new interface of PlayStation Store

[Skygrasper550]

Don't know if a thread like this already exists, but what the hell.


so I went to a video game store yesterday and decided to buy a PSN card because I wanted to buy some DLC for GT5. Once I got home, I accessed the PS Store to add the $20 to my wallet and whoa, the PS Store asked for an update. So okay, 26MB ain't that big. By the time it was finished, the PS3 had a short blue screen, like it was going to load a disc. Then I saw a loading screen. Then it suddenly crashed.

Hmmm, tried to restart the PS3 so that the update would properly "kick in". Then I accessed the PS Store again. I have to say, on my end it took me a waiting time of about 2-3mins just for the new loading screen to disappear. I was starting to think that the PS Store has gotten a new/redesigned interface. When the loading screen was gone, well...I was right.


Probably all of you may miss the old interface, but I think the new one is sleek, provided you have a fast internet connection. Basically, what the new interface does is load and preview all possible content to your end once you open up the PS Store. How you navigate through the Store now is a simple use of the D-pad. I haven't gone through the whole interface yet, but it's probable that you can navigate through the entire Store now using only the D-pad.

I have to say, how the contents are organized is very impressive. I will give a short comparison below on how the Search function now operates:

- Old interface

When you select the Search Box, a message box will appear prompting you to type text that is related to the content you want to see. The PS3 virtual keyboard pops up and then you start typing. For example, I type in "gran turismo 5" then hit Enter. What the Search function does is load all content in-line with Gran Turismo 5, as well as other content related to Gran Turismo 5, and other content related to the keywords you typed in. So, the Search function display GT5 content, as well as the GT Academy 2012 Free Demo, some GT5- and GT Academy-related videos, and other stuff.


- NEW Interface

When you select the Search Box, a box will no longer appear the PS3 virtual keyboard will also not make an appearance any longer. It's like how the search function of the Youtube app operates, but it looks much better. Basically you scroll down through all of the characters the PS3 supports. Once you input a character, say "G", the Search function will filter out and display all groupings of contents that start with the letter "G" . You can see there specific titles like "Grand Theft Auto IV", "God of War III" and other titles that start with the letter "G" . When I saw this, I was like "Whoa, awesome " . So I went further into the Search function; after selecting "G" I selected "R", so now I have "GR" filtering the searches for me. True enough, "God of War" disappeared from the list of groupings. Then I made my search into "GRAN", and there I see the Gran Turismo 5 category/grouping. I selected it, and saw all content strictly related to Gran Turismo 5. Furthermore, contents are sorted out by their type. In Gran Turismo 5's case, the Search function has sorted out 10 Add-ons and 40+ videos, as far as I can remember. "Add-ons", being the in-game DLC themselves (Car Packs, Speed Test Pack, Paint Pack, Scion FR-S etc.) .

Oh yeah. Furthermore, whatever content you download from the PS Store, it gets automatically installed to your PS3 system. Not unlike in the past, wherein you download DLC for your games, then after the download is finished you will see a bubble in the Game section of the XMB containing your newly-downloaded content. In Gran Turismo 5's case, I didn't have to install them from the XMB, I simple installed them directly from the game.


So far, the new interface is looking good for me, though I'd like to navigate through the PS Store whenever I have time, just to see how well the new interface works.


Let the comments/discussions begin!!

 

[sesselpupser]

Oh yeah. Furthermore, whatever content you download from the PS Store, it gets automatically installed to your PS3 system. Not unlike in the past, wherein you download DLC for your games, then after the download is finished you will see a bubble in the Game section of the XMB containing your newly-downloaded content. In Gran Turismo 5's case, I didn't have to install them from the XMB, I simple installed them directly from the game.

If you only downloaded some DLC for GT5 I think you'll find small files have always installed themselves without the bubble thing, it's games that need to be installed... I'm not sure if they've removed that or not though as I haven't downloaded any games since the store was refreshed.

My thoughts on the redesign are that it was sorely needed, but I'm not sure if it's a step in the right direction or not. The search thing is just bizarre now, the last time I entered text by scrolling through a vertical stack of letters was in 1995, entering names for high scores on my Sega Mega Drive... What was wrong with the keyboard? I like how it filters things as you 'type', though, that is nice. I am kind of annoyed that they haven't fixed the main problem I had with the store: The download list. If you scroll through quickly it still shows a load of blank page while it loads all the stuff you scrolled past, and I can't see any option to filter the list. I've got a lot of downloads and it would be nice to be able to sort it by game, DLC, demo or whatever else. It's just annoying to go picking through the list to find what you want and I thought they were going to change it. Maybe I missed a key feature there, though.

 

[Morgoth_666]

Downloading and installing still seems to work the way it always has. If you wait, most if not all things will install immediately and automatically, if you download in the background you will have to install them manually.

It is rather odd that they didn't add a way for you to reorganize your download history since that is the one thing everyone can agree on being absolutely horrible and nonsensical.

The predictive search is nice I suppose for saving a few seconds here and there. I've heard bad things about the old search but I never used it more than once or twice to have any problems.

I don't know if it's the same for all content or if they are gradually updating things but when I went in the other day 90% of the demos were not sorted by date, only 10 or 15 of them. Not very cool for those who haven't already gone through all of them already. Probably not as big a deal for buying games/DLC but anybody who is a few months behind on working through all of the demos or videos will have to now wade through the entire list alphabetically to find the things they haven't got to yet. Rather annoying.

I read a complaint that you can't add funds to your wallet in-store but there still is the option if you navigate all the way to the checkout. There just doesn't seem to be a way to do it elsewhere.

You are no longer able to download things immediately as far as I can tell, the only option is to add all the things you want to your cart and then go to the cart and then go to checkout and then accept everything and then go to another menu to select what items (or all of them) to finally begin to download. Again, excess hassle when grabbing a bunch of free stuff but probably not much change when buying one thing at a time.

The menus are substantially reorganized. In some ways that makes things seem simpler but it also means you have to select the type of content and then select a filter from the other menu. Not sure if that's really an improvement or a negative or just something different to adapt to.

Minor complaints for the most part, but I'm not sure that I see anything that actually constitutes an improvement of any kind. It just looks different(and perhaps a bit uglier). If the old search really was broken then I guess that's something helpful, but then again it's not like you couldn't easily find nearly anything you knew enough about to search for within 15 seconds in the old menus anyway. Well, some people couldn't, but I'm sure some people will get confused in the new version too. At least we now have a 6-7 page jumble of ads and category graphics to scroll through instead of having to wait a few seconds for all of the windows showing all the same stuff to cycle through like before.

I suppose a new look isn't a bad thing, although I'm not sure a new look is worth using up a few megs of disk space. One thing I will appreciate is if the new version (hopefully) doesn't constantly use game/season/promotion backgrounds that render half of the on-screen text invisible anymore. And of course there may be some hidden improvements that we don't really see much from our end.