I'm gay.

Actually, they´ve closed commenting :

Chris Morell replied on September 1, 2009 at 11:49 am

Sorry, but wee’ve closed comments on this post for now. Thanks for all of the great feedback on this firmware update! Feel free to continue the discussion over on the forums: http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstat...mware+3.00

LookingFudgeids Wrote:I really hate the new friends list NOW , they should change it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OFF TOPIC:  But what is your screen name all about?
It's pretty creepy...  

(This post was last modified: 02/09/2009 01:13 PM by Mr. Shizzy.)

Xitherun Wrote:lol. and Sony said this would be the last firmware update this year.

i thougth they said last MAJOR update..meaning goinog from 2.xx to 3.xx...so there will not be a 4.xx but yes to 3.xx+1?

SchmilK Wrote:

Xitherun Wrote:lol. and Sony said this would be the last firmware update this year.

i thougth they said last MAJOR update..meaning goinog from 2.xx to 3.xx...so there will not be a 4.xx but yes to 3.xx+1?

Changelog:

Woops sorry about that

Firmware 3.0 Design observations by a Designer

posted by someone over at the official playstation forums..

Readability of texts

This has been a long standing problem with the Playstation firmware and it still not solved. But there is a rule of thumb regarding that you guys are disconsidering.

You don't (never, ever) use white glow for white text when you need people to actually read something. Especially when combined with backgrounds that can have a light color tone.

Just by replacing that white glow for a shadow (dark 'glow') you guys would have that solved and you could keep a smaller font size which looks infinitly better on the screen.

Friends List

Well... where do I begin. I'll have to be honest and say that it looks like GUI design made by a 12 year old, really is that bad.

Why mess with things that already worked?

Those 90's glassy grey boxes with no gutter between them look awful and make the whole design unbalanced. Simply remove that and replace for something that actually looks good and fits on the whole design of the XMB (or at least on what the XMB concept use to be).

Keep it simple and clean. Specially since this is a product geared at a broad audience from all ages and not just kids of the instant messeging era with no taste.

What's New


It's actually a nice concept but still has a few design flaws.

First it should just loop and not go trough it once and than vanish to then show up again like it does now. Secondly to start a game from there is actually more complicated than starting a game from the game column on the XBM. Something that in my opinion already counts against it's usability rendering it useless for people that already don't like ads/news that much.

What use to be just pressing 'x' is now 'x' + 'start'. Since the start and select buttons are the most anoying buttons to use it should just use a button that is easier and quicker to access, the controller has plenty of them.

I will add that the orange icon used for it screams for too much attention and means absolutly nothing. I would opt for a color tone more along the lines of the rest of the stuff being used troughout the whole XMB design, specially if it's something that is the first thing you see once you startup a PS3 unit.

Also the thumbnails should be cached in a way that they don't require an update every single time you switch between the ones that went off screen. This would also probably reduce the load on Sony servers from redundant requests and make the whole experience more pleasent to the user.


Clock (Notification Area)

Please give us a option to turn off that ticker or that whole thing entirely.

I never used that Information bar, I really hate tickers and I certainly don't want constant advertising showing up all the time. The experience on the XMB should be something pleasent and not something that forces you start something up just to get rid of it's ads.

Glint Sparkles on the default background

It looks nice but it's too fast in comparison to the liquid and calm movement behind it. Making it slower and behaving like particles in the water would make it fit better and prevent it from becoming a annoying feature.


Backgroud blur (Focus blur)


I's good but you guys should combine it with the old dimmer and certainly un-focused items shouldn't vanish as they do now. It should blur and dim the color of anything on the background and just dim the color of un-focused items.


Startup screen

The new PS3 logo is too much further on the right. Don't forget the golden ratio and good sense when positioning elements in a screen.

Playstation Store links on the XMB

This should be something which the user has the option to turn off. Specially since the video store is not available in every country.

On a side note I still don't get why wee still don't have playlists for videos. Sequential playback is ok but not always desireable, specially when you're retrieving stuff from a media server.

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