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Sony opened a legal can of worms last April when it chose to withdraw support for PS3’s “Other OS” feature with the introduction of firmware version 3.21, citing concerns about the system’s security. But the company soon found itself at the receiving end of a flurry of class action lawsuits from console owners feeling shortchanged by the removal of a feature that once figured prominently in marketing campaigns. The feature allowed other operating systems to be installed on non-slim PS3s.
Now, Sony’s legal troubles are proving themselves to be pretty good travelers, having followed the company to Scandinavia. The Consumer Council of Norway has decided to file a complaint to the company’s Consumer Ombudsman over the arbitrary removal of the Other OS feature. The autonomous government agency has been receiving complaints ever since firmware 3.21 became available.
"Sony claims a universal right to change or remove functionality from the gaming console. The Consumer Council strongly believes there needs to be a limit to what constitutes a reasonable change to products we buy—and that terms of service that grant the manufacturer full access to literally downgrade the product or limit the functionality are unreasonable and in clear violation of the Marketing Control Act," Øyvind H. Kaldestad of the Consumer Council told ArsTechnica.
"When a company use [sic] terms like 'updates' or 'upgrades,' it is reasonable to expect a significant improvement of the product and not the risk of being stuck with a lesser product."
The Consumer council also lambasted consumer electronics companies like Sony for abusing after-sale access to connected devices “to do almost whatever he or she wants” under the pretext of enhancing these devices through software updates.
Comments are closed on this article
jlh304
January 28, 2011 at 10:25am
So how do I sign up for this class action law suit. My ps3 has suffered.
schneider1492
January 28, 2011 at 2:46am
ya, i would not have bought mine if i had known that was going to be removed. why didn't i get a 360 instead.
mesiah
January 27, 2011 at 11:28pm
This is exactly the reason why I will never own another sony product again. The last sony product I purchased was a ps2. You were supposed to be able to watch DVDs on it, but only about half the dvds I ever put in the thing actually played. Then comes ps3, where they remove more features with every update. Eventually they will disable the ability to play games all together and claim that it is simply designed to be an extremely limited web browser.
Sorry sony, but you aren't getting any of my money.
COMMANDER_COOK
January 27, 2011 at 11:53pm
The only discs my PS2 wouldn't play were damaged discs that even my computer had trouble with.
But I must agree, removing a feature is a CRIME!
