14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has just deployed a brand new update for its PlayStation Home online service, bringing a wealth of improvements as well as doubling the limit of personal items a user can have, from 50 to 100, thus answering the pleas of lots of Home users.
PlayStation Home may have started off as an offbeat project for PlayStation 3 users to get together and hang around, but it became the central point of Sony’s social gaming efforts, thanks to a recent update that completely overhauled the online service.
Now, the Japanese company is continuing to upgrade Home and has just deployed patch 1.60, which adds a variety of new things and modifies the limit of personal items you can have in your own virtual home.
“PlayStation Home version 1.60 delivers a wealth of improvements and updates to the core client, not the least of which is a doubling of the item placement limit in personal spaces,” Sony said. “If you are upgrading from an old version of Home (v1.40 or earlier) then when you attempt to apply the v1.60 patch please wait for the orange “hard drive activity” light to stop flashing on your PS3 before commencing the patching process.”
There are plenty of new features and improvements included in update 1.60 for PlayStation Home, so check them all out below.
NEW FEATURES
Furniture Placement Limit We have doubled the furniture placement limit in personal spaces and clubhouses from 50 to 100 items. Standard and active furniture limits have been merged into the same system. Currently all actives take up 22 furniture slots in the new system. Thus you can now place a variety of different combinations: 100 standard furniture items or… 78 standard furniture items and 1 active or… 56 standard furniture items and 2 actives or… 34 standard furniture items and 3 actives or… 12 standard furniture items and 4 actives.
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
Targeting in Personal Spaces Targeting in personal spaces has been improved. This means you shouldn’t accidentally target furniture items through floors or ceilings any more. Although we have made exceptions for wall hangings and lights as these tend to be placed quite high up. If you find any items of furniture in places you can’t reach then you can always remove them through the furniture browser and place them somewhere else.
Portable Items and Companions
We have changed the way that companion portables work so they will now automatically re-activate after you enter and leave a game or relocate between spaces. No more having to put your companion away and take them out again when you do this!
Help System
There is a new help system to aid new users as they explore PlayStation Home for the first time.
Arcade Games
Arcade games are no longer subject to the 3 minute inactivity timeout when placed as furniture in Personal Spaces or Clubhouses.
CHANGES
Menu Pad We have removed the “Community” section of the Menu Pad. The information that used to be contained in here is now communicated via the Message of the Day pop-up at login and the new loading screens.
Sony also mentions that a variety of bug fixes are included in this patch for PlayStation Home, and new developer tools that should help even more content appear for the online service, so you’d better download it as soon as possible.