There is no such thing as 'unhackable' which is one thing that irked me in that whole rant. The PS3 is not 'unhackable' as was proven
a couple of months ago. In fact the term "unhackable" merely means it is so earthshateringly annoying (something Sony is particularly good at being) to hack that hacking itself becomes totally pointless (at least that's the intended goal), but someone somewhere will always be willing to do it anyway just for shiggles. It's the age old 'is the work really worth the effort for what I'm getting out of it' routine.
- Both Slim & Fat models are now on an equal field, meaning people wont be buying used models of the original line-up, thus boosting sales of the currently available Slimlines. (when a unit is sold used in any store *gamestop* as an example the company makes 0 profit)
As some other posters have mentioned in that thread there really never has been a level playing field when we're talking about the PS3 models. Just about every generation is slightly different in what it comes equipped with since Sony has been fumbling around in the dark since the early days trying to make the damned thing profitable (which they have finally just started succeeding at).
- Bringing back the console to what it was originally meant for, basically now we only have the options to play games on it, its a giant psp we cant carry in our pockets thus boosting game sales.
The PS3 has always been billed as a multimedia machine that "does everything" (to rip right out of their own recent marketing campaign). Taking out something like this really only slaps users in the face since this new firmware "update" is about as innovative as the PSP Go. In fact the company would love it if they could actually get away with marketing PS3 Go to their loyal fan-base where they rip out the Blu-Ray player and force everyone to download all their games and movies so they can take out the middle man and reap more profits and still convince you that you're getting something better out it (while still paying $200 dollars extra for it).
Sony doesn't make any of these decisions for the gamers. they make them for themselves. Not that this point is contested anywhere in your post but it's just something to keep in mind when you go defending them again. Speaking of which i noticed the argument lacked any positives or negatives list that had anything to do with the consumer in any way. oh right, because this decision wasn't made out of any consideration for the consumer. Sony is conglomeration of gigantic douche bags who just happen to make good hardware with big red lights attached talking about not letting somebody called Dave do anything the big red light doesn't want them to...
- It saves the company future legal trouble
If this was really going to be such a problem they should have never introduced the option in the first place. In laymen's terms, legal issues my ASS!
Merely getting rid of the Linux option does absolutely nothing to the quote on quote "problem" and the people who actually used the Linux option for "hacking" (lol) are just going to get around it anyway (by not opting for the update or finding some other way around it (which has also already been discussed). there always is and always will be ways around it unless of course they make
an encrypted key that self destructs which would then make the entire system un-updatable (lol). Knowing Sony though they might just try it if they could only get away with it.
This whole update is just another chance for Sony to wave their gnarled cock of greed and paranoia around for a bit while they shit on their fan-base (those who actually used this feature anyway; i never did care about the other OS option. I have 2 perfectly well maintained and expensive computers for that, thank you very much. I don't really need an "almost everything" box... again!).
... Now where was i? Oh yes, i was just about to go downstairs and play FF13 again (on my PS3...)... tl;dr, i hate Sony, The end.