Sony announces PS3 firmware 3.0, European PlayStation Video Store, Digital Reader comics viewer
By Nilay Patel 
posted August 18th 2009 1:24PM
posted August 18th 2009 1:24PM
Update: Digital Reader press release after the break.
Join the Reading Revolution: Digital Reader Coming to PSP(R) (PlayStation(R)Portable)
Take your favorite comics everywhere you go with Digital Comics for PSP
COLOGNE, Germany, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- gamescom -- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) and Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced the digital reader for PSP® (PlayStation®Portable), a new service that will allow PSP owners to access a range of media on their PSP. The digital reader service will be launched with Digital Comics this December in select countries, the U.S., and regions in Europe with other PAL territories to follow in 2010, putting PSP owners in control of a huge library of Digital Comics from provider partners including one of the leading comic publishers, Marvel Entertainment. Content from other partners such as IDW Publishing, iVerse Media and others, as well as graphic novels for bite-sized entertainment on demand and on the go will be available.
The new Digital Comics service will let you download hundreds of classic and new comics from PlayStation®Store to your PSP, to read page by page or frame by frame wherever you are. The service lets you take a huge collection of comics out and about with you, allows you to pick up the latest edition from any Wi-Fi hotspot, and gives you a brand-new way to use your PSP for entertainment on the go.
The digital reader for PSP will offer the biggest names in comics, including content from Marvel Entertainment's Spider-Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four, from IDW: TRANSFORMERS and Star Trek and in partnership with iVerse Media, brands like Archie Comics, and Image Comic's Proof, while other content will include graphic novels, comics from a variety of local publishers and the latest underground sensations. More and more titles will arrive on PlayStation Store with monthly content updates, offering a huge choice of quality titles at your fingertips, allowing you to take your favorite comic characters with you on the move.
"This is a great new service that offers PSP owners even more options for entertainment on the go and makes PSP a must for comics fans," says Isabelle Tomatis, European Marketing Manager, Hardware and Platforms, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. "Digital Comics will sit alongside the new PlayStation®Network video download service as yet another way that PSP offers a whole world of entertainment in your hands."
"PSP's new digital reader offers an unprecedented consumer experience that will extend the world of Marvel from print pages into the hands of fans around the world. We are excited to be part of this launch," said Ira Rubenstein, executive vice president, global digital media group, Marvel Entertainment.
The intuitive Autoflow feature allows you to zoom in and move from frame to frame on each digital page, mimicking the way your eyes would move across a print page from left to right. It's straightforward and simple to use, and thanks to PSP's high contrast LCD screen, your comics will be looking better than ever as the stunning graphics leap out from the screen.
Digital Comics will be launching on the UK, US, Irish, Australian, New Zealand and South African PlayStation®Stores this December, with other PAL territories to follow, and with more and more comics and graphic novels arriving every month. Consumers will first need to connect their PSP via Wi-Fi to the PlayStation Store to download the digital reader. Once downloaded, they can return to the PlayStation Store to choose from a wide variety of comics available. To find out more, visit www.eu.playstation.com.
About Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), based in London, is responsible for the distribution, marketing and sales of PlayStation®3, PlayStation®2, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) and PlayStation®Network software and hardware in 99 territories across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania. SCEE also develops, publishes, markets and distributes entertainment software for these formats, and manages the third party licensing programs for the formats in these territories. Since the launch of PlayStation 3 in November 2006, over 23.7 million units have been sold globally and continue to be sold at a record level. Maintaining its position as one of the most successful consumer electronic products in history, PlayStation 2 has sold over 138.8 million systems worldwide. Since its launch at the end of 2004, over 52.9 million PSPs have been sold globally, highlighting the importance of the portable entertainment market. With the huge increase in interest and accessibility of network applications and network gaming, over 27 million accounts have registered to PlayStation Network, the free-to-access interactive environment, and over 560 million items have been downloaded.
More information about PlayStation products can be found at www.playstation.com or visit the Virtual Press Office at www.scee.presscentre.com.
About Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. continues to redefine the entertainment lifestyle with its PlayStation® and PS one® game console, the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, the ground-breaking PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3(TM)) computer entertainment system and its digital services PLAYSTATION®Network and PLAYSTATION®Store.
Recognized as the undisputed industry leader, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. markets the PlayStation family of products and develops, publishes, markets and distributes software for the PS one game console, the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, PLAYSTATION 3 and the PSP system for the North American market. Based in Foster City, Calif., Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. serves as headquarters for all North American operations and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
Visit us on the Web at http://www.us.playstation.com
PlayStation, PLAYSTATION and the PlayStation logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. PS3 and PSP are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
PS3 has free online. and it has a similar NXE. no shitty avatars waving at u. $299. slim. 120 GB. I'm sold. selling my 40 GB right now
wow nice
Yawn, indeed. I haven't put an actual GAME in my PS3 since I bought it. Just the Blu-Rays I get from Netflix so that I can rip 'em. Sad, that something that should have been an amazing gaming machine turns out to be better used for piracy. Oh well. Maybe next time, Sony. *chuckle*
oh your so cool.
I bet you complain about the cost and quality of movies too right?
get a job cheap ass.
Actually, I love the quality of theater, blu-ray, and even home DVDs. And there's no problem with the cost - I simply don't want to pay it. And why bother? When there are two companies (Netflix and Sony) that provide you with everything you need (minus the ripping tool) to decode and re-encode blu-rays into a simple .mkv, why pass it up? It makes perfect sense to take the cheap, easy way out. Now, I don't even need to leave my house to buy a movie - I just need to pay a monthly subscription fee for the dvds and blu-rays I rent.
Oh, and by the way, your argument is an ad hominem. Not once do you attack my opinion, but instead attack me directly.
And one more thing - I do have a job, and am currently attending college. So you are wrong on all fronts, my friend.
by your logic, its easy to go buy a gun, and if H&K makes a gun, and Remington gives me Bullets, it should be OK for me to go around and kill people?
FAIL
Your Opinion is the typical rationalization of pirates, and is WHY we have to put up with stupid things like DRM and all this other bureaucratic BS when attempting to enjoy people's WORK.
YES DRM doesn't work very well, but you can't blame the RIAA and the MPAA for trying when there SHAREHOLDERS (they are public companies) are up and complaining about the mass piracy and loss of profits.
maybe when you graduate, have a 401k or invest in a mutual fund and realize the stock of one company (especially media based companies) has a domino effect on many others, will understand that stealing from a publicly owned company (every major movie label, record label, and most video game labels [sans-valve] are public companies) is really stealing from your retirement little by little)
but hey it's only YOU doing...right? no biggy, whats ONE person gonna make a difference? right? its SO easy? why not.
I guess i shouldn't be so harsh, back when my parents paid for everything (not saying yours do) I didn't see the need to buy software, movies and music. But once I hit the real world (and started working for a media based company) you really start to see the damage that piracy causes, and the real disrespect that it is. I didn't however, flaunt it around, as it was the "COOL THING TO DO" And I can guess by your low ranking most of the community agrees with me.
By no means do I believe I'm the only one who pirates movies. And to be honest, I see your point, and I truly agree with you. But I'm not a pirate out of vidiction. I'm a pirate because I simply cannot afford all the movies I want to buy. I DO buy blu-Ray movies, but only when they cost 19.99. I pay 34.99 for used video games that will lat me several dys, if not weeks. Not movies that last 2 hours and that I will only watch three times a year. And remember - I DO pay a netflix subscription - the most expensive one, to be exact. And a lot of that money goes to royalties for allowing these movies to be rented in the first place - so the big companies are still getting a share. I do live in the real world, and do understand that my piracy can play a major role in impacting the media industry. But my wants come before those of a big companies. I'm not saying that I'm some "rebel without a cause," because, for God's sake, I'm a C Programmer, and for Macintosh environments no less. My industry, and even the company I work for, has been affected by piracy. But do you know how we triumph over it? We develop applications that are better than the competition - so much so, that people are willing to buy our material. There will always be piracy, and there's no way to stop it. But when you make a product so good that the majority is willing to pay for it, you won't be affected by the minority. And when film companies release movies that are more than subpar, I will pirate less. Because I will feel as though the movies are worth purchasing. As it stands, though - there are very few movies that are worth purchasing.
And two more things, one - i honestly appreciate that you were willing to formulate an intelligent response, without any ad hominems. And two, I think people downvoted me because I spoke bad about the PS3. :)
i wonder if theres gonna be a change log for every single thing that was changed. i'm hoping that more media formats will be supported (mkv, since it is a divx certified device) and improved internet browser capability.
Divx just doesn't get it. When they decided to intergrate MKV into version 7 they basically gave the middle finger to all the motion picture houses by sayin....ya thats right, we support a codec that is only used by HD video pirates (NO ONE ELSE USES IT). I seriously don't know how divx is still in bussiness. HD h.264 looks fine to me for webvideos, and I prefer to buy and support movies that I enjoy.
MKV is used to encode anime.
mkv is huge w/ anime...
anyways, why they supported it...cause its a CONTAINER, not a codec. the ps3 w/out a doubt in my mind already supports every single video/audio codec that is used by most mkv files. its just the combos that make mkv...unique
@SimbaDogg - pretty sure the PS3 still doesn't do Ogg.
How about a decent web browser?
Agreed. Though, two options:
1. Opera build them an optimized web browser.
2. More RAM
WHAT ABOUT CANADA???? WE NEED VIDEO SERVICE TOO! why are we the last ones to get anything in technology,(iphone palm pre video service etc...)
Probably because Canada sucks eh?
europe gets the highest prices in technology..
what about subtitle support? I have tried encoding subtitles but never works, having *.sub or *.srt formats available would be great, also, higher quality audio formats like *.flac
You can use ASub too add subs to avi files, and it works just fine.
You need to actively select the sub through the :triangle: menu though, for it to be shown.
When oh when will we have high-def audio pass through from Blu-ray discs, instead of that horrible internal pcm decoding???
This looks awesome does anyone know when its coming out?
September, most likely the day the Slim launches.
most of these "improvements" are up-selling and cross-selling us, advertising and directing us to the store, NOT improving our experience.
is firmware 3.5 going to consist of Little Big Planet 2.0 case stickers and a Sony store ad that pops up during games? blek.
That was my thought. How come it took until you to point it out?
I see NO advantage to updating my system. At least toss some bug fixes my way. Give me something, other than pushing what are effectively advertisements down my throat.
agreed,
firmware shwarmware...
how about programmers that make the games spend the time optimizing the games so we can get rid of these frame drops. with all TVs supporting 60FPS and most new ones supporting 120FPS...at least give us a CONSISTANT 30FPS. Have you seen the game advertisment for Arkham Asylum? there are points in the promo spot that the Frame Rate seems to dip to the 10FPS mark. This isn't just the PS3...Xbox360 has the same problems. Its not like a PC were we can upgrade the system to improve performance (or wait...when they release these new models THEY COULD).
I'm drooling over the new standard background at least, and I like the way they simplify the store for users. I don't mind having that stupid rolling text out of my way either. I don't really see how it deserves to be a 3.0 (more like 2.9), but hey, that's what they did to the PSP 3.0 too (minor improvements to the interface, as well as visualizers). Way to go Sony, but call me when you manage to fix in-game chatting (VOIP). Absolute must-have!
yeah, i'm scratching my head a bit over all the "way to go!" comments. i'm not stoked at all at the prospect of upgrading for no core functionality improvements.
paid avatars? instead of uploading JPGs? two more redundant ways into the store? what boardroom committee caused this?
Can it recognise and play BPAV folder structures from Sony XDCAM EX HD cameras yet?
How about MXF exported clips from Clip Browser?
Where is your integration with your semi-pro solid state cameras Sony? Its time your departments start talking together more about how you can enhance each others products, make out lifes better and sell more products...
I love Eric! He's sooo cute!
Wheres the background downloading, you know, like every other console has? Come on Sony, I'm getting sick of waiting on download progress bars :S
Most files can be downloaded in the background. It's been that way since I got mine about 18 months ago.
Uhmm, it always has and had background downloading for everything but system and game updates (and maybe 1 or 2 other things), pretty much like the 360.
when are they going to have the video store available to canada?! kinda stupid that to put the video store thing on ps3 but yet cant go to it just because its not available in canada.