Sony Sued Over Bricked PS3s 438
Zarrot writes "If Sony's recent 3.00 PS3 firmware update bricked your console, you may now have legal recourse thanks to a class action suit against Sony. The complaint alleges that thousands of users (PDF) were affected by the update, and in some cases the PS3 hardware itself was damaged. It continues, 'For owners who sustained hardware damage from the Sony-required update, Sony is charging a $150 repair fee per unit. Sony, responding to the numerous complaints about the unacceptable effects of the defective update, released a further, optional update that it claimed "improves system stability" — yet performance problems continued, and the new update did nothing to remedy the systems of users who sustained hardware damage."'"
XCP on steroids! (Score:4, Insightful)
Never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by greedy self-interest. Is it possible that this was deliberate? After all, they deliberately rooted thousands of PCs (inclusing mine) a few years ago, so you KNOW they're evil even by corporate standards, and they're charging $150 to fix a problem that their "update" caused.
They won't brick MY PS3, because there's no way in hell I'll buy another product from the company that rooted my computer with a trojan in a music CD. Why do people keep buying stuff from this company? I won't -- once bitten, twice shy. Buy from Sony and you're asking to get screwed, with sand as lube.
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't this same thing happen recently with the Wii console?
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/10/01/0626228 [slashdot.org]
One used to be able to trust the mainstream console makers, but not so much anymore.
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:5, Informative)
http://techforums.nintendo.com/nins/board/message?board.id=wii_tech&thread.id=29992 [nintendo.com]
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Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:4, Insightful)
So - what's left Microsoft?
The company that gave us the xbox360 red ring of death?
Choose your poison, because its all poison.
Me, I choose Nintendo, because at least they aren't trying to take control of my home media center the way sony and microsoft are. That and I've actually had postive experiences with their customer support. They replaced my Wii sports disc for nothing because it was scratched. They sent out those complimentary rubber shells for the wii remotes a few months after I purchased it. No company is perfect, but I find it hard to work up a real hate on for Nintendo. I don't even have to try for Sony or Microsoft.
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I'm wondering why this isn't a criminal case. They broke your shit, and now they're charging you to fix it? Sounds like a clear case of extortion to me. Screw the lawsuit, let's put some people in jail -- oh wait -- prison, because they did it across state lines.
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony claiming the hardware is licensed, not sold in 3... 2... 1...
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine for the same reason that nobody went to prison over XCP. If I'd done to one of their computers what they did to mine, I'd be in prison right now.
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I haven't installed the update. I still play all my games just fine.
There is no forced decision.
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As a PS3 owner who hasn't installed the 3.0 update, I can verify the article is wrong.
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:4, Informative)
That still doesn't excuse the fact that their update bricked the hardware... nor is it the first time. I seem to remember a story a few months ago where new updates were bricking the older, PSX/PS2 reverse-compatible models (I have one and avoided it.)
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They don't? Since when?
A PS3 is effectively useless when it isn't up to date with latest greatest firmware. You are not allowed to sign in on the PS3 network without latest firmware, that means no online games, no software updates, no buying new games from the online store etc.
Sony fucked up, they have to clean up their mess.
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>Sony doesn't force the update on anyone.
Except that you can bet that new software/games will require that the update be present or it won't run.
> And if the console is still under warranty, they fix it. It it isn't under warranty, they charge. That is pretty standard as far as business practices go. The decent thing would be for Sony to do all these repairs for free if they can tell the console was bricked by the update.
Which is what Nintendo did when their 4.0 update hosed a large number of Wii
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>>>The decent thing for Sony to do is pay up. However, they may not be legally required to do so
My understanding of the law, based upon the results from the Paypal case, is that agreements do not overrule State or National Law. You might sign an agreement that says "no warranty provided" but the consumer protection laws would nullify that agreement as invalid, and force the manufacturer to replace the broken hardware, or else face massive government-imposed fines.
And if that doesn't work, the cust
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is it possible that this was deliberate?
I'm not even going to tough the rest of your post, but you can't be serious here. Pissing off your extremely well networked customer base enough to start a class action lawsuit by deliberately bricking your *latest* offering? Wtf.
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Pissing off your extremely well networked customer base enough to start a class action lawsuit by deliberately bricking your *latest* offering? Wtf.
As opposed to rooting your paying customers' PCs with a trojan loaded on a music CD? I hardly see the difference, except in this case they charge you $150 to fix what they broke.
These people are unindicted criminals, nothing less. Why would you put anything past a sociopathic organization?
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Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:4, Insightful)
Politicians call it "plausable deniability". I seriously doubt that any details on what the rootkit would do to a user's computer were withheld from Sony, including disabling all CD-burning software and P2P software. My daughter unwillingly installed XCP on my PC, never dreaming that a major corporation would be VANDALS.
There's no way you'll convince me that Sony didn't know that XCP would disable P2P and CD burning software. That was its primary purpose, and it was nothing short of vandalism. Someone should have gone to prison for XCP.
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:4, Informative)
let's not forget the screwed by sony part...
sony pushed a "special" screw for 61+ euro when it was not special at all.
http://i35.tinypic.com/2q1z68m.jpg [tinypic.com]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2007/may/28/sonyuserscrew [guardian.co.uk]
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You can't tell from the photo, but that screw has a rootkit built in! If you had used a normal screw, you'd be deprived of getting screwed twice.
Re:XCP on steroids! (Score:5, Insightful)
Never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by greedy self-interest. Is it possible that this was deliberate? After all, they deliberately rooted thousands of PCs (inclusing mine) a few years ago, so you KNOW they're evil even by corporate standards, and they're charging $150 to fix a problem that their "update" caused.
They won't brick MY PS3, because there's no way in hell I'll buy another product from the company that rooted my computer with a trojan in a music CD. Why do people keep buying stuff from this company? I won't -- once bitten, twice shy. Buy from Sony and you're asking to get screwed, with sand as lube.
Despite my being a Nintendo fanboy and somebody who despises Sony, I can't follow you with the pitchfork on this one. This sort of scam requires exreme levels of short-sighted-stupidity and greed, that Microsoft hasn't even reached. There's no way any guy wearing a tie there is going to see that as profitable even after the legal settlements.
Brick happens.
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Greetings and Salutations....
I tend to agree about Sony....they used to be good, but, today? too many questionable decisions.
On the other hand, the update DID increase the stability of the units. After all, what is more stabile than a brick?
regards
dave mundt
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here, here, i second that motion....no more Sony allowed!
A few questions about this (Score:2)
I have a 60 GB PS3, hardware compatible PS2 mode, but I don't use it very often, partially because it runs hot, but partially because I am doing other things. When did this update come out, and if I try to update now, will they have fixed the problem?
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As far as the console getting to hot, I picked up a cooling station for the PS3 and it has helped keep it running cooler (if not more quietly). Also be sure you've got enough airspace for proper ventilation.
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I have the backwards compatible version with hardware GS and software EE and it's fully up to date with patches and the PS2 compatibility works fine. Just played through Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus (which is perhaps the most demanding PS2 game ever made) last weekend.
Sony is no longer a reputable vendor (Score:4, Informative)
I had the misfortune of buying one of their GPS units. Despite the fact that their support clearly acknowledged the defects the unit had from the day of purchase, Sony did not release a fix until 7 months later. Sony insists that I pay $99.95 to get that update. Needless to say, I no longer will buy Sony products.
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Re:Sony is no longer a reputable vendor (Score:5, Insightful)
That can happen to anybody - all vendors have some lemons. The question is, how many and how do they handle it when they sold you something with a problem? A good vendor will take care of it to the best of their ability and leave you with as little problems as possible - a bad vendor will ignore you.
I got an outdated DPT RAID controller from a friend a decade ago. It had problems cooperating with my BIOS - it would only boot correctly (exactly) every second time, or something like that. Not something that was a big deal to me, and the card was about five years old at that time (and I was not the original owner). However, I sent them an email to just ask if they had a solution. They immediately (as in same day, and without me asking for it) sent me new firmware chips by Fedex. Shipping came to $70 - more than the card was worth on the second hand market.
I've had other vendors that have driven out in the middle of the night with replacement servers when I suspected that there was a problem with one of the servers they'd delivered.
It's not the failure - it's the failure to handle the failure.
Eivind.
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For me Sony stopped being a reputable vendor when a stereo given to me as a present a few years ago was stolen.
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Sony stopped being a reputable vendor the moment they infected people's electronics with their very own trojan. From there it all went down hill. It is disgusting that Sony can issue a patch that they know know to be faulty and then actually charge people to fix the damage that Sony created in the first place. Someone get a class action lawsuit together and sue these crooks.
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Yeah they are.
I love their stuff. Sleek, light and powerful laptops, fantastic looking consumer electronics. Never had a problem with any of it myself.
The fact that sony music screwed up with the rootkit debacle is a shame, but as a linux user I don't really care.
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That's completely different and you know it.
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Bricked Consoles? (Score:5, Insightful)
So now Nintendo and Sony have both managed to brick consoles with firmware updates. Great.
Sorry, fellas. YOU broke it, YOU don't get to bill US to fix your mistakes.
Re:Bricked Consoles? (Score:5, Informative)
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Good idea. 3.0 has an ad ticker that you cannot disable - it's constantly scrolling stuff for you to buy, new games, etc. (This is different from the startup ad, which you CAN disable). 2.x had the "info bar" ticker as well, but that was a
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So out of 25 million units sold, 'thousands' of units were damaged by the update? If you release a software update that only causes problems with roughly one hundredth of a percent of your user base, using several different hardware revisions, I think your quality testing division did a good job. Who is to say these users weren't already running marginal hardware, and the new firmware just doesn't handle faults as gracefully?
I'm not in defense of Sony, I have no knowledge of this particular issue, but E
Re:Bricked Consoles? (Score:5, Insightful)
The story isn't the system getting bricked, but having users pay for the fix. If a Ford breaks down that is fine. It is a Ford and I expected it to happen sooner or later, but if a Ford rep shows up in my driveway and tells me that he needs to "fix something" before I can drive it and his fix causes my engine to melt, I'll damn sure expect him to fix it or at least pay for the damages.
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So now Nintendo and Sony have both managed to brick consoles with firmware updates. Great.
I know I can't be the first person to think the next line was going to say something about Xbox 360 bricking so as to complete the unholy trinity.
Re:Bricked Consoles? (Score:5, Funny)
That's why the Xbox360 is the superior console.
It bricks itself out of the box. No updates needed.
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Microsoft was also being hit with lawsuits over the hardware failures of the 360, so don't go thinking they extended the warranty because of their benevolent nature. Not everyone with a broken 360 got a free fix, many died before the warranty extension. I knew someone who made a nice little side job of repairing 360s that were out of warranty for less than Microsoft was charging.
Legal Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
you may now have legal recourse thanks to a class action suit against Sony.
I'm probably being excessively pedantic, but you don't need a class action suit to have "legal recourse." It's just easier as a class. You can sue on your own if your property was damaged or a contract was violated.
Re:Legal Recourse (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think about it, wouldn't it hurt Sony more if everyone that was harmed by Sony's "update" took them to small claims court? They'd have to send a lawyer & in some jurisdictions, they'd actually have to send an officer of the company. If no one shows up, they lose by default. Class action lawsuits are there to make things easier on the legal system & on lawyers, but you know what? Screw both of them.
Re:Legal Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
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In Florida you can only appeal to a Circuit court to review the law, not the facts. The law for property damage is pretty cut & dry here. If they don't pay, you can put a lien on any real property they have until they do so. You can also have a sheriff seize non real estate property to be sold to pay your judgment.
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We aren't talking about a repair. You simply add that cost on top of the cost for a new PS3. Most small claims courts limit damages from $500 - $1500. Florida's happens to be $5000. My step-father has taken a few renters to small claims over damages or back rent & the lost wages addition is pretty standard.
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That's bull. You cannot recover lost wages incurred by appearing in small claims court. The only lost wages you can sue for in small claims court are those lost because the defendant physically prevented you from working (i.e. Sony came to your house and smashed your fingers, preventing you from working as a coder). Suing someone is voluntary. To quote the website of one cities small claims court:
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You can bet your ass I would especially after seeing how easy default judgements are to obtain when the other side doesn't show up. Taking off of work is no problem for me, even on short notice. Hell, I can work at home when I need to.
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You're absolutely right, but I believe that people should be at least made aware that there are other methods of obtaining justice aside from a class-action. Especially when the "justice" afforded by most class-actions is meager at best & insulting at worst.
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In Florida you can file a lien on real property or have a sheriff seize property and sell it to pay you your judgment.
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As the above poster mentioned, small claims court.
Sue for the cost of the console and filing fees.
I'm relatively sure no one will show to contest the suit, as that would cost more than the default judgment.
Don't sue for replacement unit, sue for replacement cost, thus you can keep your old unit for parts and such.
-nB
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
So glad... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So glad... (Score:5, Funny)
Ya, no updates needed to brick an xbox!
Re:So glad... (Score:5, Interesting)
At least Microsoft fixes them for free.
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Bricked? (Score:4, Insightful)
I ran out of gas and now my car is bricked! (Score:5, Informative)
When it doesn't do what it's supposed to do (or stops doing what it's supposed to do), yeah, that's bricked.
No. It's bricked when there is no hope at all at making it playable again. If it can execute code, it's not bricked.
Honestly dude, It's bad enough the sensationalist media cannot use the term correctly.
Re:Bricked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because I obviously bought my PS3 for the great internet browser...
That's not really the point.
"Bricked" came from the idea that the piece of hardware is "as useful as a brick" because it's unable to operate *at all*.
Now, obviously this sort of thing greatly reduces the usefulness of the device, but your statement itself shows that the device is *not*bricked*. Just broken.
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Although that may have been the original slang definition of the word, it has changed over time to mean anything that has failed. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bricked)
In a similar example, goodbye was originally a statement meaning 'god be with you'. Now it is simply a parting.
A gaming console that can't play games or a DVD player that can't read DVDs is a failure and can be declared as 'bricked'.
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Nah... bricked means bricked.
"dictionary.reference.com"? As the wiki puts it, "When used in reference to consumer electronics, 'brick' describes a device that cannot function in any capacity (such as a device with damaged firmware)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_(electronics) [wikipedia.org]
It has always meant that.
You break it, you buy it. (Score:4, Funny)
"Improves System Stability" (Score:3, Funny)
Well I suppose a bricked console is "stable", isn't it?
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When are people going to learn to NOT buy Sony? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sony is REPEATEDLY caught doing nefarious things. Rootkits on a CD. Deleting 2/3rds of a MMO (The Star Wars Galaxies NGE) the day after selling an expansion for it, which included features marketed that applied to the 2/3rds that got deleted. They've gotten caught multiple times price fixing CDs. They have released a version of the PSP, called the PSPGo that requires you to repurchase all your games. They've also been caught deploying astroturfers and viral marketers to fake reviews and artificially pump their products.
They also run what I believe is an illegal international lottery with respect to their "trading" card games in their MMOs.
So why would it surprise anyone that Sony, not exactly well known for the quality of their coding work (if SOE is representative of it) would release a buggy firmware that destroys hardware and then make people pay $150 to fix their own defect?
Sony is all about revenue streams! Stealing from their customers is just yet another one of those.
This suit is going to cost them millions and will no doubt harm their reputation even more than all of the above have. Sony must not care about their reputation, since they do nothing at all constructive to improve it. Hint: repeatedly assfucking your customers does NOT a good reputation make.
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The only thing that surprises me is that out of the seven billion people on this planet, there are enough of them dumb enough to buy ANYTHING from a company like this for it to stay in business.
Re:When are people going to learn to NOT buy Sony? (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing that surprises me is that out of the seven billion people on this planet, there are enough of them dumb enough to buy ANYTHING from a company like this for it to stay in business.
It takes a while. Nintendo is slowly increasing its lead in market capitalization over the entire Sony empire.
Re:When are people going to learn to NOT buy Sony? (Score:5, Interesting)
The history of Sony's management is quite fascinating. I've lost the link, but I recall there being an article about Sony's decision over who to replace their then-CEO around 1999 (Norio Ohga), who had been CEO for ages and brought Sony to new economic heights. The choice of his successor was either the head of Sony Entertainment (i.e. the copyright/media side of Sony) or the head of Sony Computer (i.e. the head of the electronics side). They ended up choosing the head of the copyright/media side of Sony, Nobuyuki Idei.
Anecdotally, since that decision, I've noticed that Sony's technology shine has dropped completely off my radar (i.e. I don't even turn to them to find out what the latest and greatest tech is, whereas at one point they were certainly a contender for something that I'd consider cool), while their foray into rent-seeking for their copyright has also gone off the deep end.
I might be wrong about the details of the history - I'd be interested in finding the article again, or having the background.
If it's true, I believe the change in the "personality" or "culture" of Sony reflects the decision that they made to make the head of their copyright/media division the head of the company. I believe their shareholders have been paying for that decision ever since.
Re:When are people going to learn to NOT buy Sony? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that surprises me is that out of the seven billion people on this planet, there are enough of them dumb enough to buy ANYTHING from a company like this for it to stay in business.
Well, I have LONG ago ceased to buy Sony, and I did it because of the Star Wars Galaxies NGE. Indeed, I've used my position as head of IT at my company, which is one of the larger businesses in it's industry in the Eastern USA, to make sure that Sony isn't even CONSIDERED for purchases. I cost them $50K worth of plasma displays, for example, when we rolled out a videoconferencing system simply by taking Sony off the bid specs as a valid provider when we bid it out.
Sony is not a reputable company, and they do not make better products than alternate vendors. Sad thing about that is that 20 years ago no one had a better reputation than Sony and their products were ALWAYS a cut above anything similar. It's taken them this long to live off the capital of their once great name to reach the point of near bankruptcy.
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Whoever coined the phrase "buyer beware" was probably bleeding from the ass. - The late and great GC.
And all of this could have been avoided... (Score:3, Funny)
... if they'd simply added a clause to the End User License agreement to state that the hardware still belonged to them and the "owner" was merely "renting it" :)
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Illegal in Europe, afaik. If it looks like a buy it is a buy. We don't like those kind of games.
PC (Score:2, Interesting)
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Well if you want to pedantic about it, the GameCube, Nintendo64, PS2 & Dreamcast all had networking capability of some form or another.
we don't need no firmware upgrade (Score:2, Funny)
All in all, its just another Brick in the wall
And when they win (Score:5, Insightful)
After all that, if they win, every customer will get their machine fixes for free but with a 4-6 week turn around time, they customer will still have to pay $20-$35 for shipping the borked machine back, and get a nice voucher for $35 to reimburse the shipping cost usable in the Playstation Online store. Meanwhile the lawyers will get a multi-million dollar paycheck out of the victory.
Sony - 0
Consumer - 1
Lawyers - 10
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Class Action? Phht! (Score:5, Insightful)
Great -- so affected users have a shot at getting a check for like, eight dollars in acouple of years while some lawyer gets rich. Gotta love that...
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Great -- so affected users have a shot at getting a check for like, eight dollars in acouple of years while some lawyer gets rich. Gotta love that...
Oh, you were in on that Dell monitor class action to, huh? How much new monitor did your 8 bucks buy?
I love to hate Sony (Score:5, Funny)
Years ago, I bought their first "slim" digital camera. The DSC-T1. Shortly after buying it, I managed to break the totally unprotected LCD. I took full responsibility and called them up. "How much will it cost to have the screen replaced?" "If it was out of warranty, the cost would be $130 but defective screen is covered by your warranty." "No, it's not defective. I broke it. There's no way I could possibly pass this off as a manufacturing defect even if I was sleazy enough to try." "Oh, then it's $180." "What? Why does this cost more than a regular out of warranty repair?" "It just does."
And I was fucked. It was a brand new model so the chances of a "parts" listing showing up on ebay any time soon was pretty much zero. I was already into the camera for $500. The best grey-market refurb price I could find anywhere was $400. So I paid the out of warranty repair cost PLUS the $50 "because we're dicks" fee. It was either have a $680 camera or burn the $500 I'd already spent. When the repaired camera arrived, I affixed a thin sheet of plastic over the LCD. I swore I'd never purchase another Sony product as long as I lived. That lasted about 3 years when I bought one of their photo printers (which I still use occasionally). And I've bought another camera (mixed feelings about its quality), a book reader (rocks), a cell phone (rocked), etc.
Sony's like an ex who steals money from your wallet, badmouths you to her friends, and orders steak-n-lobster when meet up for lunch but the couple times a year you hook up seem so worth it. Until you check your wallet the next day and you swear you won't answer the phone next time she calls. And it works for a few months. But then you run into her at the mall and going to dinner is safe enough. God, she looks good...
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Re:I love to hate Sony (Score:5, Funny)
$500 cameras and hookers so awesome in bed its worth being repeatedly robbed over?
Can I have your life when you're done with it?
Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do all the +5 Insightful comments have NOTHING to do with the article? Just "DONT BUY SONY THEYRE TEH EVILZ!" This is as bad as it used to be with Microsoft articles back in the day.
To all of the DONT BUY SONY CUZ THEYRE TEH EVILZ can you recommend me which game console to buy? Oh and please don't say PC, I game hours a day on my PC but I also like having a console for the console only games. Please tell me which console is not made by an evil corporation and doesn't brick with firmware upgrades? The ROCK SOLID 360? The Wii and it's recent hardware killing firmware too? Guess what, I'm going to buy the console that has the games I want. For me that's the PS3 and soon the Wii.
For the record my PS3, and the PS3's of my friends (yes, I know others with them) haven't bricked, so this is far from a EVERYONES PS3 JUST DIED that some people like to make it out to be. Saying don't buy a PS3 because SoE sucks or they released a rootkit 4 years ago is up there with saying don't buy Microsoft because Bob sucked or because they killed Netscape. Pretty much EVERY major corporation has done something evil.
Feel free to mod me down, I got some Karma to burn.
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Exactly, I dont like Sony, but the PS3 is a unique experience, unavailable from any other vendor. Im probably not going to go out and buy a Sony TV, or cell phone or computer because there is ample competition and thre is nothing really unique about those items.
there are multiple references to the PS3 as a "unique experience" in this thread. Is there some marketing campaign that I have managed to avoid or are there astroturfers on slashdot?
oh wait ... it is the same person each time ... who do you work for ?
AS much as I dislike Sony, Im not going to deny myself a fantastic piece of hardware for it. Im the one who loses, not really Sony. Now i probably wont buy a Sony TV, or pretty much anything else Sony, but the PS3 is a unique experience, with games that cant be had anywhere else.
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Ahhhhh the unique experience of having like 5 good games to play with your shiny black $400 blu-ray player. (1 of which is suprisingly not a sequel) Good thing at least Final Fantasy XIII will redeem your purchase....errr..maybe not. I'd like to give you a unique experience. Drink a little more of that kool aid, kid.
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To all of the DONT BUY SONY CUZ THEYRE TEH EVILZ can you recommend me which game console to buy? Oh and please don't say PC, I game hours a day on my PC but I also like having a console for the console only games. Please tell me which console is not made by an evil corporation and doesn't brick with firmware upgrades? The ROCK SOLID 360? The Wii and it's recent hardware killing firmware too? Guess what, I'm going to buy the console that has the games I want. For me that's the PS3 and soon the Wii.
Wait... wh
PS3 Giving a Brick a bad name... (Score:2, Troll)
Bricks are useful. You can build a house, a fire place, they are strong, good insulators, etc...
A PS3 after crappy hardware destroying update is useless, except for giving toxins to some poor asshole in a 3rd world country to try an recycle it.
My 3.0-3.01 Firmware Story (Score:3, Interesting)
On a GAME CONSOLE? Shouldn't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a software engineer, I feel some sympathy for those who release patches for desktop computer OSes. A computer is a general-purpose device that is intended to allow users to install third-party applications that have full access to a huge API; to install applications like antivirus utilities that dig deep into the OS; and add hardware and the low-level drivers that go with them. The OS update is applied to an environment that may have wandered far from its starting point. Every customer has a unique configuration that probably has meaningful differences from any box in the SQA department.
But a game console? A game console is a walled garden, the applications need only a circumscribed set of functions, the vendor has total control over what goes on it, and nobody is adding third-party hardware to it.
Sony should be ashamed of itself, and should have volunteered to fix damaged systems for free--long before anyone complained.
Re:How do I get in on this? (Score:5, Funny)
Any recourse on my part?
Well, there are a few things you could do.
Unfortunately, these methods may be of dubious legality. But it's nice to daydream.
Re:How do I get in on this? (Score:5, Funny)
Are you ENTIRELY certain, that nuking Japan is against the law in other countries?
Personally I'd be surprised if you could find that in the books anywhere except perhaps Japan.
I'm not endorsing, just saying that it might not be as illegal as you think.