FAIL: Sony PS3 In-Game XMB & Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

July 3rd, 2008 arthurfreydin Posted in gadgetry |

So I was pretty excited when Engadget announced that Sony would be releasing firmware 2.40 which promised in-game XMB (the PS3 menu system) and trophies (could care less about this one) on July 2nd. One thing that I was extra stoked about was that you can create “custom” soundtracks to your games by playing music files throught the XMB. Since I love racing games and probably play them more than I should, this would be a huge bonus since most of the music in these games leaves quite a bit to be desired, especially Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

So July 2nd could have been special. I fired up my PS3 and quickly (well, not so quickly) installed the new firmware. Sweet, it also comes with a clock on the top-right of the XMB - bonus! Once the install finished with no issues - unlike other people - I loaded up Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Right away, I disabled all forms of music. I entered a race and quickly shifted back to the in-game XMB to load up some mp3s.

Ugh. Not only does it not allow streaming of music, but it won’t read off of usb hdd’s either. OK, fine, I copied a few albums to the internal hdd and tried playing them. No dice. Sony politely tells me that it is incapable of playing media for this game. WTF?! The one game that would actually benefit from an alternative soundtrack won’t allow it! Seriously Sony, was that necessary? Now I’m too lazy to re-enable the in-game music that came with Gran Turismo.

UPDATE: Looks like Sony has actually decided to pull the 2.40 firmware due to reports of bricked PS3s.