Yesterday Eric Lempel, the Director of PlayStation Network Operations, made a post on the PlayStation Blog in regards to the new PS3 firmware. It brings a couple of new features to the table, but nothing majorly huge. Unfortunately the exact release date wasn’t revealed, but we are told that it will be available “soon”. Hit the jump to see what’s in the update.

The biggest change v2.70 brings is the additon of Text Chat; this allows you to chat with up to 15 friends using the on screen keyboard, wireless keypad or other peripheral. You can chat with your friends instantaneously, chat whilst playing a PS3 game, and it allows you to be in 3 chat rooms at once.

Other Updates Include:

Friends list on the XMB (XrossMediaBar)

• Sort your friends via their online status
• Attach larger files to the messages you send to your friends (file size will increase from 1MB to 3MB)

Video delivery service on PlayStation Store

• Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future
• Videos you’ve purchased for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback

For a snazzy video of the Text Chat feature check out the Blog, it looks pretty cool. What do you guys think of the update?