The new PS store opens exactly as the old one. We click on the little blue bag icon. But this is where similarities end. As soon as the bag icon is clicked, the XMB icons fade into the background, as "new" XMB icons fade in to take their spot. It is a neat effect similar to that of Mac OS X's Frontrow animation. A messege appears welcoming us as bells chime to signify we entered a store. A clever effect.

The PS is set to default on featured items. The feature list some what resembles Apple's Coverflow from iTunes. Video icons begin to stream for a nice effect. Makes the store seem much more interactive. Certain icons change the XMB background (such as the God of War 3 icon).

We continue browsing around. The "new" store is a lot more organized, and easier to get from place to place. The best new feature in organization is the Search menu. Basically the Search menu does exactly what we thought it would do- search! Yet, it does a lot more than what it expected. We searched "Resident Evil" on the on-screen keyboard and a few items appeared on the sidebar (note there was a fullscreen keyboard for SDTV viewing).The sidebar made everything much easier with it's on the fly sorting options and easily readable interface.

Left of the sidebar is a great preview system. It let us preview the any material before selecting it. If it were a video trailer, a short video clip would begin to play. If it were a game demo, a snazzy picture was the place holder. The preview system also allowed us to do the same old XMB options, such as pressing triangle to view more information, etc.
If the "new" PS store was ONLY, this Store Search menu, it would still be leaps and bounds better than the previous store.

We continued to the rest of the store.
The settings menus resembled standard XMB hoopla, which is well welcomed in the Store. A huge improvement over web-based menus. Also integrated into the Store was the "Account Management." From here we could change billing information, credit card info., etc. All this, without leaving the store. It made a lot more sense.

Even the "shopping cart" was vastly improved recieving its own menu. It had a similar preview system we saw previously in the Search menu. It also sported the sidebar which seems to be the standard browsing interface. But, of course, this preview system was dumbed down a bit. It still had its charm though.2