PS3 Firmware 1.9 Details Announced, Best Update Yet?

Sony keeps chipping away at the PS3, and they’ll carve a great multimedia system out of it…even if they need 100 years. The new firmware 1.9 update just hit in Japan and we’re digging some of the new features. Here are the complete changes, and the notes on what were most excited about. • Ability to rearrange games on the XMB
• Option menu now includes “eject disk”
• Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB
• XMB backgrounds
• Change the folder classification
• Emoticons
• Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz
• Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI
• Change PS3 video settings in-game
• “Bit Mapping” in the “Music Setting”
• Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick
• Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games
• Add bookmarks
• Web browser security function in the browser’s tool section
• Avatar moves during audio visual chat

The Avatar moves?? Oohh! Seriously though, all the small menu tweaks are a step in the right direction, with the first hint of customization we’ve seen on the platform yet. Plus, we’re looking forward to doing some serious testing of in-game video quality now that it’s easier to swap settings and you can toggle upsaling. But we’re most excited because this puts us closer to firmware 2.0, which we’re guessing will be announced at Leipzig next month and be a pretty big deal. Look for firmware 1.9 stateside soon. [kotaku]