PS3 Linux Lawsuit Could Cost Sony Billions! (And a 100dollar rebate to all ps3 o

[Zoophilian]

Information from the Sankaku Complex site is as follows ^,.,^


The scope of the class action lawsuit facing Sony over its removal of PS3 Linux support could include over 10 million consoles, potentially reaching billions of dollars in refunds if everything goes the lawyers’ way.

The law firm handling the case is claiming the console’s high price was due to the inclusion of Linux support, most probably in an effort to increase the size of the final settlement:

    “This class definition reflects, in part, that Sony commanded a much higher price for the gaming console based on the functionality of the ‘Other OS’ feature at the time of its launch and trumpeted the ‘Other OS’ feature in its subsequent marketing.

    As a result, consumers paid much more for a product than they should otherwise have been charged now that Sony has disabled the ‘Other OS’ feature.”

The firm is urging PS3 owners to hang onto consoles and receipts if they want in on the action.

With lawyers seeking an “everybody in the country who bought the PS3 from the time of launch until March 27, 2010” scope, some 13 million PS3s would be included in the suit.

Even restricting the scope to pre-Slim PS3s, 9 million PS3s could easily be included. Successful suits in less litigious nations seem less likely, but over 30 million PS3s worldwide presents a huge potential liability.

Amazon’s discretionary refund of $100 for lost Linux support sets a threatening precedent for Sony – presumably a court enforced refund would be much less.

A substantial success for such a suit would probably spell doom for the PlayStation – billions of dollars in additional liability would be a huge blow to Sony’s struggling financial position, and in the boardroom would have an even worse effect on the perceived importance of SCE to Sony as a whole.

However much the final lawsuit comes to, it seems unlikely any console will ever officially support a third party OS again after such a fiasco.

[Zoophilian]

A PS3 owner has been awarded a $100 rebate by Amazon on the basis that Sony’s decision to remove Linux support in its latest firmware revision is at odds with EU law.

Reportedly the user invoked EU consumer law which states goods must be “fit for the purpose which the consumer requires them and which was made known to the seller at the time of purchase” in order to claim a refund from Amazon.co.uk, in spite of the fact the PS3 in question was actually long out of warranty.

Amazon apparently offered the refund without regard to whether he had actually used the feature.

It is not clear whether Amazon will be offering refunds to all buyers based on decision – most probably with the case being publicised all and sundry will attempt to claim refunds, which could amount to very large amounts considering how many PS3s Amazon is likely to have sold in the EU.

With Sony unlikely to entertain any reimbursements to Amazon without a major legal struggle (as it would represent a catastrophic precedent), it seems any refunds will be coming out of Amazon’s pockets – presumably Amazon will put a quick stop to them.

Angry pirates and the usual noisy handful of Linux fanatics have been busily spinning this lone decision by Amazon customer service into a possible class action violation of EU consumer protection laws by Sony, although this conveniently overlooks the fact that upgrading older units is a voluntary process and that un-upgraded units still run Linux or previously released software without difficulty.

Meanwhile, the cracker responsible for causing Linux support to be revoked in the first place claims to have hacked Linux support back into the latest firmware – naturally he is being widely feted in spite of the rather obvious fact that it was his efforts to bring piracy to the platform which caused Sony’s nerve to crack in the first place.

[Zoophilian]

Dont forget this little fact, like the article says. Sony said that ps3 is also better then other consoles because it can support 3rd party OS. Such as linux. So basically sony said it was okay to install an OS into their system even if it technically counts as a hack thats where sony messed up they said their system could support an OS.