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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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?
beeje13
You could write a book of what people have asked for :)
it bugs me that Sony could be getting lots of more sales if the OS was better, and they just add the odd sec. patch and the ‘improved software playback’
Ben
It is somewhat baffling how little R&D seems to be going into the GameOS.
money_man
Itemised backup, so I don’t have to backup everything and copying of files in the background.
esir
Oh yeah, maybe TSA should collect some better ideas from the comments and than write them up in an article. Some might already be on blog.share, but those that are not could be added, OR maybe someone from Sony actually finds this article and forwards it to the people who make the calls (+if it gets reposted by more and more sites the chances for that grow if ever so slim)
Darksidesystems
Seconded. A follow-up article would be great please guys at TSA. Along the same lines as the E3 bingo thingy?
Kaminari
http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/
The Lone Steven
I do wish Sony would reverse the dumb idea of the current friends list. They need to slim the XMB as that can be very slow at times when accessing it whilst ingame. Change the colour of the message and trophy notifcations so that they don’t block part of the HUD. I know some themes do that but it would be nice to have them the same colour as the user’s current one. All of these are very easy to implent. I think the browser won’t get changed as I have heard that the PS3 doesn’t have enough RAM to run a decent browser.
Allow users to manually put their games/friends/porn/demos in their preferred order. And the abilty to have a custom soundtrack.I never pay attention to the time on my System as i have a clock a few feet away. And put the recent downloaded items under recent as it is annoying as hell trying to find something in a massive list.
musicmonkey
Haha, like how you snuck porn in the middle there ;)
Kite
Lets see…
1. Better video format support. I know that they are trying to protect their movie renting services from Piracy, but those services are still not availiable in many countries, so they should stop breaking our balls.
2. Cross game voice chat. No more comments on that one.
3. Better web browser, with move support prefferably. I’ve heard that this one is already on it’s way.
4. Lighter XMB, one that could load faster while playing games.
5. Light version of Home (16-bit version or something). So it could load instantly and run in the backround while playing.
6. Use Move as a mouse.
7. Allow Home Avatars to be used as PSN Avatar photos.
Kennykazey
automated trophy sync. I’m currently waiting for it to finish….
Watchful
I think we can all sympathise with that one. Surprised we got this far down the comments before it got mentioned.
musicmonkey
1. Cross game chat (bit typical but still…)
2. Auto syncing trophies
3. Improved web browser
4. Ability to change the XMB bar’s colour so it doesn’t blend in with wallpapers and such…
5. Improved and expanded PSN cards, they load slowly and provide very little info showing only your trophies as people don’t bother with the little bio box, needs some organising and features like last 3 games/favourited games would be nice. Prehaps some info on time spent on games or integration with the apps like VidZone to show what you’ve watched recently (options in the menu too?). Not sure if any of that comes under XMB though :/
Awayze
A ingame XMB that is smaller and uses less memory.
Auto trophy sync.
Party Chat and ability to invite anyone to a game/party even if they’re not on your friends list.
affa
they need a much MUCH better file management system. I have tweaked the heck out of my PSN game organization — I know you can do folders, etc. But you simply don’t have enough options to be visually appealing. For example, I would love to be able to have folders inside folders —
for example:
RPGs
PS1 Classics (ffvii)
SRPGS (agarest)
PSN (deathspank, etc)
Etc. People that only have a dozen or two games might not care, but once you have a good collection, the file management options are terrible.
affa
that didn’t show up how i typed it — anyway, my example was subfolders, but other improvements could be made. try putting 50 games into folders… i takes an evening, and is a total PITA right now.