Sony PS VITA users will soon see a firmware update notification on their handheld consoles, taking the software to version 1.65.
The new update has only just been announced by Sony themselves, but numerous consoles are already downloading the update as we speak. While you won’t see any new apps appearing on your homescreen, the update fixes many of the small bugs users have found irritating since the console’s launch almost 2 months ago.
Sony has listened to feedback from VITA owners and also added a few small features, tweaking the software to make it more user-friendly. For instance, the strange omission of a caps lock button on the onscreen keyboard has been rectified, and all notifications can be toggled off.
Near is an interesting application which shows you if other VITA gamers are nearby, allowing you to join games and communicate with them over Wi-Fi or 3G. The update takes care of a few niggling issues within Near, as well as allowing it to update much more frequently.
Users have reported that the Power Saving settings now features an option to kick in after 10 minutes – for those times when you really need to save on battery. When installing a game the console will now show a progress bar, rather than leaving you waiting and guessing as we’ve done before. Finally, the VITA will be able to download content in the background even when you’ve manually put the console into sleep mode – handy for saving power while you wait for a lengthy download to finish.
Provided your console is connected to Wi-Fi, you should get an update notification over the next couple of days. Simply choose to install the update and let the console do the rest!
UPDATE: Sony removed version 1.65 almost immediately, and has now issued version 1.65 in its place – a 97MB download that fixes a bug with online multiplayer games in version 1.65. Get it now by heading into Settings and System Update.
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