Perfection, rightly so, is pretty much unattainable. That means that there is always some improvement to strive for. Games consoles have been with us now for over thirty years and their functionality has been expanding at an ever-increasing rate. When Sony’s original PlayStation introduced the Compact Disc as the storage format for its games, games consoles suddenly became devices that we could use to play back our other entertainment media.
Another generation on and Sega clearly had the imagination to see where the addition of online functionality could take consoles when they created their ill-fated Dreamcast. Now consoles sport a vast range of capabilities beyond simple gaming and doubtless PC gamers sit smugly pointing out that their general purpose machines have been doing it all for longer.
While there will always be more features that can be added, for example there is a vocal group who believe the PS3 is missing a key one, what about the features that are already there. There is room for improving, or tweaking, those.
So to give you something to think about on a Sunday this is the start of a series of posts asking you how you would improve the existing features of something gaming-related. To kick things off this week let’s take a look at the PlayStation 3’s feature-laden GameOS which should give you plenty to talk about with all the features you can currently access via the PS3’s XMB.
Here are the top three tweaks I would like to see:
1) Streamlined in-game XMB
Sony capitulated to the demands of gamers and added the ability to access the XMB while in-game way back in the short-lived firmware 2.40. However I rarely use it because being identical to its out-of-game incarnation it is just too slow. Loading all the icons takes too long. That fact that so many of those icons on it cannot be used in-game itself suggests that Sony need to slim it down. Presumably slimming it down could also reduce the amount of memory the GameOS requires in-game, so that could help developers too. It needs to focus on just the essential features needed in-game, load instantly and be quicker to navigate, just like the Xbox 360’s in-game equivalent as it happens.
2) Backup to NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives
Being able to backup the contents of the PS3’s hard drive is a great feature. For me though it would be much more useful if it was not just restricted to backing up to USB-connected drives. My NAS drive has much more storage available than any of my USB drives and it is always available so it would be great not to have to connect up a USB drive when I want to make one of my regular backups.
3) Auto-set time and date when connecting to PSN
On the time and date settings menu on the XMB is the option to set them via the Internet. If you connect to PSN on a regular basis you should never have to hit the update button, as a part of the PSN login process could and should be to perform that update for you. It is not just a matter of keeping your PSN messages in sequence; you may not know that often servers for online games will not allow you to join if your time and date is significantly out. The Xbox 360 does this and even goes one step further by preventing you from changing them manually if you are connected to Xbox Live.
Those are my picks, two minor changes and one much more significant one, so now it is over to you. How would you improve the existing features of the PS3’s GameOS?
eye8have9you3
Not strictly a “GameOS” feature, but I want to be able to use F@H whilst watching videos and dvds. Also to be able to log onto different accounts on each controller for split screen like on the Xbox
Watchful
If a game supports it you can have different PSN accounts in local multiplayer. LittleBigPlanet and Resistance 2 spring to mind but there must be others.
eye8have9you3
LBP’s the only game that I’ve played that does it properly, and even then you couldn’t log out of the profiles easily, and Modern Warfare 2 had it’s own multiplayer profile system that didn’t work too well. On the Xbox, the profiles are easy to use and you can swap between different ones with next to no hassle, meaning if you have lots of people playing they just swap profiles and don’t have to mess around with settings like look inversions and button layouts etc. Plus achievements are earned separately, meaning you don’t have to be kicking yourself because you unlocked a trophy on your friend’s profile (fifa comes to mind here) which I don’t think LBP did, I don’t know about Resistance?
fattyuk
Now that is a massive one for me!
Being able to fold while watching a film, or even just being able to vie the xmb whilst watching a film.
Roynaldo
Oh, that reminds me. Dling while playing is a MUST. Some games do it but most dont. Its annoying.
fattyuk
Are the games you’re playing online while the downloading stops? As that’s the only time my downloads pause is when Im playing online
Ben
Some games connect online unnecessarily during single player though, stopping background downloads.
colmshan1990
If you sign out of the PSN, the downloads will keep going. Obvious drawback of having to sign back in to go online though.
Winkle
I’d like to see the same feature as the PSP Go has, the ability to save exactly where you are in the game. Its like a paused saved state.
damoxuk
The problem is with the current gen of consoles is lack of memory. I hope next gen doesn’t skimp on it.
fattyuk
Lack of memory o_O
Sympozium
Its a thing called “RAM” Current consoles have around 512mb and well?.. i believe mid-range pcs are around 3GB-4GB at affordable prices.
fattyuk
Ah right not to clued up on all that, thought he ment about the hdd.
So if we had this 3gb-4gb memory what would that gain exactly? And isnt this more of a hardware tweak than what this thread is about…OS.
Watchful
There’ll always be someone who misreads a headline and doesn’t bother reading the post before commenting. :-)
TSBonyman
Making the in-game XMB access a more streamlined feature is definitely one i would go for, without all those spinning icons it would be much slicker.
I’ve used the internet date/time update but strangely GT5 then tells me that i have the wrong date setting so i don’t know what’s going on there.
More user-customisation would be great, I would like the option to use dynamic themes as screensavers/music visualisers, or at least have the option to set all XMB icons to fade out after a set time.
I use the PS3 browser extensively but would welcome an upgrade to more capable browser. I reckon Ram has a big part to play but i’ve also had internet-related ‘freezes’ trying to sync my trophies, where it sticks at 5% and i cancel only to be left with the spinning clock icon and a frozen XMB – i’ve actually left it for an hour to see if it would unfreeze, it didn’t. This leads me to believe there may be something wrong with PS3’s web code, not just the browser.
Roynaldo
I would like a better browser, the thing on PS3 is so slow and often crashes. Aside from that the XMB is also stupidly jerky and slow with some games.
All i care for is speed loading.
Darksidesystems
Am I the only one who heard the Google Chrome for PS3 rumour a while back or did I imagine it?…
beeje13
nope, try searching for the article on TSA, its there.
james123
With you all the way:
-Icon speed. i dont get how an icon that never changes takes m ore than 0 seconds to display.
– Auto time update – my guess is that this is 3 lines of code..! sort it out sony!
sideshow
Notification display: change so you can have All, Only Messages or Off. I’d like to know when someone messages me (with a game invite for instance), but I’m not gonna put up with a constant stream of “X is Online” while watching tv/movies, so I have to turn it off completely.
manky_
This is my main gripe with the OS, especially as on some games it covers the radar. Probably a good idea before in-game XMB, but people coming online and offline isn’t really needed now.
bigdon23
Sony seem to be taking features away at the same rate as MS are adding them.
fattyuk
Examples?
aerobes
Lots of good mentions but one thing I just thought of is the ability to stay signed in while watching a blu ray for friend list interaction and to see what other people watch too and I think blu rays have the capacity to be more interactive from PS3. For instance, Battle: Los Angeles (the PSN game) could be loaded on to the disc with the film.
fattyuk
Perfect and I agree abit more interactivity between blu rays and ps3 would be nice, there is several films that come with themes for the ps3
esir
use the browser while the game runs to check trophy guides or walktroughs? That would be great. On top of that I completely agree with the points written in the article as well.
fattyuk
Personally this wouldn’t effect me as I’ve got a net top linked up to my tv, an iPad,a laptop and a netbook.
Crazyfrog23
well isn’t your life just great