Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) recently announced the details for the next system software update to ver 2.70 on the PlayStation 3.

The list of included features address how users can communicate with their online friends. The update will provide a new chat features enabling users to chat with their friends on the PSN as well as enhancements to the friends list and improvements to the video services available from the PlayStation Store.

  • The new text chat feature allows users to participate in up to three chat rooms, of up to 16 users, at the same time and will be available while playing PS3 games.
  • Enhancements to friends lists are also coming, where by online friends will still be sorted in alphabetical order and offline friends will be sorted by when they were last online.
  • File transfer sizes will also be increased so users will be able to attach larger files (increase from 1MB to 3MB) to messages sent to their friends.
  • Lastly the update will make significant improvements to the video services on the PlayStation Store. Video files purchased from the PlayStation Store will be available for backup to an external drive and videos purchased on your PSP can be transfered to the PS3 for playback.

To check out a video of the firmware 2.70 features, visit PlayStation.blog. Further details and instructions on how to update the PS3 system software are available on Sony’s System Update page.