All EU PS3 users to get....

[Badnik Mechanic]

This on your XMB!

Do you live in the EU? Have you upgraded to firware 4.30?

Well get ready for a surprise!

When you upgrade to the newest firmware. You now have this have this in your XMB right under the games tab

Your trophy icon is now under the network tab, and you now have the Singstar logo slapped between your current game and your downloaded games folder.

Hmm whats that? You don't want it there? Well urm... You can... Oh hey look Singstar!

How do you remove it? Oh you have to download the game aparently. Deleting the game after downloading it puts the icon back.

All EU PSN accounts now have this icon, there is no way to remove it. Even if you already own the disk version of the game there is no way to remove it. You see Singstar is now free to play, so they're celebrating this by putting the download icon right there on your XMB.

Now you might be thinking 'hey free game!' well no... you see you still need a microphone and... Did I mention there is no way to remove it?

Well this has caused one heck of a backlash. The PS Blog is filled with complaints and some Sony employee named Nina Scherer is actually responding to people complaining making her out to be a bit of a failed troll in many respects.

As someone who lives in the EU who actually has the platinum on Singstar I have this to say 'get this piece of shit off my XMB and give me back the trophy icon!'

Now you lot in the US... I don't know why you're laughing.... Because it's coming to you soon too! As the PS Blog entry promises more details for US users too... I bet you can't wait.

Source

If you're like me and utterly hate this decision, get on the PS Blog and comment on the item. Loads of people have and even Nina Troll Scherer has admitted that the reaction wasn't what they were expecting.

[Heybunny]

As someone who lives in the EU who actually has the platinum on Singstar I have this to say 'get this piece of shit off my XMB and give me back the trophy icon!'

Hog must be a fabulous singer! Get thi'self on t' X Factor mate!

Also, this news is BS. But then after they basically murdered our PS3 with the 4.25 update thing I'm not surprised at anything Sony does.

[Crash]

Why!?

This is just stupid, utterly stupid.

[Chooch]

Now you lot in the US... I don't know why you're laughing.... Because it's coming to you soon too! As the PS Blog entry promises more details for US users too... I bet you can't wait.

..Where does it say that?

I have read the blog entry multiple times and it says no such thing.

[Lady Soniko]

Lol what the hell?

[JezMM]

It just baffles me that at some point, someone DECIDED to do this. They honestly thought people wouldn't be annoyed.

Goddamnit I know it's free and different, but I've already stopped buying 360 games since Microsoft started throwing adverts at me on every single menu screen, don't make me hate you too Sony. I already dislike your controller, you haven't got much going for you if you start this kinda crap.

[Andrew Albacia]

I haven't installed this yet but I can see how it could be annoying. Wasn't there already a Singstar program that you could browse the store with?

Still the game has "My Lovely Horse" so I can't tell it to do one.

[Tornado]

And now we know the exact date and time where Sony completely lost the point of the user interface that they designed.

And I'm entertained by how big of a deal they thought this was going to be, in addition to it being compulsory. Like they were doing you a favor by putting it there.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Tornado

[Badnik Mechanic]

..Where does it say that?

I have read the blog entry multiple times and it says no such thing.

I think it's one of the comments that Nina Scherer left. It doesn't directly say it but it's something like 'news for US accounts soon' or something like that.

Mind you, Nina Scherer might have other things to worry about. Some of her replies havn't exactly been very well recieved, and she's started to get a few news stories dedicated to her on some websites. ThesixthAxis has been quite critical of her comments regarding this story.

[BlueTidalGamer]

Well thats rather annoying. Should of made it optional.

[Andrew Albacia]

Eh, getting a little personal for my liking from reading that article... but I suppose sarcasm isn't really a professional reaction either. I can understand the frustration with this and the horrendous new storefront but sometimes people have to step back and ask if it's really worth the rage...

When they are asking someone to step down over having to scroll past something on a games console, I think they need to chill.

[Barry the Nomad]

Has a screenshot been posted of what this looks like on the screen? I wanna see what's getting people riled up.

[Tornado]

When they are asking someone to step down over having to scroll past something on a games console, I think they need to chill.

She's someone at a professional capacity joking around with (and therefore belittling) the reactions of people who don't like something the company she represents did, which only makes those reactions more vitriolic. She needs to step down because she fails at basic PR despite that being her job.

What the initial issue was that lead to it is irrelevant at this point.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Tornado

[Jango]

Can someone who already downloaded it post some pics please? By reading the OP, I can't really understand how will the XMB look and why I should rage about.

[Scar]

Its just pointless and annoying.

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that Sony needs to revamp their UI sometime soon, or at least provide some tangible refinements to increase the ease of use. XMB is pretty simple, but some settings are buried pretty deep. This annoying thing here just solidifies my thoughts

[Stritix]

Wow, she is rude towards people that give negative feedback. I keep seeing her making sarcastic responses at them.

I don't like her one bit.

[Andrew Albacia]

She's someone at a professional capacity joking around with (and therefore belittling) the reactions of people who don't like something the company she represents did, which only makes those reactions more vitriolic. She needs to step down because she fails at basic PR despite that being her job.

What the initial issue was that lead to it is irrelevant at this point.

I was trying to appear more balanced as I don't agree with the behaviour either side. I could have worded it a little better in hindsight.

I highlighted that it wasn't professional but I was also lamenting for the comments that provoked her responses, which I have seen all too often get out of hand. Sony usually don't actually respond to much in the EU. Perhaps it's because they are all snarkers but being a customer should not exempt you from manners in the first place.

...but hey. Taking things too seriously never goes well for me.

Its just pointless and annoying.

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that Sony needs to revamp their UI sometime soon, or at least provide some tangible refinements to increase the ease of use. XMB is pretty simple, but some settings are buried pretty deep. This annoying thing here just solidifies my thoughts

The XMB was a nightmare to scroll through for games without sorting them by format anyway. Assuming you have more than say 30 games.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Andrew Albacia

[Badnik Mechanic]

You know what else is hilarious about this?

'It's Free to play!'

Well... don't you need a Microphone to play it?

'It's free to play!'

Wait... theres no songs? I have to buy them as extras!?

Aparently, theres only a few songs included in the 'free to play' XMB version, theres no way you can play the game with just these demo songs.

Has a screenshot been posted of what this looks like on the screen? I wanna see what's getting people riled up.

The icon you see there is not the game, it's actually a link to the PS Store which then downloads the game to your PS3.

Part of the reason for the anger is that they've also moved the trophy menu with this. It used to be just above where you see 'boderlands 2' on that image. Now it's under network which is 2 menus to the right.

What you could do before was play a game, press the PS button and then just press one other button before going into trophies and seeing what you needed to do/still had to do for that game... now you have to navigate to another area of the XMB in order to do that.

[Andrew Albacia]

Part of the reason for the anger is that they've also moved the trophy menu with this. It used to be just above where you see 'boderlands 2' on that image. Now it's under network which is 2 menus to the right.

What you could do before was play a game, press the PS button and then just press one other button before going into trophies and seeing what you needed to do/still had to do for that game... now you have to navigate to another area of the XMB in order to do that.

That is very annoying. It's almost reflex at this point after the ding.

[Heybunny]

That is very annoying. It's almost reflex at this point after the ding.

Isn't it just... The hell were they thinking?!

Also, Hog has the same PSN theme as me. :3

[Jango]

Oh, now I see. Well this IS annoying, I don't want an icon from a game I don't have or don't want... And why the trophies were moved to network? Maybe Sony's thinking on giving points by each kind of trophy? Points that you can trade for funds? That would be a good idea.

[Stritix]

Perhaps Sony & Singstar have an advertising agreement.

If they do, it's not going anywhere.

[Equinox]

Say what? Was this really necessary to be a permanent feature that you can't remove? They could just have made it optional...This is just so stupid

[Chooch]

For the record, they moved trophies to the PlayStation Network section on the US XMB too despite us not having SingStar.

[Sean]

Kind of reminds me how Steam likes to put in weekend free games in your library every other week. It's really annoying since I never even touch them but there they are in my library as if I actually own them.