Despite being April Fools day, there sure is no shortage of real announcements coming in through the pipeline from Sony. Following a spate of rumors, the company just announced that firmware 2.70 is inbound for PS3. It will highlight the introduction of in-game text chat, a much-requested addition that will allow PSN users to communicate with up to 15 other buddies at a time. Great to see it finally coming, as we know PS3 owners have been clamoring for such a feature for awhile now.

Additionally, firmware 2.7 includes a few more enhancements, such as the ability to sort PSN friends by current online status and attach files up to 3MB in size to private messages — the previous limit was 1MB.

For users of Sony’s on-demand video download service, this firmware update will allow the transferring of purchase video files to an external storage device for backup purpose. The files can then later be restored to the PS3’s internal hard drive. Last but not least, videos purchased on PSP can now be directly transferred to the PS3 for playback.

No release date has been stamped on the firmware as of yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as the update hits. Usually, firmware updates are released a few hours after an announcement is made, so seeing it pop up as soon as tonight isn’t out of the question. To help ease the wait, check out a demonstration of the new features in 2.70 above, courtesy of PlayStation Network director Eric Lempel.

Follow this author on Twitter.