New PSN design confirmed (+shot and associated bad news)

[JP]

I think the new interface comes into place the same time everywhere even though it was suggested previously that it was Europe to lead it.

Customers will be able to access, browse, shop and download content as usual prior to the store’s re-opening. However, no additional downloadable content will be posted prior to then, including this Thursday, April 3rd, and next Thursday, April 10th. Regularly scheduled content updates will resume with the Store’s re-opening, at which time additional games and game-related items will be added, including the downloadable version of the highly-anticipated exclusive PS3 title Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

When the PLAYSTATION Store is set to re-open with the new interface, PS3 users will be prompted to download a firmware update which will enable entry to the new store.

We’ll continue to update readers of the PlayStation.Blog on the status of the PLAYSTATION Store upgrade – including a video walkthrough – in the coming days.

[J0e Musashi]

SingStore?

[dvdmike]

It will be very singstore and there are people now talking today about movies launching in the USA near the re-launch time

[ChrisF]

Good news is that it still won't be region locked.

With the new PlayStation Store moving to a native XMB application and away from a web-based system, many have questioned if Sony would take the opportunity to region lock the store. So we passed along the question.

The official answer, thankfully, is no. Our friendly SCEA rep "confirmed that no changes to the store will be made as part of this revamp relating to region locking". So like before, those users with multiple master accounts corresponding to different regions will indeed not be locked out of those PlayStation Stores.

[JP]

Definitely good news but I wouldn't read too much into that as I'm sure we've all learnt by now that the people who know the least about the PSN are the people who actually work on it!

Remember that classic comment after the Uncharted demo...
"People download things from other regions? Really?"

[Spatial]

You mean the comment made by Naughty Dog, who don't have any control over the way the PSN works...

[JP]

I meant the Christophe Balestra statement which as co-president of Naughty Dog, lead producer for the demo and the person who also took responsibilty, at least publicly, of getting his demo unlocked.

We just didn't know people from other territories could connect to the US PLAYSTATION Network Store and download demos ... now we do! We've been too busy working on the game to wrap our head's around the infrastructure of the PSN.

We absolutely did not plan the demo to be region locked. As soon as we figured out the problem existed, Sam Thompson (line producer, SCEA) called me and I jumped into my car, drove to the office and fixed it right away.

I'm not aware of anybody claiming that Sony's demo was locked due to "the way the PSN works" as you put it. From what the people involved in Naughty Dog were stating it was down to them not understanding the PSN infrastructure which doesn't really confirm anything apart from that they messed up due to not knowing what the hell was going on.

It's difficult to imagine that he actually does any coding on the network for Sony. But as Naughty Dog's parent company is SCE who also lead the PSN and the fact that he was producing a Sony demo, for Sony, on Sony's network AND as he was in charge of that Sony network demo and taken responsibility for his team's error...that he would hopefully have just enough understand of the format that he and his team were producing the demo for to know whether his team have locked it or not.

I think when I stated that he worked on the PSN, which he himself said he did with that demo, I was actually correct to say that?

However, if I'd suggested that he was somehow running the PSN and had control over how it worked, which I haven't said but he may have done at some time I suppose, then I would definately be incorrect to have said that.

[Spatial]

Meh.

Anyway, new store shots here.

[SuperBeatBoy]

It doesn't look much of an improvement over the current one. Its such a pain to find anything you want, at least the new one won't be slow. I will just have to wait and see. Oh damn those for saying PAIN is fun and worth the ?5.

[GluedOnBeard]

Having looked at these again the bottom of the screen is horrific, looks incredibly tacky. Overuse of the reflection then shows the error in the design as everything is not reflecting at the same level and just overall the breakdown of categories and layout will not improve my use of the store at all and will continued to be used in the fashion of, look in one particular area then leave.

[huxley]

I think it looks much nicer, It will be better on a big tv from a distance as the item description is much bigger unlike the little bit of text that scrolls on the live marketplace.

[Harry]

There's a video of the new store http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/...e-walkthrough/

I think it's looking pretty sexy.

Also seems much quicker as well.

[ezee ryder]

OK was just browsing through the new look EU store today and realised we have a dumbed down stupid version of the US and JP store. What happened to giving us the same features that were shown in the video walkthrough a while back. There is no preview feature which is supposed to include screenshots and short video clips and don't even get me started on the layout! There is no section for demos?! You have to browse through the whole bloody store to find the demo you are looking for. Extremely poor "upgrade", the only good thing is that it looks slightly better but what use is when it the layout is, quite frankly, crap! The thing that gets me is the upgraded US and JP stores have all these features. Disappointed.

[ExtremePabs]

The new store layout and design is awful, its really hard to find anything you seem to have to scroll through everything. Also why doesnt it just give you the option to order everything by release date?

and to the guy who made the comment about Pain I totally agree mate I too was suckered in, its a steaming pile of excrement. I now know why there was no demo to download.

[superking]

ignore, delete post.