PS3 peoples... Firmware 2.40 is now live (IN GAME XMB + TROPHIES)

http://play-beyond.net/2008/07/02/firmware-update-240-changelog/

Yes peoples if u are on the PS3 bandwagon 2.40 firmware is now live. Its a quite a big update as it provides in game XMB and Trophies as well as a few other tidbits.
I would agree that these should have been there from the launch but better late than never hey, and it proves they are listening to peoples feedback.
So you can now access the XMB bar during games. I tried it this morning and works really well. you still can NOT do cross game chat which is a HUGE one in my opinion but they said they were concentrating on the message function and other little bits. That will probably come up in another update.
They have added other little bits and pieces which are handy like the time is now displayed when you press the PS button. I know its not major but its annoying when i wanna quickly check the time.

Trophies are now active (Achievements) but are currently only available with Super Stardust HD (PSN game) at present. I have that game and played it this morning and the trophies work well. So basically its very similar to xbox achievements but you don't have a score, you have levels. There are Bronze, Silver, Gold & Platinum trophies. Platinums can only be achieved by getting ALL the trophies for one game. You have a sort of gamercard when you select your profile and it shows you all trophies earned. They are going to patch lots of old PS3 games to include trophies but you will have to play the games through again to get those trophies. Sony did this to prevent cheating which the xbox has suffered from. It was funny seeing someones gamercard returned to 0 when they did the xbox update recently. I think the guy with the highest xbox gamerscore in the world was a cheat and it got reduced to 0. cheaters never prosper!

So a good step for Sony although they are nowhere near finished yet. HOME is still to appear and that will bring a ton more functionality as well. it will be interesting to see now that trophies are available how people make decisions on which system they buy a game for. A lot of the xbox audience are achievement whores. I like achievements and always try and get the most I can for a game I buy but I dont play crap games just to higher my score. Some achievements require a lot of skill and are fun to unlock when you know you have out the effort in. The COD 4 mile high club achievement comes to mind. That was ROCK HARD! I'm pretty sure when all the patches go live for old games there will be a bit of a frenzy amongst the PS3 community as there seems to be some odd addiction with trying to get every possible trophy/achievement out of a game. I would love to know who at microsoft came up with that idea as its made them millions!!

Peace