According to VG247, a "prominent PS3 developer" said that firmware 2.70 will go live this week. The unnamed developer made the assertion during GDC. The dev also said that developers got the update yesterday. The update also supposedly went live for a brief time, before Sony pulled it down. The release of Firmware 2.70 hasn’t been confirmed by Sony yet, so you should hold off until an official announcement is made. We speculate that the new firmware will likely be release tomorrow when the new Resistance 2 patch goes live.

The new Resistance 2 patch will let a second local player to log in using his own PSN profile and save his progress. Insomniac devs have stated before that this needed a firmware feature not available during the game’s launch, so the fact that they’ve already managed to implement it is a good indication that Firmware 2.70 will launch tomorrow.

A member of the GameTrailers forum has revealed some of the (rumored) features of upcoming PlayStation 3 Firmware, version 2.70. The member, who claims to have a friend who works for the R&D department at Sony, revealed a number of changes including changes to the gamer card layout, faster retrieval of trophy information and gamer cards, quicker XMB loading times and more. The list includes a number of significant changes gamers will be please to see, however, the list has not been officially confirmed, and so it falls under the rumor category for now.

Changes include:

• Friends List
  
  • Voice Messaging is now available as an alternative to text after selecting a user on the friends list. Voice message recordings are capped at 30 seconds.
  • Home Integration: Saved PlayStation Home avatar photos can be selected as photo ID for Gamer Card/Friends List.
  • Trophy number and Gamer Level are listed under Friend names for quick reference.
• Gamer Card & Trophies
  
  • Gamer Card layout has been changed to more closely resemble the PlayStation Store aesthetic.
  • Past Trophy information can be viewed in detail by selecting "Recent Trophy History" option.
  • Newly acquired trophies auto-sync in the background
  • Server infrastructure for Trophies has been optimized. Resulting in faster retrieval time for Gamer Card and Trophy information.
• In-Game XMB
  
  • Loading time for In-Game XMB has been drastically reduced, resulting in a more seamless in-game experience.
  • "Theme settings" options while in-game is now available, allowing custom themes to be applied to the In-Game XMB.
  • Internet Browser can now be accessed while in-game.
  • Voice messaging and voice chat options can be used while in-game.
  • Options that cannot be used in the XMB during game sessions are grayed out (but still selectable) to eliminate user accessibility confusion.
• Misc
  
  • Other slight UI tweaks and enhancements.

[Source]

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