PS3 Firmware 3.40 Adds New Features, PlayStation Plus - Available Now

At E3 Sony announced its plans for PlayStation Plus, a subscription based service for the PS3 that would deliver discounted and free PSN games as well as early access to demos and betas. Well today Sony is rolling out PlayStation Plus with a couple of other features in firmware update v3.40.

First I'll get through the nitty-gritty of the non-PlayStation Plus features being introduced. Video editing is the big one, allowing you to edit, save, and upload videos to Facebook or Youtube all from a new video editing application found under Movies on the XrossMediaBar. Continuing the uploading theme, the PS3's photo gallery also gets an update allowing you to upload pictures to Facebook and Picasa, as well as the nice option to share your pictures with PSN friends. But the new feature I'm most excited about is that PSN now allows for a 5-star rating system. I know that giving games numerical scores is often frowned upon, but this kind of user rating system has been a huge benefit on Xbox Live, so I am very glad to see it finally appear on PSN. Especially since a lot of games on PSN don't have demos.

But you probably care more about what you can expect with PlayStation Plus. The subscription options come in 12 months for $49.99 or 3 months for $17.99 flavors, with the 12 month subscription offering an additional 3 months for free for a limited time. So what do you get for your subscription? First up is a 1 hour demo of Infamous, with the option to download the full game (for $29.99) and keep your save file and trophy progress when the hour is up. As for the promised PSN games, there are currently two free games available: the delightful PSP Mini Age of Zombies and the PS1 classic Rally Cross. Then there are also discounts on a slew of games and DLC including expansions for Warhawk and Fat Princess as well as discounts on games like Gauntlet 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Rampage World Tour, Rampart, Cuboid, Hamsterball, Interpol, Magic Orbz, Mahjong Tales, Smash Cars, and Wakeboarding HD. PlayStation Plus subscribers can also download the DLC for the aforementioned list of games for free, which is a nice bonus. Then there are little extras like a free PS3 theme and avatars. In total, it comes to just over $40 in free games and DLC ($42 by my count) and around $30 ($27 really) in discounts. Now, there is that little catch where you only get to keep those free games so long as you are a PlayStation Plus subscriber, but games and DLC bought at a discount are yours to keep regardless of subscription. Thankfully, you can browse all of the PlayStation Plus content on the PSN store without actually needing to subscribe, so it's easy to check if the yearly cost will be worth it for you. It's also worth noting that PlayStation Plus subscribers also get a subscription to Qore, which delivers its own monthly dose of exclusive goodies.

Looking at the list of games, I personally wouldn't get my money's worth out of a PlayStation Plus subscription, but with the promise of more free games and discounts on the way I'll certainly be keeping my eye on it. What do you think of the initial PlayStation Plus lineup?