Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Last time I talked about my new PS3 I was talking about my TV problems. Our very own Stephen set me on the right track by advising that I dig up a list of service codes for it online, and I did indeed find a manual that others have said is the one I need. I just have to get up the courage to give it a try after reading it very carefully — it’s not for the faint of heart.

This time around I’d like to take a look at the Xross Media Bar on the PS3. As a PSP owner the Cross (Xross?) Media Bar doesn’t present any usability problems to me on the PS3. It does, however, irritate me that the XMB on the PS3 has fewer features and some annoyances compared to the one on the PSP. Here are my top three complaints with the XMB on the PS3, along with a sprinkle of more features.

First off, a recent PSP firmware update gives you the option to not load the UMD in the drive when you power on the system. On the PS3, if there’s a game in the drive it loads immediately upon startup. The console does show you the XMB for a brief moment before loading the game in the drive, but for a system that can boot up from across the room using a button push on the Sixaxis controller, why should I have to run to the device to take a disc out? Isn’t this supposed to be an easy-to-use entertainment hub?

RSS video and audio feeds aren’t an option on the PS3, either, and it’s poorer for it. Adding background downloading is probably the best time to add this in as well, and if they can make the system wake up and do this the way the PSP does and then go back to sleep I’d like it even more.

Lastly, the Game menu on the XMB is not sorted in any meaningful way. The last thing you added to the system, be it a demo or a full game, is the first thing the XMB points to when it starts up. This isn’t just a navigation irritant — it can be freaking loud too. Just as on the PSP when a UMD disc is in the drive the game icons will animate and play music or, if this is the Motorstorm or Cash Guns Chaos demo, blare really loud music. Why not remember where you were when I shut you off, or just start off someplace I tell you to start off, maybe a song I like that I loaded in, or maybe the top of some menu that won’t run a blasted thing?

What are the other features I’d like to see? I’d love to get easy media streaming from my desktop. I’d also like support for some patent-free file formats like Ogg Vorbis for audio, Ogg Theora for video, and Xvid for video. No patent means no cost to do it, and there’s oodles of source code out there, so really there’s no excuse for not supporting those formats. Sony already supports the royalty-free and lossless PNG image format, so I don’t see what the problem is.

If you’ve got a PS3, what do you think Sony needs to improve in the XMB?

Links:
More information on Ogg Vorbis and Theora files.
The full PS3 media compatibility list at IGN.
Sony’s video file types, audio file types, and image file types PS3 manual pages.
Wikipedia XMB image.