13th May 2010, 1:15 AM
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/...-force.ars
I thought of these sorts of situations back when Sony first said they were going to cut the feature. One question is why they would upgrade the firmware on those systems if all of them were intended to be in Linux all the time. I suppose the answer could be that Sony hadn't shipped all of their order when this change hit and the PS3s they are recieving now are the "updated" variety. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. It's more an issue of what happens when they need one repaired or replaced. That's not really an option now. Sony's standard method of repair includes installing the latest firmware by default, and no new systems support it. In an example of giving large companies way more respect than they deserve, the US MILITARY is simply "disappointed" by this decision, thinks it's "wrong". Way to show some gumption there fellas.
Bad press Sony doesn't care about. Lawsuits get messy but there were no promises of any action there, but with the government itself deeply involved in this situation, combined with the rest of their issues regarding this, Sony could very likely be seriously looking at reversing their "upgrade" with a future piece of firmware, marking this as a well-remembered (hopefully) lesson in what NOT to do with automatic firmware updating.
I thought of these sorts of situations back when Sony first said they were going to cut the feature. One question is why they would upgrade the firmware on those systems if all of them were intended to be in Linux all the time. I suppose the answer could be that Sony hadn't shipped all of their order when this change hit and the PS3s they are recieving now are the "updated" variety. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. It's more an issue of what happens when they need one repaired or replaced. That's not really an option now. Sony's standard method of repair includes installing the latest firmware by default, and no new systems support it. In an example of giving large companies way more respect than they deserve, the US MILITARY is simply "disappointed" by this decision, thinks it's "wrong". Way to show some gumption there fellas.
Bad press Sony doesn't care about. Lawsuits get messy but there were no promises of any action there, but with the government itself deeply involved in this situation, combined with the rest of their issues regarding this, Sony could very likely be seriously looking at reversing their "upgrade" with a future piece of firmware, marking this as a well-remembered (hopefully) lesson in what NOT to do with automatic firmware updating.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)