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Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds
Stoobalou writes "Sony says that it has no intention of reimbursing retailers if they offer users partial refunds for fat PS3s. Last week, the first PS3 user successfully secured a partial refund from Amazon UK as compensation for the removal of the ability to run Linux on the console. The user quoted European law in order to persuade the online retailer that the goods he had bought in good faith were no longer fit for his purposes because of the enforcement of firmware update 3.21, which meant that users who chose to keep the Other OS functionality would lose the ability to play the latest games or connect to the PlayStation Network."
Usually I'd be out here saying let Sony do what they want with their own platform, but this is really kind of a dick move. They don't lose anything keeping the extra functionality, and they lose a ton of goodwill by blocking out some of their most ardent supporters.
Sucky
Onerous
Nasty
Ydiots.
I'd get in on that. There is no fucking way a company should be able to disable a feature years after the purchase.
...if they didn't actually give a shit about it? What were they expecting people to do with it, if not make homebrew games and rip Blu-rays? Seems like really poor product design on their part.
totally. I guess it will be even more successful than the total boycott of Modern Warfare 2 for lack of dedicated servers. That certainly showed them!
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Note that in the EU, your contract is with (and therefore the organisation you have to sue if it all goes pear-shaped) the retailer, not the manufacturer. But now that Sony has made an official announcement, there is no way most retailers will even contemplate offering a partial refund until they receive court papers - and possibly not until it's heard and an order is handed down.
Even if ordered to by a court, a retailer isn't going to bother trying to sue Sony unless and until they have had to refund a sufficiently large number of customers as to make it worthwhile. They're certainly not going to take Sony on over a single £70 refund (which I believe is what Amazon refunded), and they probably won't until they have dealt with hundreds, if not thousands of similar refunds.
I'm not convinced there are enough people who are sufficiently bothered by it as to make that happen.
Sony: "Any refunds you offer are between you and your customers, and we're not obligated to reimburse you."
Amazon: "Thanks for the clarification. Also, we're not obligated to carry any Sony products. Just letting you know."
Hey, a guy can dream...
The PSP was infamous for having bad pixel problems. More so then any other device including the cheaper DS. So naturally Sony dug in and claimed that bad pixels were normal and it wouldn't repair or replace.
Dutch consumer watchdog program Kassa took up the story and voila, Holland become the only country were Sony replaced the PSP with ANY dead pixel or subpixel.
It is amazing how much consumer rights are being eroded by big companies who hope that the enough consumers just won't push the issue far enough for them to be forced to regonize the law.
OF course Sony has NO such problem prosecuting the consumer if they happen to violate the law (copyright infringement).
It seems that to big companies the law is a buffet. You take what you need and ignore the rest. And we are letting them get away with it.
And no, it ain't just Sony fanboys either. Apple lovers and MS apologists are just as bad.
We the consumer need to grow some balls.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The same law that dictates whether the customer should receive a refund from the retailer determines whether that retailer has recourse against Sony for their costs incurred. So if this ever ends up in court (and I know of at least one case where it looks likely that it will) then if a precedent is set that the consumer deserves a refund it's going to be hard for Sony to fight. They can refuse all they like to sanction it, but if national law says they have to pay up, then they have to pay up.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
I know that there are countries in Europe that have lower VAT rates for computers, as opposed to game consoles.
I suspect that by adding the Linux option to their PS3s, Sony was able to switch to the reduced VAT level, as hence bag more profits for the same retail price.
This may have been revoked/no longer valid/overturned/whatever recently and hence Sony has no further incentive to offer this feature.
Could also be that being classified as a computer made the console eligible for government subsidies to buy "computers" (such as in the UK the Home Access Program - http://www.becta.org.uk/homeaccess)
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
No EULA ever overrides a national law (unless the law in question has special provisions that specifically allow to override/waive it). If the EULA has provisions that are contradicting local law, local law takes priority.
That's one of fine points of labor laws in EU. The employer can give the employee a draconian contract to sign, with many nasty points that, say, raise the number of hours, reduce the number of days off, cut into the salary and so on. The employee can then just smirk, sign, and then sue if the employer tries to assert any of the points that are against labor laws.
Most of "protection laws" are written specifically in a way that makes it impossible for the protected to give up the protection, even willingly - they override any contracts that might contradict them.
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Glad I never bought one, I just don't trust Sony enough.
Funny, since the Sony ROOTKIT fiasco I have felt the same way about Sony.
Ditto, I desperately wanted to own a PS3 but I didn't feel (despite the calls at the time of "they've changed, they've changed") that they were trustworthy for a number of reasons, culminating in rootkits. They obviously care nothing for their customers, and it appears from this latest news that they care nothing for their retailers or EU law, either - I wonder, do they now feel they're too big to fail?
As for the box pictures, that makes little difference. As a customer you would only have to demonstrate that you could reasonably be expected to know about the feature - considering the amount of press the console got on the web before launch, with every single function and feature dissected and analysed, you'd have to have been living under a rock to not know about Other OS. I certainly was aware of it before the console launched (it was one of the key things that almost swayed me to buy one).
If people listened to Richard Stallman the would have seen this coming.
The Tea Party isn't going after Sony because they're not your personal fantasy fulfilling device.
Sony will get bit by this by Retailers and lawsuits, we already have existing laws and methods for dealing with this.
You're dealing with issues emotionally instead of logically.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I bought two generation one PS3's because they had the Cell processor and I wanted to experiment with high performance multi-core systems. Sony has stated that they lose money on each PS3 that doesn't get additional game revenue. They didn't state that while they were selling the first PS3 units. It wasn't part of the EULA that you were expected to buy their games. I am used to buying hardware and doing what I like with it. That didn't include any intention to reverse engineer any part of the machine, which I have not done. I guess I cannot let either of my machines accept any further updates from Sony, because Yellow Dog Linux is my development environment for Cell experimentation. I wonder if there will bea class action suit down the road about this. As an aside, I will not be buying any more Sony products, ever.