IBM, nope. AT&T? Nope. Monopolies that abuse their power suck. This wasn't about IBM or AT&T.

You can't be new here.... this is slashdot, after all...

And for my money, Microsoft can burn in the 10th level of hell.... not for their phone OS, but for the fiasco they created in their abusive monopoly days. Just because they make an acceptable phone for some people doesn't erase the vomit-inducing tactics that got them to this "pinnacle of asshattery"....

Their phone OS might actually be good. I, and a percentage of the commenters on slashdot, don't care. :) Don't take it personally.

Not yet... The houses aren't finished.

I agree.. software patents are pretty much getting away with the patent system's inability to keep up with technology.... which would ruin it for the truly patentable, because there's really no subtle way to fix the trivial without screwing with the legitimate.

I can't divorce a software patent from the mathematical algorithm it came out of... I may be horribly missing the point, but I always think patents are about physical items and methods. There might be a software patent somewhere that would qualify... we've just not seen it yet. :)

Until we do, I think we should follow the EU's lead and say no to software patents. :)

*golf clap* Just because I said Software Patents are evil doesn't mean I don't think there are other evil things out there... You're on slashdot (as an AC) telling everyone else about the "big world" out there? Are you really retarded? Or did you just learn the world isn't flat and you want to share it with the rest of the tribe?

I thought that while watching other people handle the controller, but once I got it in my hand, it felt great, wasn't heavy, and I love playing the new Mario on the screen while having my TV freed up to allow other folks to watch TV.

No, but they did have Madworld and House of the Dead Overkill (which was funny as hell)...

You should've seen the protoype. Bill Gates couldn't even lift it to take a picture.

Most of the people here get it. They get that Software Patents are inherently evil and wrong and should be abolished... and the patent trolls of the world need to all die in a fire. Reforming the Patent system to prevent patent trolls would go a long way towards making the Patent system what it was intended for...

Until then, we'll see extortion like this from Microsoft (and everyone else).... I rather like the "hippie free-love software"... but then again I don't play in Apple's or Microsoft's sandbox.

The rest of them can suck my balls.

One of the conditions for using PSN was to get the updated firmware which removed the OtherOS feature. Granted, I don't play multiplayer online hardly at all, but missing out on a firmware update because I wanted to keep OtherOS got things more muddied and complicated (BluRay updates and such). In the end, I capitulated and lost OtherOS. I wasn't happy about it, because I never got the chance to fiddle with it. (I know, late to the party... etc. etc.)

Sony started out on the right foot with the PS3, but it quickly deteriorated into what Sony does best. The undeniable fact is that Sony is out to make Sony richer, however it doesn't have to come at the expense of customer loyalty or goodwill.

Right, because I paid for a feature of the console and it was taken away. It's not that new consoles didn't have the feature. It was removed from ALL consoles. You fail at logic.

I suspect it's an afterthought. It will be a BluRay player, and I suspect that only movies (and the odd game compilation that you have to install to your "cloud") will come on optical discs.

People were wondering how Sony was going to kill used games. This just might be it... To be perfectly honest, I am not really keen on the new ideas coming from Sony. I am not interested in the ephemeral nature of "games in the cloud". I think it's a step backwards, but it's a cash cow for Sony and Microsoft, because they're looking to go whole-hog into this business model... customer be damned.

I knew it was bound to happen sometime, but consoles are now something I won't buy. I have a backlog of PS2 games to last me until doomsday... so I don't think I'll run out of things to play (just devices to play them on, I imagine...) heh.

OtherOS: removal didn't affect anyone, Linux on the PS3 was terrible. Anyone that used it could have told you that.

That's not the point. The point is I paid for it and they removed it. It is not unlike a car owner taking his car in for an oil change and the manufacturer removing the radio... It's not the radio... it's the principle of Sony being jerks.

You can keep your PS4 and XBox 720. I am not interested. Save your fanboy slobbering for the Sony forums.

You can't prove a thing you fascist slaver....

It's all in what articles get approved... Somehow the site's become a magnet for pseudo-controversy. Even articles that aren't "controversial" (to most of us) somehow take on an air of Jerry Springer-esque nonsense.

It's not like it used to be. (obligatory, get off my lawn... etc. etc.)