The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.
In addition, disabling the “Other OS” feature will help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system.
Consumers and organizations that currently use the “Other OS” feature can choose not to upgrade their PS3 systems, although the following features will no longer be available;
- Ability to sign in to PlayStation Network and use network features that require signing in to PlayStation Network, such as online features of PS3 games and chat
- Playback of PS3 software titles or Blu-ray Disc videos that require PS3 system software version 3.21 or later
- Playback of copyright-protected videos that are stored on a media server (when DTCP-IP is enabled under Settings)
- Use of new features and improvements that are available on PS3 system software 3.21 or later
For those PS3 users who are currently using the “Other OS” feature but choose to install the system software update, to avoid data loss they first need to back-up any data stored within the hard drive partition used by the “Other OS,” as they will not be able to access that data following the update.
Additional information about PS3 firmware updates, including v3.21 (once it becomes available), can be found here:
http://us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/index.htm
PS3 owners who have further questions should contact Consumer Services:
http://us.playstation.com/support/ask/
800-345-7669 (800-345-SONY)
To all thoses who said we didn’t even use the OtherOS functionnality :
It seems than we all do not use up to 80% of our brain … So, we can lobotomize you ?
@ 2618
You suppose that to ask would be the right thing to do…
Did we get “asked” about removing this feature?
Basically Sony is telling you to choose. Play the PS3 as it is meant to and play new games, or use linux and continue to emulate and pirate.
PC’s should do this too, chips in every computer that monitors what you download and what you put on ipods, dvd-r’s…etc.
You guys realize Sony can change this if they want to. You all agreed to it when you used the console. It’s in the Playstation User agreement. It’s section #11..
From time to time, it may become necessary for SCEA to provide certain content to you to ensure that PSN and content offered through PSN, your PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system or other SCEA-authorized hardware is functioning properly in accordance with SCEA guidelines. Some content may be provided automatically without notice when you sign into PSN. Such content may include automatic updates or upgrades which may change your current operating system, cause a loss of data or content or cause a loss of functionalities or utilities. Such upgrades or updates may be provided for system software for your PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, or other SCEA-authorized hardware.
Were…Not going to take it No…Were NOT going to TAKE IT… NO MORE PEACE
Will there be a redemption program for people that bought ps3 taking in account the capability to install other OS. It was advertise that way when we bought it. Now all you are telling us is that a feature that we paid for will be removed in patch 3.21, a feature that we paid good money for and that we will have the option either to update our device in order to continue having online acces and to play latest game and lose the future to install Linux or to lose the online acces and capability to play latest game in order to keep a feature we already paid for? This seem like a losing/losing situation to me…..
I hope this is a April fool joke and that a another announcement will be done soon to correct this.
Lol, ok, so now we see the type of person that supports SONY
“PC’s should do this too, chips in every computer that monitors what you download and what you put on ipods, dvd-r’s…etc.”
I’ll kill and die before I live in that world buddy, just try it
The rest of section #11 goes like this:
Access or use to any system software is subject to terms and conditions of a separate end user license agreement found at http://www.us.playstation.com/termsofuse. You authorize SCEA to provide such content and agree that SCEA shall not be liable for any damages arising from provision of such content or maintenance services. It is recommended that you regularly back up any data located on the hard disk that is of a type that can be backed up.
Your all slow Sony Will Make This Mandatory FOOLS
Lisa
You do realize that we did not see or need to see and EULA when we bought the system.
And that the systems we are talking about have this feature printed on the box as a selling point.
You are late to the show, my friend…
ok, what about the artists like myself that use the machine for BOTH gaming AND rendering animation 500% quicker than our MACS?
I honestly don;t see why pathetic losers are defending the removal of a feature they didn’t even use, IF YOU NEVER USED IT, WHY THE f#CK ARE YOU POSTING HERE?
oh yeah, i almost forgot, YOU ARE A VIDEOGAME INTERNET TROLL!
BWAHAHHAAHHAA!
@FritoZ
They would argue that the color blue is just colorless electromagnetic radiation and it’s our eyes that interpret that radiation as the word blue. Even if that sounded completely stupid. lol
@aspectoflight
ok seriously refute this if u can since ur so sure ur right.
1) sony’s eula states that firmware updates can remove or hamper previous functions. yes this is true. clearly stated. i have no problem with this. shouold i CHOOSE to update some system funtions wont work. got it.
2) if i choose not to update i will not be capable of using the current functions that i already paid for. i agree they have done this in the past too. i’m sick of it. at no point does the eula or tos state sony will limit ur functions if u dont update. i’ve checked.this is what makes this an illegal move. by updating ur agreeing to have ur features removed. by not updating u agree to nothing and the ability to use all previous features should still be allowed.
@2627
They don’t have to ask you anything. Would it really have made any damn bit of a difference if they had?
I don’t think it would. The people who tend to get up in arms over this type of stuff, will do so regardless of what was done.
2616 @AspectOfLight
“It specifically states that Sony has the right to remove this and because they have just cause for doing it, it will fly. As long as games work with the official firmware they offer, you have no ground to stand on.”
Terms of Service mean NOTHING in court, Terms of Service are neither laws nor legally binding. You are not a lawyer, and I seriously doubt you’ve ever participated in any kind of lawsuit, nor have you taken any type of Law 101 class.
Pretend the aspectoflight guy isn’t posting. Really, just ignore his posts. He’s posting for attention, so starve him.
remember 3.15 optional NOT!!!
There is no way to prove that you bought a PS3 for this function alone. And if you really did, I don’t get why. Why would you drop 300-600 on this when you could buy a laptop or even desktop for the same or cheaper.
Oh and Vanmagi…congratulations on admitting that you support piracy. Next time you want a game and can’t buy it because you can’t justify the $60 price, keep in mind its pirates like you that make them so high priced.
@LisaX4156 – Allow me to be the first to introduce you to reality, where TOS and EULA are just @ss-covering and have next to no legal weight… and CERTAINLY do not allow anyone to do anything that is contrary to regional laws
Such as.. bait and switch
They can say “we reserve the right to castrate your electronics at any time”
But it doesn’t mean that they actually can.. I’m happy to have enlightened you, I hope you feel more free knowing that corporations can’t just do whatever they want.. even if they tell you that they can
Ok, ok, accepting Sony CAN do this – or Sony WILL do this – they are very very wrong about HOW to do this. It’s not legal at all to remove a feature without a proper warning – and this blog posting is very far from any official warning. They must act as any serious company giving notice about this change and at least communicate to each one user – 14 millions, as they say – something like “the other OS feature will be obsolete in one year”, for instance.
I doubt anyone here – people against or in favor of this DEVOLUTION – will not agree what I am saying. What Sony is thinking? Do they think they can just remove and change the disk partition of OUR HDD – a piece of hardware that I own and I can do whatever I want – in a blink of an eye??
This mindset is arbitrary and we see no acting like that in any other software company – even Microsoft put users very informed when they will cease to support any OS or feature in ADVANCE and PUBLIC. It seems Sony it’s afraid about the bad publicity this DEVOLUTION will cause to his image and is incapable of taking proper legal counseling prior such decisions.
Terms of Service is exactly what it says. You all clicked agree when you first turned on your PS3. If you didn’t, you are playing on an illegal system and you have no rights.
LOL @ Terms of Service not holding up in court, are you retarded? Its like a contract. I swear some people…
I own two PS3’s. I bought them both because of this feature, and furthermore the second one was purchased *instead* of a Slim model specifically because of this feature. I paid $50 more for the phat for Linux support. How can you simply take away advertised, selling-point features that were not only paid for but paid more for?
[DELETED] you, Sony. There’s no other way to put it. You’ve been utterly useless in responding to the concerns of the community and you continue to lie and ignore your way through it all. See the lack of proper scaling support for an example of the former, latter and also 180-ing on promises. Pretending that this enhances the end-user experience is piss in the ear.
Can I have my $50 + tax back? No? Eat a [DELETED].
WTF sony!! You suck.. bigtime
this is disappointing…
It’s true, I, like thousands of others, am going to have to wait to update, and hope for someone to craft around the block..
after all, this and software emulation are just switches that Sony wishes to toggle “off”
well we will just toggle them back “on”
@FritoZ
You seriously need to calm down. What exactly are you going to do if they ban you for trying to censor bypass and just swearing like a child?
Kill yourself? Try relaxing a bit.
@2638
The Network is theirs. It is a private network, as far as letting you access it, it is entirely up to them. So if they so choose to disallow access they can.
Look at what happened when that guy sued Sony when he was banned from the PSN because he was shouting off racial epithets, and just being a total tard. It got thrown out of court.
I dont pirate AspectOfLight – not even mp3s, and 60$ sounds fine for a game to me (if its an attractive new release) – so what’s your point?
Losing this argument is really hurting your ego, eh? Your attempts to derail the argument may work on your little sister but here… you just look stupid
I am acknowledging no trolls directly.
If you choose not to accept the TOS after you unbox your system, are you able to return it? No. No store will take back an opened electronic item for a refund and SONY sure would not either. You arguement failed.
Piracy is always under the spotlights to argue about game selling price so high … But as far as I know, PS3 is not, for the moment, subject of piracy ! So why games are so expensives (In France = 70 to 85 € a game) on the PS3 platform ?
To all the people who are complaing I am going to laugh at you all tommorrow this is an april fools joke the firmware will not jump from 3.15 to 3.21 just to remove one feature, you all have been fooled.
@2646 AspectOfLight
“If you didn’t, you are playing on an illegal system and you have no rights.”
If I bought it, it’s not an illegal system, and I do have rights, because I bought it.
“Terms of Service not holding up in court, are you retarded? Its like a contract. I swear some people…”
No, Terms of Service, are NOT a contract.
You are the “I swear some people…” that you are talking about.
Also as everyone knows a eula and tos can be both actuall y be voided since they were not presented at the time of purchase. because they were not it actually has no bearing on the ability to use the system. IT IS LAW. what u paid for is what is advertised and printed on the box. i still have the box from my original 80gb with b/c and no where on it does it show me a tos or eula and in fact i dont remember even seeing a link to one.
@zepala because blu ray disc is a new tecnology yet not mass produced so costs are higher(or that’s what they tried to pull).
You try calming down when someone want to take away your homemade supercomputer-
I have bought 4 PS3 phats myself, let alone the 30 we have at my college strung together using Linux..
Why should i have to choose?
I mean we were this close to being able to unlock the cores independently to do our bidding..
AspectOfLight – LOL @ you thinking SONY’s EULA trumps laws in the USA HAHAHAHAHA
Thanks for the mammaries.
“Please be assured that SCE is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the “Install Other OS” feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases.” – Geoff Levand
“To all the people who are complaing I am going to laugh at you all tommorrow this is an april fools joke the firmware will not jump from 3.15 to 3.21 just to remove one feature, you all have been fooled.”
no this it not an april fools joke. read the thread and everywhere else on the net. Also 3.20 has been released on select ps3s. Google it
God I love people who don’t stand up for what is Right…You’re all Sony’s little guppies PEACE
jdneul, it isn’t a joke. Call Sony, they will confirm it isn’t not a joke. I don’t think they can instruct employee’s to lie to thousands of extremely mad customers for a joke. Unfortunately, it seems as though is isn’t a joke like I thought it was.
If you don’t believe me, call in and inquire about it.
1-800-345-7669
Everyone just stop feeding the trolls. I really wish posts could be marked for moderation here.
@AspectofLight
“How am I losing?”
You lost when you showed you knew nothing of what you were talking about when you called Terms of Service a Contract and resorted to name calling as a counterargument.
One final post for Aspect of Light.
I have a dated receipt of 11/16/06 for Yellow Dog Linux for $59.99
(that is the day before the PS3 was Launched)
I then have a dated reciept of 12/24/06 for my 60GB Playstation three, that I woke up and drove 1 hour to get at 7am because they had been sold out till that point.
I can just picture how vanmagi will handle this situation
He walks downstairs..”Mommy mommy, can we hire Da-da’s lawyer so I can sue playstation? they told me i cant use my other/os feature”
Paid-Assassin – that doesn’t prove you bought either for each other. I bought a dr. pepper this morning, and then later I bought a sandwich. Having the receipt for both doesn’t prove that I bought the Dr. Pepper to go with my lunch.
i wish there was an “ignore button”, but then again I actually like reading the trolls comments. Makes me happy my 17 month old is smarter than them.
@coreyfarks
“Stop feeding the trolls”.
Ya I guess that’s a good idea.
Great parenting Wolverine, I bet your 17 month is crying while you scream “SHUTUP I NEED TO TALK ABOUT MY PLAYSTATION”.
lol
When the Yellow Dog Linux Case says “For the Playstation 3 system”
It does.
Ok, one more comment @AspectOfLight
“and then later I bought a sandwich”
better eat it quick before they come take the meat of of it.
@wolverine2281 forget about an ignore button I’m actually having fun reading the troll posts.