Norway thinks that Sony’s removal of the ‘other OS’ function violates marketing laws

Sony has already taken plenty of flak by removing the “other OS” function from the PS3 with its recent firmware upgrade, apparently because it gave users the possibility of unauthorized hacking and piracy. Now there might be more trouble for Sony as the Norway Consumer Council has reportedly received many complaints from PS3 owners who are unhappy over the whole issue and the Consumer Council has taken the issue to Norway’s Consumer Ombudsman, claiming that Sony breached Norway’s Marketing Control Act, arguing that Sony removed a key product feature after sale.

While Sony argues that it has a ‘universal right’ to change or withdraw functions from their console, the Consumer Council said that there must be a limit to what constitutes reasonable modifications to products after their sale and argues that the terms ‘upgrade’ and ‘update’ imply feature enhancements, not redactions. What do you think of the whole issue?

Matthew Chung
Categories: Gaming
Tags: linux, PlayStation 3, PS3, Sony