So I have long been contemplating creating a separate blog for how much I hate misleading marketing or otherwise abusive behavior against consumers, but considering how little I have been blogging my personal life, there doesn't seem to be much justification for maintaining two separate blogs, so here goes.
When the "It only does everything" campaign launched, I just about applauded, because Sony's marketing team had finally captured the appeal of the PS3 versus competing products. At launch time, it was a hard sell to justify the initial PS3's $599 (USD) price tag versus the XBOX360's $399 price. Those, like me, who did choose the PS3 at launch did so because of technologies it supported that its competitors did not -- BluRay, SACD, BlueTooth, HDD upgrades, various memory cards, WiFi, PS2 games, and Linux. I was personally sold on many of those features because I had never owned a device that supported those features (with the exception of HDD upgrades and WiFi on my Mac), so I felt I was bundling over $600 worth of devices into a single purchase.Unfortunately, Sony's timing with the ad is terrible. At the time this campaign began, many of the aforementioned features had been removed from the latest iteration of the hardware. Obviously, those who already owned PS2s and Linux PCs probably wouldn't have found much value in paying a premium to have PS2 and Linux support on yet another device, so in order to improve sales, Sony entered a lower price point by removing features. While an understandable business decision, we can effectively say the PS3 no longer does "everything".
To make matters worse, Sony decided to retroactively remove the "OtherOS" feature from existing PS3s, thereby removing any existing Linux partitions on consumer's PS3s. Sony suggested that the change was out of fear that consumers would do too much “tinkering” through Linux – which, in all fairness, is a pretty accurate description of the Linux experience. Sony is now being sued for the decision.
Sony has defended their position saying that “OtherOS” was never advertised, despite official documentation on their website, press statements, and the fact that it was always right there in the menu. Granted, not all consumers cared, but for the same reason, not all consumers are aware of the SIXAXIS feature, which has only been ambiguously advertised, allowing Sony to make claims now that they are finally "breaking into the motion gaming business" despite having supported motion gaming since launch.
Sony is essentially suggesting either that the ability to run Linux didn't impact consumers' purchase decision, or that any consumer who DID use Linux isn't legally represented by this case. Personally, the support for Linux convinced me to make the purchase before waiting for any inevitable drop in price because I was a computer engineering student and felt that building my Linux skills would be vital in getting a good job down the road. (In this same fashion, I originally bought a Mac because its developer tools helped me build my Java skills.) Many consumers probably found as I did that a wired keyboard is impractical from a typical living room viewing distance, so when Sony released its wireless keyboard peripheral, I bought that accessory with the SOLE INTENT of using it with Linux.
Sony finally has cited that consumers do not "own" the software and therefore should not be able to complain about changes. I see several flaws with this logic. First, Sony's HDD is not proprietary; it is a generic FAT32-partitioned 2.5" drive, and the consumer is free to place SW data OWNED BY THE CONSUMER onto the "OtherOS" partition as I had done. Sony is free to patch their own SW all they want, but that legal freedom does not extend to SW owned by other parties, including the Yellow Dog Linux OS and data installed and/or authored by me.
This distinction that Sony owns the GameOS/OtherOS and that I own the data I put on the HDD exposes an additional legal flaw. If I have valuable data on my HDD, back it up to an external drive with the backup wizard, and pull the internal HDD to save two precious copies of my data, you would think my data is safe, right? On the contrary. If the PS3 has to be serviced, Sony does not "fix" your unit. Instead, the unit is replaced, and the new unit recognizes that your HDD was used in a different unit and therefore will be erased. Furthermore, the external backup will only PARTIALLY restore for the same reason. Sony is effectively saying that they own not only their OS but also every byte of data you load into their enclosure.
So here's to the PS3, which truly DID everything once upon a time.
