Curious Missing Features...

[Chalryn]

This is more of a question (or rant?) topic than anything, I suppose. There're just a couple of things that I don't seem to be able to do on the PS3, which I either can't understand why not, or feel like should be there but I'm just missing somehow...

1.) So I can sort my trophies, save files, system data, music, videos, and pictures alphabetically, but... not my games? What the hell? I don't get this. Does anyone know if there's any particular reason for this? Call it OCD, but it drives me absolutely nuts that the only means of organizing your digital game library is by 'Creation Date' or 'Recently Played.' Why are games the only thing that don't allow alphabetical sorting? Dx

2.) Is there seriously no 'See What Friends Have This Game' option? Aside from checking trophy lists for every individual user on your friends list, that is. Granted, when it comes to online play, some (most?) games will just list which friends on your list have the game when you go to invite someone to play or whatever, but not all... It can be a little bit of a nuisance when you just wanna find someone on your list to play a game with. :S Am I just missing something simple here, or is there really no option for this?

 

[stolenxnametag]

1.) So I can sort my trophies, save files, system data, music, videos, and pictures alphabetically, but... not my games? What the hell? I don't get this. Does anyone know if there's any particular reason for this? Call it OCD, but it drives me absolutely nuts that the only means of organizing your digital game library is by 'Creation Date' or 'Recently Played.' Why are games the only thing that don't allow alphabetical sorting? Dx

Good question. From searching online, all I see is that people are sorting them by creating lettered folders for their games.

2.) Is there seriously no 'See What Friends Have This Game' option? Aside from checking trophy lists for every individual user on your friends list, that is. Granted, when it comes to online play, some (most?) games will just list which friends on your list have the game when you go to invite someone to play or whatever, but not all... It can be a little bit of a nuisance when you just wanna find someone on your list to play a game with. :S Am I just missing something simple here, or is there really no option for this?

This would be brilliant!!

You can share all of your fun PlayStation ideas at the PlayStation.Blog Share website. Apparently they take suggestions for what they could do to improve PlayStation platforms.

 

[Lifewish]

I don't think you are missing anything, these options just aren't there for whatever reason. And comparing trophies takes far too long for my liking. It is amazing just how much faster things like synching trophies is on the PS4 compared to the 3.

 

[BigPete7978]

I don't think you are missing anything, these options just aren't there for whatever reason. And comparing trophies takes far too long for my liking. It is amazing just how much faster things like synching trophies is on the PS4 compared to the 3.

Everything seems to take longer on the PS3. Ranging from the PS Store to the Trophies. Everything is SLOW!!!

 

[Jacky]

1. first off, it's an older system, differences in speed are expected.
2. all my games are alphabetical w/out having to make separate folders so how you weren't able to get it done is unknown to me.
3.what's wrong with just ASKING a friend if they have a certain game? or is that to hard to do?

I know I sound like a bitch, but I don't really care if I do.

 

[cigarley]

Considering trophies were added retroactively years after the PS3 was already out, it's not surprising that the features feel a little half-assed. I have had no problems with the Vita's trophy sorting system and I'm sure the PS4 is probably just as good.

One thing that still baffles me to this day is that PS3 doesn't play back .mkv files. For an HD console that prides itself on its media capabilities, an addition like this just seems obvious.

 

[Jacky]

Considering trophies were added retroactively years after the PS3 was already out, it's not surprising that the features feel a little half-assed. I have had no problems with the Vita's trophy sorting system and I'm sure the PS4 is probably just as good.

One thing that still baffles me to this day is that PS3 doesn't play back .mkv files. For an HD console that prides itself on its media capabilities, an addition like this just seems obvious.

out of polite curiosity, have you ever considered converting the files by any chance?

 

[cigarley]

out of polite curiosity, have you ever considered converting the files by any chance?

I do, but I'm sure you're aware that doing this degrades the quality ever so slightly, or needlessly increases the files size. .mkv is one of the best HD formats, I used to use my PS3 almost exclusively for watching videos I downloaded but now I just have my PC hooked up to my TV because I don't want to go through the hassle.

 

[Chalryn]

3.what's wrong with just ASKING a friend if they have a certain game? or is that to hard to do?

I just don't feel like individually asking every single person on my list. I'm not talking about just wondering if one or two people have the game, but if you're trying to figure out who out of your entire list does. If it was just a matter of one or two people, then yeah, I'd just ask. But when you've got a decent-sized list, it'd just be convenient to have an option to check who on it has a particular game (like Steam does, for example), rather than asking each one and probably never even getting a response from some of them, while others may just take too long for their responses to be relevant by that time.

2. all my games are alphabetical w/out having to make separate folders so how you weren't able to get it done is unknown to me.

Do you have your games sorted into folders/albums at all, or just listed right under the controller icon on the XMB? I think they might automatically alphabetize them if you don't sort them into folders, but that's just too much clutter for my liking, so I haven't really checked. (Although either way, sorting into albums doesn't break the alphabetical order for other media, hence my confusion about game organization doing so.)



As for cigarley's problem: IIRC, I think I heard that the PS3 Media Server can support MKV's. I haven't really done anything with it myself, so I can't say for sure, but I seem to recall some friends saying something about this a while back, so maybe try looking into that if you haven't already done so. Otherwise, MP4's are supported, which seem to be the widely-used format in re-encoding video these days. (And thanks to some developments in video formatting in recent years, the original sources are of higher quality and lower filesize, which seems to carry over through the conversion process well enough.) If it's anime you're looking for, I could point you toward a particular group or two, but for anything else, I'm not really familiar enough to suggest anything specific. Generally speaking, though, older movies and TV shows may be more difficult to find already re-encoded, but most new/current stuff is usually covered by someone or other. Just takes a little extra browsing.

 

[Jacky]

all of my digital ps3 games are alphabetically organized in one single folder

 

[Jacky]

I do, but I'm sure you're aware that doing this degrades the quality ever so slightly, or needlessly increases the files size. .mkv is one of the best HD formats, I used to use my PS3 almost exclusively for watching videos I downloaded but now I just have my PC hooked up to my TV because I don't want to go through the hassle.

true, but it was just an idea. normally if I want something on there REALLY REALLY BAD then I will modify the file, but other then that I usually keep it as is.

 

[senor_flojo]

Considering trophies were added retroactively years after the PS3 was already out, it's not surprising that the features feel a little half-assed. I have had no problems with the Vita's trophy sorting system and I'm sure the PS4 is probably just as good.

Exactly. Like digital games, the PS3 wasn't originally designed with trophy data in mind, so it's pretty amazing it can even do it as-is.

One thing that still baffles me to this day is that PS3 doesn't play back .mkv files. For an HD console that prides itself on its media capabilities, an addition like this just seems obvious.

Piracy is the big issue. If you really want to playback MKV, there's options out there in the form of media players, which are surprisingly inexpensive.

 

[senor_flojo]

I can sort my trophies, save files, system data, music, videos, and pictures alphabetically, but... not my games? What the hell?

I get the OCD argument considering I sort things based off genre, but wouldn't it be easier to go through a long list of games sorted by last played vs. alphabetically? What if your favorite game as of late started with a 'U?'

Aside from that, keep in mind that when the PS3 came out, it really only held data on the XMB one game at a time. It wasn't until later down the line, after the explosion of digital downloads, that organizing games in the XMB became a problem. The thing against this last argument is that they apparently didn't learn their lesson on the PS4, since it still has the same file management "issue" (which isn't really even a real issue, just a perceived one).

 

[Chalryn]

wouldn't it be easier to go through a long list of games sorted by last played vs. alphabetically? What if your favorite game as of late started with a 'U?'

Understandable, although I look at it as looking for any particular game in your whole library vs. just the most recent one(s) you played. Besides, for your (one) most recently played title, the XMB memorizes your last-visited location in a folder, so whatever the last game you played was would be the first highlighted upon opening the folder anyway.

I'm by no means saying I'm against the sorting methods available. They're all still options, regardless of which you choose. I just wish that an alphabetical order was one of those options, and I think it's rather silly that it's not, considering it's a sorting option for pretty much everything else on the XMB.