfect. 240p videos for YouTube and no playback at all from Vimeo unless theirs something I need to do.

With every update, someone will report the firmware update breaks something and then others who don't believe it.

Let's compare it a desktop computer. There are plenty of updates coming out like PS3. On desktop computer, you are not required to accept the update. You have a certain usage of the computer, anti-virus, anit-malware, etc. You like how your desktop computer works online and software you use.

With PS3 (including other consoles), you are required to accept the updates. If you refuse, you cannot go online and future games become incompatible.

On desktop computer, simply accepting every update that appear also isn't the best idea because sometimes certain update may break something, like a device driver or something. You can do careful research before blindly accepting every update that goes into your desktop computer to reduce or prevent new update causing problem. Or, you can decide to refuse install specific update if known to be buggy. On the PC, it's possible to undo the update.

On game consoles, you have no such freedom. Even certain update has been reported to have known bugs, you can either choose to not update and unable to go online and may not be able to play the latest game, or you just have to accept installing known bugs.

My point is with game consoles update, it's all or none approach. If the update is buggy, you just have to eat the poison and hope it doesn't make you too sick if you want to be able to go online. Unlike the PC, you are not allowed to undo the update. You just have to deal with the poison.

Also, there are gamers who will never believe update causes any problem just because they never encounter the bugs. It's like saying if I don't see any problem, then the problem cannot exist for anyone else.

More than 10 years ago, I had PC that has dual firmwares. All the motherboard does is have backup firmware flash memory. If the latest update breaks something, you can easily reboot in the backup firmware. It's a very nice feature because I used it a few times troubleshooting problem with latest firmware. And because of the backup firmware, I was able to determine the latest firmware had stability issue. One of the best feature.

All the PS3 since the plat BC PS3 uses part of the hard drive to store the update. This is actually a good thing to do backup firmware. Hey, Sony would implement 10 different revisions of firmware updates this way if they want. But no because Sony is being paranoid of security, they refuse to implement any backup firmware. They rather have your PS3 breaks if the update goes bad because any form of backup firmware is risky for security.

Next is slow update download complains. When a new update comes out, there will be a lot who will blindly accept the update and immediately download the update. Common sense is with thousands trying to download update will get slower download. What Sony needs to do is do a download speed check before downloading the update. If the download speed check determines that the servers are under heavy load, then it will delay the update until the condition is better. That also means Sony cannot disable the ability to go online for several days until most gamers get the chance to update their PS3. Again Sony isn't doing such thing. Everyone must update now or you aren't going online immediately.

Just remember, when we buy a game console, we are accepting that we have very little or no control over the console. Whatever the manufacturer wants to do or refuse to do, we only have the option to accept them doing whatever they want to our console. If they introduce new bugs, then we just have to deal with the poison. If we don't agree, it's like refusing to register your car and cannot drive on the street anymore.

^ well said...

I'm also just happy the stupid clock won't require a manual update to get the correct time shown... I swear after a month the ps3 clock was always 3-5 minutes fast.

Hmmm...it removed Crackle from the tab listings on the home page. Going to Crackle directly resulted in only half the screen showing. It did display video from CBS.com. But not from Nicktoons-which I was interested in. Improvements, but still not quite there yet.

So disappointing that we still can't watch Vimeo. Was really hoping Sony would finally make the leap into the modern browser age. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to make the PS3 a complete media center...

I just thought it was "Bar time"

it's still a psn account to me. just like candlestick park was always candlestick park.

for sony's next trick, they'll rename the playstation the sonystation and, by way of useless online agreements, force you to apply new sonystation decals to any and all applicable sony devices.

totally bricked my PS3 and all Ps3's within a mile radius

Geez- your neighbors will be unhappy to find out what you did to their PS3s.

BTW, I am not asking about bricking, just what I said: game stability. If memory serves the 3.0 update caused some serious issues with Uncharted. That's the kind of thing I am looking for.

Updated and now have no audio!! tried resetting audio set up and restarting machinre holding down power for 5 seconds and did nothing. using hdmi

How do you reset audio setup?

In the XMB go to settings, scroll down to sound settings, choose HDMI, then choose automatic, hit "x" to save and see if that works.

I love the clock update. I ignore the ads in the top right usually but sometimes they let me know about something I didn't realize was available through PS+ which is always nice. Been getting tired of having a totally random timestamp on the PS3 and needing to check another clock to know what time it actually is.