Some scattered thoughts on the new firmware revision released for PS3 yesterday.

This would be firmware v3.90 if you are keeping score. This one’ll give you the Skype ability, provided you have A) a new thin PSP, not the old phat crap like me and B) a PSP headset, which I hadn’t even heard of before. And then you need to find a WiFi spot that’s open. [...]

SEE UPDATE BELOW Joystiq has a nice little scoop on the changelog details in Microsoft’s “Fall” update to the 360 Dashboard. They translated it from some sort of early Japanese release. If Joystiq’s bothans are accurate, the list of details is very heavy on organizational tweaks and very light on everything else: The most significant [...]

Sony and DivX have announced a partnership today to include DivX support in the PlayStation 3′s firmware. No exact date or much other details are available, other than “it’s coming”. And with that one move, the PS3 just became the most desirous console in all the world for those of you who happen to use [...]

See, this is how to do things that users appreciate. The PS3 has themes now, but not just crappy proprietary themes, but ones made of standard PNGs and XML. It’s all documented. You can do whatever the hell you like to the look of your XMB now, including editing those hideous friend notifications which is [...]

Here is the press release for FW 2.0. [link > threespeech] As of this writing, it’s not showing up as an available update on the PS network yet. There are some good features in there: the folders for XMB sorting are very welcome, and turning your PS3 on and off remotely with a PSP is [...]

The big Tokyo Game Show will be on this week; it may as well be the Sony Game Show since Microsoft has already had their press conference way early and Nintendo won’t be attending. The rumour that’s making the rounds right now is that the long-awaited rumble-capable PS3 controller will make its debut, and will [...]

Faithful reader Rui sent in this tidbit about a new PSP hack called Pandora’s Battery that magically unbricks your PSP. It turns your regular PSP battery into a “service mode” battery which grants you special un-bricking powers. Yes. A completely b0rked, unresponsive PSP that has been fried by a bad custom firmware can be retrieved [...]

A slew of minor tweaks and welcome additions for the Wii operating system came down the pipe yesterday, delivered by tiny digital Koopa Paratroopas: Wii Menu The weather forecast will now be displayed on the Forecast Channel icon in the Wii Menu. Headline news will now be displayed on the News Channel icon in the [...]

A HARROWING TALE OF SYSTEM UPDATES!! It started innocently enough, like all tragedies do. I sat down, picked up the controller and started up a game of Super Stardust HD. Nothing unusual happened, no portent of the doom that awaited me, no spirits to warn me back from the abyss that lay in front of [...]