The updates are coming fast and furious, it seems- Japan now has an updated firmware for the PS3, bringing things up to v. 1.9. This new firmware should be hitting all other regions on Tuesday.

This looks to be fairly packed with features, too- among the highlights is the ability to set custom background wallpaper (which has been available on the PSP for some time now) and the playback level of music CDs gets a boost in quality. Other features include:

* Games on the XMB can now be sorted
* Inclusion of "eject disk" on the option menu
* BD/DVD setting now provides an option for 24Hz output over HDMI
* CD music output also has new options for output frequency: 44.1, 88.2, and 176.4 kHz
* Output settings will be available for PSOne and PS2 games.
* Bookmarks can now be added
* Browser Security will be added to the tools of the PS3 internet browser
* Video settings can be changed in-game
* Music settings now include "Bit Mapping"
* Emoticons and avatars are included in the chat, avatars move in reaction to audio in AV chat
* AVCHD type animated pictures can be saved from Memory Sticks

I'd say the network is going to be pretty busy tomorrow as people get themselves up to date.

Those of us with PlayStation Portables will be interested to know there will be an update available for it as well, bringing things up to 3.52