This week PS Home will receive a core client update for version 1.65. Glasswalls provided the details of what will be included at: http://community.us.playstation.com/message/37633772#37633772

New Features

The new Menu Screen replaces the old Menu Pad.
It functions in a very similar way to the old Menu Pad but we have made many improvements to its speed and ease of use.
- It starts faster and responds better making it quicker and more satisfying to navigate around.
- There is an updated graphical design.
- And a much better layout.
  - Key options are more readily accessible.
  - All options are in more logical places and easier to find.
- Everything is clearer because there is room to lay things out properly when using the full size of the screen.
- Options to globally disable voice or text chat have been removed from the Menu Screen as these already exist in the Home Safe Screen (accessed with [SELECT]).
Browsing your inventory from the Menu Screen now uses the same system as the Wardrobe and Furniture Browser. This means:

It is much quicker to open and view your inventory.
You can sort and filter your items.
You can move Portable items, such as companions, that you do not use very often into Portable item Storage.

Each apartment or clubhouse can hold up to 100 items of furniture measured in slots. Prior to patch 1.65 a Normal Furniture Item always took up 1 slot and an Active Furniture Item always took up 22 slots.
With patch 1.65 developers will now be able to create Normal and Active Furniture Items of different slot sizes. Therefore Active Furniture Items can be created that take up fewer slots and you will be able to place as many Active Furniture Items in your personal space as will fit.
Please note that all existing furniture items created prior to patch 1.65 will still be either 1 or 22 slots in size.
To make it easier to organize, the furniture placement menus now display a new bar that provides a visual representation of the furniture slots in use.
- This shows the number of slots used, the number of slots free and how many slots the currently selected item of furniture uses.
- It warns you if placing the selected item would exceed the capacity of your Personal Space.
- It shows how the slot usage will change if you remove multiple items.
The furniture detail menu (accessed by clicking the left stick [L3]) shows how many furniture slots a specific item occupies.
How many slots a piece of furniture will use is also displayed on the detail page of each item when you are viewing it in the store.

A Personal Voice Chat behaves in a similar manner to a Telephone call and can be initiated in the same way (from the Friends list, from the Chat Log or by targeting someone).
The major benefit of this new system is that a Personal Voice Chat is treated as another voice channel by the chat log.

This means all communication is now managed from one place: the Chat Log.
You can switch between voice channels while remaining in a Personal Voice Chat without having to end the conversation.

The Alerts that pop up on screen have a new graphical design.
Pressing [START] with an alert on screen now opens the Alert tab in the Chat Log.
- And when you are viewing the Alerts tab pressing [START] opens the Menu Screen regardless of any Alerts that might be arriving at the time.
Much like the original Alerts menu you can view a list of active Alerts and interact with them from this tab.
The tab also indicates how many Alerts are available to view.

Shop from the Wardrobe

Extra “Shopping” chips have been added to the Wardrobe overview as well as each category of clothing.
These chips take you to shops offering more clothing choices.

Cross game invite to group

The cross game invite system has been expanded and now allows you to invite friends outside PlayStation Home directly into your group.

When you are in a group you can access this new type of cross game invite from the Groups area of the Menu Screen.
Standard cross game invites are still available but will not put your friend into your group.

The process of submitting a report is a lot simpler and requires fewer button presses.
The whole system is a lot more robust.
More feedback is provided if there is a problem.
A new graphical design brings the interface more in line with the rest of PlayStation Home including reflecting your chosen pop-up color.

Improvements

The interface on all of the video screens around PlayStation Home has been improved. This includes:

Improved the stability of real time games making it more likely that you will be able to consistently and reliably join one.
Optimized the start up flow by combining some of the configuration files into a single download. This may reduce the log in time by a small amount and will help reduce the chance of an error during log in.
Changed the general download system that PlayStation Home uses to increase responsiveness and potentially provide a small improvement to download speeds.
Made some general improvements to networking that should increase reliability.
Smoothed out the loading of images for display on either side of the message of the day.

For a discussion about this topic, please visit our Incognito forum website: http://www.incognito-x.com/t890-ps-home-v1-65-core-client-upate#7179 . If you would like to participate in the discussion and share your thoughts, please sign up to be a member of our site at: http://www.incognito-x.com