Sony removing OtherOS feature in 3.21 PS3 update

[Niode]

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/03/ ... april-1st/

Sony are removing the OtherOS feature with the coming 3.21 firmware update.

I cannot believe Sony are doing this. If they remove this feature then I'm afraid I won't have any choice but to not upgrade my firmware and sacrifice all the PSN titles I have bought, not buy any new games since they won't be compatible, and forgo the purchase of any new BD films (not that I bought many of those anyway). I'll just wait until Geohotz finishes his little embargo into the GameOS and releases a working crack for it and I will no longer purchase anything from Sony ever again. You brought this on yourself. No company has the right to remove features from devices I paid for. I could forgive the butchered PS2 support that Europe got, I can forgive them removing it in recent SKUs to 'reduce costs'. I cannot believe they are removing an entire feature from existing SKUs, can a class-action lawsuit be based on this?

They either offer me a full refund for my PS3 or give me the entire list of features they sold me at point of sale. Holding your PS3 at ransom of updates is not an option.

[Quiet Flight]

Would running old PSN games force you to upgrade?

[DerekG52]

IANAL but I believe there is a case to be made. There was a similar class action vs Spore and its DRM that was ultimately won.

It would be 'ok' if the firmware was truly optional, but it will be held over your head if you want to play any new games you will need the firmware. From their POV, they are worried about the possibility of an exploit being published and piracy running rampant. They are also cutting out large scale server uses of the PS3, I believe the Navy has like 2500 PS3's running in parallel because of its great hardware capability.

It's one thing to drop support and leave it in there, it's another to blackmail users into upgrading. I already had a HTPC when I picked up my slim, but I can totally empathize with all the pissed off customers this will create.

Either that or is it one horrible attempt at an April Fools joke.

[emwearz]

That is so messed up, If I was a PS3 owner I would be so fucked off.

[Imperfect Dark]

I completely understand your anger. Sony is removing a feature that they gave and you paid for. What is there reasoning behind doing this anyway?

[puke_face]

For some reason, I'm not surprised. They have been making horrible decisions for a while now. I was really hoping they would pull ahead of Microsoft at some point.. but at this rate, they'll be the lucky if they can squeeze out another generation of consoles.

[MrPopo]

I completely understand your anger. Sony is removing a feature that they gave and you paid for. What is there reasoning behind doing this anyway?

People are finally starting to crack the PS3. You've already seen how militant Sony has been with their PSP firmware updates to lock out homebrew users. They want to try and nip this in the bud.

Honestly, I don't care enough to try and keep my PS3 off the network to preserve this feature. But it's still pretty shitty of them to do so.

[puke_face]

Honestly, I don't care enough to try and keep my PS3 off the network to preserve this feature. But it's still pretty shitty of them to do so.

Yea, I never used it myself. It's just the principal of the thing.

[videogameexperiment]

This is going to be really interesting on how this develops. There is some huge implications obviously in consumer-company relationships.

I love how this(http://www.haxnetwork.net/2010/03/other ... phat-ps3s/) article is not even a month old and has Sony promising continued support of Other OS.

The REALLY interesting part is that Sony used this feature to enter many markets as a Computer, NOT a gaming system. This is important for tax reasons so what happens after they strip the computer part out of it.

There has got to be a bunch of legal issues on many fronts and am surprised Sony hasn't researched that before announcing it.

[t0yrobo]

I guess I can't come up with any reason to care. The only reason I would want to be able to install linux is so I could play dl'ed games. Linux is gimped on it bad enough that it's largely useless, unless you're just crunching numbers. Based on principle I can understand being upset though. Sony has pulled an amazing amount of shit with the PS3, I'm surprised more people don't call them on it.