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.
It does everything except Linux.
Sonys decision to kill features we all paid for is beyond idiotic, its criminal. what they did is deliberately hack hardware we legally purchased and used. The damage goes beyond loss of linux. the firmware downgrades have also been bricking consoles in large numbers & intruducing numerous malfunctions. If any of us did this to thousands of people you can bet we’d be arrested n imprisoned.
4 any of you who’ve folllowed sony news in the past while will know the company is already in a very precarious position. Recent losses for the fiscal year end are $441 million. Alienating customers by the thousands is at best insane.
Something 4 all of us to consider is this: even if by some miracle sony survives their own stupidity of the current scandal they’ve lost a great many futre sales, not just games or their next console either but all across their product line. But considering their track record of bad decisions & heavy quality control problems thats a good thing for us “consumers”.
What we must all remember is this is not the unquestionable sony socialist republic, this is a world were we have choices. I for 1 have wisely chosen to no longer spend my hard earned money on sonys questionable business practices & dubious products. Thousands of others have done the same and none of us have any regrets.
1 final not to the diehard sony fans, Up until the end of march I was one of you. Thankfully thats a mistake I do NOT have to live with.
They are not going to win. Sony’s disclaimer clearly states that they have the right to change things like this when ever they deem it nessessary. If these idiots read it they wouldn’t be trying crap like this.
I doubt such disclaimer is enforceable. They would be idiots if they didn’t even try to sue. Do you really think it is okay if Sony takes away features from already sold products.
The only reason they do these things is because people let them get away with it.
Whelp. After reading the comments, its time i get a 360. If this s♥♥t goes through sony is fucked.
sounds like sony need to hire pheonix wright