Back in June, when the PS3 Slim was just a theory and Firmware 3.0 was a distant dream, conjecture and rumors where flying around as to what features would be included in the update.

While most of them seemed rather vague and untrustworthy, British gaming site VG247 announced, with unprecedented confidence, that “grief reporting, reputation system, background patches, multiple audio outputs and more” would be coming to the PS3 in a “huge overhaul”, which was compared to the Xbox 360‘s NXE in some respects. September 1st came and passed, gamers eagerly downloaded Firmware 3.0, but unfortunately most of these features where not included.

Now, new evidence has been uncovered that points to these features having been merely delayed or possibly included in firmware 3.0. On the Uncharted 2 European Multiplayer Beta terms and conditions page it says “to report any other breach of the PSN Terms of Service or these terms, please let us know by using the in-game grief reporting facility or at http://ps3reporting.com”.

Often terms of service for betas are taken from the final version of the game, one that may have been created with the new firmware in mind. While grief reporting alone may not be one of the most requested and wanted features, the possible addition of a reputation system and background patches should be a welcome extra for PlayStation users.

It is very possible that in-game grief reporting may have already been placed as a background feature in the 3.0 update which must be utilized by developers, much like 2.40’s in-game music option. Adding further credence to this supposition, is the fact that the multiple audio outputs feature was rumoured by VG247, and then secretly released by Sony. On the other hand, in their haste to bring Firmware 3.0 out at the same time as the PlayStation 3 Slim launch, it is entirely possible that all these features where delayed as they where not sufficiently ready.