Today Sony released a new firmware update for the PS3, reaching version 1.70. There’s some pretty big new features.

The best part of the new firmware is allowing play on the PS3 of downloadable PS1 games. This is going to make me buy even more! For one price, you get the game to play both on your PS3 and PSP. As of now, none of the games work on PS3 yet. I would expect some updates and more PS1 games made available either this afternoon or next Thursday during Sony’s normal release schedule.

You can also use PS1 saves on both PS3 and PSP for these games. So you can take your gamesaves with you wherever you go to continue on your game. This is a cool feature as well.

The last big thing in the update is that vibration now works with PS1 and PS2 games when you use a controller adapter and fire up your 3rd party only controllers (sorry, Dual Shocks still don’t work). Hopefully we’ll see a version of the SIXAXIS with rumble sooner than later.

No official update from Sony on the PS3 site yet. There’s also a lot of rumblings on the internet of Guitar Hero controllers now working properly on the PS3. If this is true, this is amazing news for Guitar Hero fans. I would have bought the game for PS2 for cheaper than the 360 if this was the case a few weeks ago. Oh well.