Sony taken to court over PS3 'Other OS' removal

[TM2-Megatron]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/sony-ta...her-os-removal/

Sony forced PS3 owners into a tough decision with the mandatory 3.21 firmware update: either lose online play, or forgo Linux support. On Tuesday, Anthony Ventura chose door number three -- and filed a lawsuit in California, asking the judge for class-action status. The complaint quotes Sony executives on numerous occasions saying how vital and important the "Install Other OS" feature was to the game console (it's a computer, remember?) and claims breach of contract, false advertising, and several other causes of action against the entertainment giant. Sure, a lawsuit was bound to happen, given the number of angry PS3 owners out there, but here's the thing: there's no telling whether the court will grant a class-action certification here, and even if the case gets that far it's pretty unlikely to force Sony to turn the feature back on -- instead, customers will probably receive a token amount in damages while the lawyers get their full fees. For example, a rare, successful class-action suit against Palm -- filed in 2004 -- got Treo 600 owners only $27.50 in store credit, five years later. Meanwhile, we hear European PS3 owners just have to ask for their money back -- which, we promise you, is the fastest way to put an end to your Linux-based PS3 nightmares. Either that, or just wait for Geohot to make it all better.

While I'm not a PS3 owner, I can see why some users would be upset over this... it does seem to remove advertised functionality from the hardware for no justifiable reason. There are people (including some companies and organizations, I've heard) which bought the PS3 primarily because of the Other OS feature. A few of them networked together running Linux can be turned into a relatively low-cost supercomputer, and they've been used as such.

I've also read that at least a few EU residents have already received a partial refund due to the feature reduction, courtesy of some EU regulation (Directive 1999/44/EC, apparently).