XMB battery meter glitch 'definitely being corrected'

by Jem Alexander on Jul 8th 2009 1:30AM

PSN's Eric Lempel is doing the interview rounds, talking up the PlayStation Network and how far it has come over the last few years. Obviously, people tend to be more interested in the service's future and what's coming in future firmware updates. Lempel remained tight-lipped, but let slip a few interesting nuggets of info -- such as the fact that he's as angry as consumers about the XMB battery life meter bug. You know, the way the battery meter covers the clock when you press the PS button in-game. Annoying, right? That's "definitely being corrected," so you can check that one off your list.

Lempel also said that he feels PSN is no longer playing catch-up with Xbox Live: "I don't think there's a lot of 'catch up' [with XBL] anymore. In some cases, I think we've got more, and we've got some other things they don't have." He confirms that in-game voice chat is in the works. No release date, but they're working on it. Lastly, Lempel expects that "PSN would be great" for the upcoming motion controllers. Hopefully, more support than the PlayStation Eye's meager offerings.

Source -- Eric Lempel interview @ Industry Gamers
Source -- Eric Lempel interview @ PC World

[Thanks, Bryan]

Tags: eric-lempel, PSN, xmb

Reader Comments (108)

No mention of "enhancing our gaming experience" with XMB advertising?

But, how will we catch up with Xbox Live?

by charging for the ability to view said advertisements?.......seriously though, if im paying i don't wanna see a big mac when i turn my damn console on, PPL PAY SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO SEE ADS!!!!!!!!!!

...thank you Sony.

You don't need XMB advertising, you've got Home!

Let's see... a free, optional program, vs. ads on your screen the minute you fire up the console....

yea, they're totally the same thing.

maybe i'm blind, but i really haven't see any extra advertising on my box since this issue has arisen.... oh, no wait, i am blind.

People pay for good service, not the absence of adds. I couldnt care less about adds as long as things are running smoothly and are easier to run. (I have both, but still use Live almost exclusively for multiplayer games)

I pay Comcast a shitload of money each month and I still see ads on TV. Just sayin.

i agree with him on the original games part, psn has the most unusual and creative games so far i believe....but i wish someone told me how hard "platinumizing" PAIN was going to be b4 i bought it.

Meh, as a person who doesn't care about Cross game chat, PSN is perfectly fine for me. Never had any problems with my connection either.

Keep up the good work Sony.

Me too. Why would I want to talk to someone else who is playing a different game than what I'm playing? It ruins the gameplay experience.

You might not like it, but others can get great benefits from it. Playing GTA IV single-player while talking to my boy who's playing a different game would be so awesome. I understand that I could just invite him to the game (if he has it) and it might be a bit distracting when you're playing a multi-player game, but this feature offers flexibility to everyone.

Also, that's good news that they plan on fixing the battery placement bug (feature?). This has been more than a year coming and that's not really a good thing after so many updates that this has been overlooked, from my POV

Ballistic H: You've never gone on, and seen one of your friends, and wanted to say something, but not have to type back and forth all kinds? It would be a lot easier if you could just connect and say "Hey, when you're done, lets play some COD! Cool?"

Ballistic H: "Why would I want to talk to someone else who is playing a different game than what I'm playing?"

You might not care about the feature, but some of us have friends.

If your dismissing cross game chat you really don't know what your talking about. It makes games a ton more enjoyable.

Even if you don't need cross-game chat in your life, others might like it and therefore it should be there. You can still opt not to use it, and it'll feel just like it's not there. It's a standard on Xbox LIVE and people would like to see some parity and have it on the PS3.

Until it's there, seeing the sentences "PSN is no longer playing catch-up with Xbox Live" and "He confirms that in-game voice chat is in the works" in the same paragraph reads like a big contradiction to me.

Heck all I need is to be able to put in a game and play it. If I play online with friends, we all jump on a skype call because its much easier that way for all of us. Sure the 360 has other neat features, but thats why I have a HTPC that ended up costing the same while giving me more.

"Until it's there, seeing the sentences "PSN is no longer playing catch-up with Xbox Live" and "He confirms that in-game voice chat is in the works" in the same paragraph reads like a big contradiction to me."

@ ill trooper

Lol, are you serious? The fact that PSN doesn't have that feature automatically makes it that PSN is playing catch up with Live? Get real. At least PSN is free, that single-handedly makes it on par with (if not better than) Live.

@XGM Its easier to use another headset/mic, and set up a skype conversation on your computer than it is to press 3 buttons on your 360 controller and talk on there? I find this seriously hard to believe, as a owner of both a 360 and a skype enabled computer.

Skype is wonderful, but you cant possibly say "its way easier for me to swap to my computer, set up the conversation there, then go back to my 360 than it is to take 4 seconds to set up an XBL party."

Hell, you dont even need XBL gold to make a party/ cross game chat.

the way i see it is if you have friends that have PS3s or 360s, then the feature is useful. taking out a bit of immersion so that i can talk to my friends doesn't bother me at all. and considering i pretty much exclusively play multiplayer, it would actually be helpful.

Ashitaka: Yes, I'm serious, but it's not _as_ serious as you act about it.

I'll simplify how I see it, for clarity:

If the Sony guy says they're still planning on adding a desired feature that LIVE has, then Sony hasn't totally caught up yet.

I appreciate how PSN doesn't charge me, but I still want cross-app chatting like the 360 has. Once it has it, you can think it's even better, Ashitaka.

There. Getting and staying "real" as always.

I don't care for cross voice chat either, i'm not good at multi tasking..
Maybe i'm the only one that didn't notice the battery bug.

There is a major difference in not using cross-game chat and not having it available. Even if it's implemented eventually, you can keep your life exactly the way it is and not use it. But it should be your choice.

"He confirms that in-game voice chat is in the works."

Shouldnt that be the title of the post?
Good news :)

I know it might not be possible but it would be great if i could install my PS2 library and PS1 library so there's no disc swapping needed, i know its a lazy feature but it would be the shit.

You Sir, should be working in the game industry!!
Of course we would all need bigger hard drives.

Don't get me wrong, I've always been a sony fanboy (ps1, ps2) and some of my all time favourite games are on those systems but with all the awesome ps3 games out and on the way, I just don't need to play those games anymore. I waited for the 40gb ps3 because I preferred a cheaper console over backwards compatibility.

However everyone's different and this must be important to a lot of people as sony seems to be doing some backwards compatibility patch.

That's why it would be a nice feature for the people who want it, so if you have a PS2 game you like to play when your looking to kill time then you don't have to go look for it and swap out your PS3 game for it.

That would only increase piracy. Sorry, but that'll never happen.

not if you use the serial number that comes on the disk, if you type that # in when u install it then you wont be able to install that game under any other PSN account.

All good things. I know live is a superior service but the PSN is still fantastic, had so many great experiences. Keep it up Sony.

I respectfully disagree Mr.?????

But.... they told me you were fake!!!

How can Sony claim they're not playing catchup when they still don't even have cross-game voice chat? I use it all the time on my 360 and ever since NXE, an effective party system has become an expected feature of quality online service. I use the party system all the time in XBL for getting groups together to play a game or just talking to people while I play single player games like Fable or Dead Space.

Xbox only got it with the NXE. Perhaps Sony decided to playtest their updates so they don't fry the scalar chips???

Hmm fried scalar chips! I'm Dutch so I'd like mine with mayonaise please.

there's a lot of just pure whining on that list. I bet he complains about his car requiring fuel to run as well.

Random shuffle for the picture slide show please.

Factually, there are way MORE new contents every Thursdays on PSN than XBL every week.

If it's fact, you've got proof. So lets see it.

Well considering that XBL pretty much updates on Wednesdays, and all XBL updated with today was a Metal Gear: Rising trailer and Battlefield 1943, I'd say that is not much of an update. When XBL updates the marketplace, usually they only add about 5 items. Granted, they are usually very good, but still. PSN updates on Thursdays, and usually adds 10+ items to its marketplace.

@ MystileArmor: If you have the 2 consoles, you'd see the huge difference. OR, you could go to IGN which states what new contents PSN and XBL has every week.

Why's it so diffcult to implement private party cross-chat so that all the PSN naysayers can kindly STFU?

I would love have those proponents of Live put a sock in it.

ram. xbox has more of it.

RAM: both machines have the same amount.

Paul is right and wrong.

it is due to ram, but not because the Xbox has more (they both have 512), but because the PS3 is using all its available memory without in game voice chat.

XMB's footprint is too big right now, once they optimize it more then they can allow for extra features.

^ I sure hope so. Right now, when you want to switch between text chat and the game in progress, the responsiveness is lacking. Too sluggish to be of any real use during an FPS game unless well hidden.

Even private party chat would be fine with me. It's heavily needed for stuff like COD.

in game chat confirmed or "in the works" YEA!!!

To be honest, I wasn't expecting in game voice chat. Maybe when I finally get that Mic I'll like it.

Cross game invites seems more friendly.

Also on the EU forums, Musterbuster said the next update is coming in autumn.

And to make my list longer, there's reports from people on a forum where game developers go (I can't remember it, it was like neogax?) and they said that the PS3's flash (the firmware) had files for PS2 backwards compatibility, but that it wasn't working that well, which is why it's not active in the new systems.

Anyway, that's all from me for now.

That actually kind of makes sense. Obviously the emulator software for the EE exists, since it's used on the first 80GB model, so it shouldn't be too hard to use an SPE or two for the GS emulation.

I've still got my 7 year old PS2 Phat, so it's not a urgent matter for mecpersonally, but it would be nice.

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XMB battery meter glitch 'definitely being corrected'

Reader Comments (108)

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