Discussions have long been had about getting XMB into PS3 games. We’ve complained long enough about this feature being missing from Sony’s system, and in recent days forums have alighted with tales of what’s to come in the fabled 2.40 update. The best part is this time it’s for real: firmware update 2.40 will indeed include in-game XMB functionality.

Along with that is Sony’s answer to Achievements, the Trophies. Funny enough it feels, from both forums and friends, that getting Achievements of any kind have lost their luster. You rarely hear people say they’d buy the 360 version of a 3rd party game simply for the Achievements. A year ago that was a completely different mindset.

And hey, since Home won’t be released until December of 2014 it’ll be nice to have those Trophies a little sumthin’ sumthin’. Instead of using a numeric system the PS3 Trophies are broken up into levels: Gold, Silver and Bronze. You then get points which “level” your new gamerprofile. And if you want to compare and contrast you can pull up all of a friend’s trophies and see who is the superior gamer.

The nice thing about all of this is that the user interface is vastly superior to that used on the 360. The generic number system looks so ahem…last gen, by comparison. I’ve never been a gamerscore whore though, so this is of little interest to me.

The update goes live this Wednesday.