The folks over at the PlayStation blog yesterday announced the availability of PS3 firmware 3.50, a long promised update that will enable PS3 users to play 3D Blu-rays in their consoles. Eric Lempel, VP of Network Operations at Sony America announced the update on the PS3 blog last night.
Sony had previously promised users a September rollout for v3.50 but the company's president, Sir Howard Stringer, said on September 1 that a delay would push the update's release into October. Last week Lempel announced that the update would actually hit on September 21, so yesterday's launch was actually a day ahead of schedule.
"We know that many consumers have purchased 3D TVs already and more of you will be purchasing them as the holidays approach--so we’re excited to offer this firmware update that makes all 38 million PS3s worldwide compatible with Blu-ray 3D discs," Lempel said last week.
Sony prepped PS3s for 3D gaming in April when it launched firmware v3.30 but with such a small selection of 3D Blu-rays available at the moment, we can't imagine there's too many people upset with the five month wait for 3D Blu-ray support.
Also included in yesterday's update are Facebook integration, which allows users to share information with friends via Facebook, and a Grief Reporting function that will allow users to more easily report inappropriate messages they receive from other PSN users.