The Playstation Store has been the subject of much criticism for being hard to navigate and ill-fitted for a console. Closely resembling a crappy html site from 1997, the previous store was a mess of buttons and seemed like it was a last-minute addition to fit downloadable content for Pain and Warhawk.

Sony has finally released screenshots of their soon-to-be updated store that will hopefully help bring Sony’s store to the current generation. While it doesn’t have flashy visuals or anything innovative, fans of the Playstation 3 should finally be able to find what they want from the store in a timely fashion. There isn't an official date, but the word is that we will see it in mid-April. Here are some images as well as the press release from Sony.

PLAYSTATION®Store to undergo April revamp

Customer feedback drives new design, interface and navigation Updates on hold for two weeks; new-look Store launches mid-April

This April, PLAYSTATION®Store, the online content store on PLAYSTATION®Network, is getting a whole new look and feel - and it's in response to feedback from the millions of PSN registrants in the PAL region.

The revamp comes in response to a survey last year which showed that many PLAYSTATION Store users wanted a better interface and easier navigation. The new design will deliver a hugely improved navigation system, much greater scope for categorisation and a dynamic new user interface.

Content will be suspended for two weeks while the improvements are carried out but users can look forward to a special update in mid-April.

There will be no weekly content updates between now and the re-launch, although users can still download content from the back catalogue, such as Warhawk™ and Gran Turismo™ 5 Prologue.

The PLAYSTATION Store revamp will not affect PLAYSTATION Network accounts or the virtual wallet system.

While it mentions the PAL region specifically, Sony has confirmed that the same will apply to the United States and, likely, Japanese consoles. The release also says that they will be suspending updates until the new store is live, so stay tuned for a large update to the PSN in just a few weeks.

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