Sony Computer Entertainment America is facing a class action lawsuit over the botched release of mandatory PS3 firmware 3.0 and a later system update that is said to have irreparably damaged thousands of consoles.
Released on September 1 and billed as the last significant PS3 firmware update of 2009, version 3.0 introduced new trophy and friends list features as well as dynamic dashboard themes and PlayStation Store shortcuts. But shortly following its release a number of users reported running into technical problems, including the inability to synch up controllers with consoles and game freezes mid-session.
PS3 firmware 3.0 demo
Gameplay footage
4:25PSN operations director Eric Lempel shows off new firmware
PS3 firmware 3.0 demo
Gameplay footage
4:25PSN operations director Eric Lempel shows off new firmware
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PS3 firmware 3.0 demo
Gameplay footage
4:25PSN operations director Eric Lempel shows off new firmware
SCEA said at the time that it was aware of "isolated issues" being experienced by users and that it was "looking into the matter", before releasing PS3 firmware update 3.01 as a partial fix later in the month.
However, lead plaintiff John Kennedy claims that the latter system update not only failed to rectify the problems but also caused users' Blu-ray drives to malfunction. Sony said it would cost $150 to repair his damaged console, according to Courthouse News.
Represented by California-based Parisi & Havens, class members are demanding declaratory relief, compensation and restitution from SCEA for an alleged breach of implied warranty, negligence and unjust enrichment.
Sony has run into problems in the past when rolling out major PS3 firmware updates. In July last year, firmware version 2.40 - which introduced in-game access to the system's XrossMediaBar and a Trophies achievement system - had to be pulled for further testing after numerous users reported technical problems - including consoles locking up - after downloading or while attempting to download it. Sony released a new firmware update shortly afterwards which fixed the issues.
You slag this off but hopefully it will encourage Sony to do something about this issue.
There are a LOT of people who have had Sony effectively break their perfectly functioning console when it's out of warranty - through no fault of the user - and then demand over £100 to fix it. That's simply unacceptable.
It'll cost $150 to repair, so you'll sue them for what? The cost of the repairs and legal fees or a few million? A load of Wii owners are apparently suffering from crashes and malfunctions after the latest firmware update. Wonder how long before they get sued?
sony are very poor at updating firmware, 3.01 still has problems like takin forever and a day to access the xmb whilst in a game and viewing ppls profiles is extremely slow and don't even get me started on the grey boxes. im sorry but you deserve all the criticism/court cases your getting at the minute sony!
How has this scumbag lawsuit culture taken hold of America? Sony should find a way of ruining this man in with a counter-lawsuit. People like this need to be taught a serious lesson. How anyone can contemplate, let alone justify taking a console manuafacturer to court over such a pathetic issue, which Sony will rectify if this money-grabbing b@stard didn't think he could make some easy cash, is beyond ridiculous. There some people in the world you really do wish bad luck, accidents and disease to shorten their lives and rid us of scum like this.
Sony fail at software, and MS at hardware. At least you got a 3 year warranty for RROD. If your PS3 gets firmware bricked after a year old, prepare to hand over the cash to Sony
Sony fail at software, and MS at hardware. At least you got a 3 year warranty for RROD. If your PS3 gets firmware bricked after a year old, prepare to hand over the cash to Sony
It's not even like the product was faulty. The 360 was certainly faulty and they extended the warranty to cover that. But to break perfectly good consoles that are out of warranty and then demand you pay up for them to be fixed is terrible.
Stupidly the brother in law just bought a slim because he didn't want to pay to fix his phat version - silly timing, really, as I suspect this lawsuit may lead to something useful.
How anyone can contemplate, let alone justify taking a console manuafacturer to court over such a pathetic issue, which Sony will rectify if this money-grabbing b@stard didn't think he could make some easy cash, is beyond ridiculous.
So what are you saying, that we as consumers should just let the console manufacturers treat the customers like crap?
I take it that if you bought a PS3 that was bricked due to a software update by the company that you bought the console off, and when you called up the company to get the problem fixed, you would be more than happy to fork out the £150 to them, even though it was basically Sony that broke you console?
It's not a case that this lawsuit is looking to make tens of millions of pounds. The issue is that the machine you purchased from Sony is now redundant because of an update Sony applied to the machines, and even though they effectively knackered up your system, they are asking you the customer to pay for the repairs.
How has this scumbag lawsuit culture taken hold of America? Sony should find a way of ruining this man in with a counter-lawsuit. People like this need to be taught a serious lesson. How anyone can contemplate, let alone justify taking a console manuafacturer to court over such a pathetic issue, which Sony will rectify if this money-grabbing b@stard didn't think he could make some easy cash, is beyond ridiculous. There some people in the world you really do wish bad luck, accidents and disease to shorten their lives and rid us of scum like this.
This whole culture started in America.
Personally, I wish I could be bottomd to take MS to court - I almost can, lol.
They have supplied me with three turkeys so far and in the last instance they sent me a replacement which didn't work and then tried to tell me they weren't obliged to replace it as the problem wasn't due to the RROD.
I was livid for two reasons. Firstly, the one they were replacing did have the RROD. Secondly...they surely can't agree to replace a duff and then do so by sending me another dud.....
I can fully understand why somebody would finally put their foot down. Dude probably just wanted to have a game of Viva Pinata...
A couple of friends had their machines bricked by shoddy firmware updates and Sony's s**tty attitude and culture of denial has been disgusting..."Nothing to do with us guv, that'll be £150 quid to sort it!"
Let's hope this class action is enough to give these parasites food for thought and to do the right thing for once!
Time for this fellow to read the small print, that Sony wont take responsablity if new firmware crashes your system. But they will repair your system for free so you can't sue them!
You slag this off but hopefully it will encourage Sony to do something about this issue.
There are a LOT of people who have had Sony effectively break their perfectly functioning console when it's out of warranty - through no fault of the user - and then demand over £100 to fix it. That's simply unacceptable.
How has this scumbag lawsuit culture taken hold of America? Sony should find a way of ruining this man in with a counter-lawsuit. People like this need to be taught a serious lesson. How anyone can contemplate, let alone justify taking a console manuafacturer to court over such a pathetic issue, which Sony will rectify if this money-grabbing b@stard didn't think he could make some easy cash, is beyond ridiculous. There some people in the world you really do wish bad luck, accidents and disease to shorten their lives and rid us of scum like this.
You should actually be thankful that there are individuals like this fellow whom are willing to mount legal cases and thus help propagate a culture of responsibility whereby companies are expected to play fair towards the customer or else be punished. Need I point out that in a one-on-one scenario the average consumer is likely to be crushed by the usually much greater means at a multi-national company's disposal?
Hey my Wii died last night won't come back on. It's out of warranty. Can I sue Ninty now for a piece of hardware that doesn't last 1millions years
If there is sufficient evidence to suggest the malfunction was caused by gross negligence on Nintendo's part, or due to questionable hardware/software quality which Nintendo was aware of before shipping it, sure. Technically you can sue just about anyone for anything at any time; whether you are successful in winning the case is another matter entirely. At no point has near endless reliability been stated as a requirement and your "million year" claim is a gross exaggeration and only serves to detract from a valid argument.
Bout time somebody did something. Sonys arrogant attitude has finally come back to bite them in the ass. Saying stuff like 'software cannot damage hardware' as a response to thousands of users blu ray drives malfuntioning after updating the latest firmware is disgusting and totally incorrect. Sony obviously have not heard of the Chenobyl virus from a few years back that has the ability to overide the power settings to your motherboard and burn your bios clean out amongst other components. Any badly written software can cause a hardware system crash or various hardware components to stop funtioning as they should, particually if it is being used as a driver, in this case a blu-ray device driver contained in the update.
Sony has a great machine, but disgusting customer service, and having the nerve to charge people for a problem they caused is totally unacceptable.
A couple of friends had their machines bricked by shoddy firmware updates and Sony's s**tty attitude and culture of denial has been disgusting..."Nothing to do with us guv, that'll be £150 quid to sort it!"
Let's hope this class action is enough to give these parasites food for thought and to do the right thing for once!
i hate it when sony fanboys always say they got the rrod, just pathetic tbh, GROW UP
Anyone who doesn't think the guy attempting to sue Sony isn't doing it purely for easy cash must having a laugh. This guy isn't fighting for the rights of the everyman, he isn't doing it because he's a bit upset. He's an out and out money grabbing b@stard. If you can't see that I assume you supported the woman who tried (not sure of the outcome) to sue McDonalds because the food or a beverage was 'dangerously hot'.
Products go wrong every day for thousands of people. Thankfully the majority of people are sensible enough to understand this is life and they choose to not use the item, pay for the item to be fixed, try and get the manufacturer to fix or retailer that sold the item to fix it, or refuse to use or purchase said manufacturers goods again. If that's beyond your reasoning, then I guess you are likely to support the money grabbing Sony gamer.
I seriously hope Sony ruin him with a counter court case. I had seven Sony products die on me over the course of a 14 month period once. Yes, I may have been unlucky, but it's put me off the company for life and I'll never buy a Sony product again. Perhaps had I been naive enough to believe I could fight for the rights of the common people, or felt I deserved financial gain for the upset caused, I might have looked into a court case... then again, I'm not so money obsessed enough to sue for profit, I'm happy to work for my earnings.
Unless physical harm or something as serious happens no court, no law firm, no one with half a brain should even entertain the idea of such a lawsuit based on... what? £150 repair cost? Loss of a games console? This guy is a moneygrabbing scumbag and I'd bet his efforts come to nothing.
The real impact of the update will be all the people that dust off the ps3 to play uncharted 2 and get a rude shock when they can't. This just shows who the more professional company has been this gen. MS f**ked up with the design, but they owned up to it and extended the waranty and lost millions I am sure. Sony blames gamers for its sins.
It'll cost $150 to repair, so you'll sue them for what? The cost of the repairs and legal fees or a few million? A load of Wii owners are apparently suffering from crashes and malfunctions after the latest firmware update. Wonder how long before they get sued?
The BIG difference is that Nintendo are repairing the consoles that broke due to the update for FREE!
The lesson here? Don't update your console until a good month after the update has been released!
I can't believe they actually expect people to pay for another console after this- talk about being total P.I. Staker's...
Actually, I didn't update my 360 for a few weeks after the update was available (I didn't actually use it for about 3 weeks of that).
Since then, my console has been crashing (usually after about 10 minutes of playtime - it doesn't seem to crash on the dashboard) - problem is that I'm unsure what actually caused it. After installing the update (which was mandatory and automatic) I then went and picked up the free DLC packs for Arkham, the Batman 'Villains' theme, the Forza 3 demo and the FIFA 10 demo. The first crash actually occurred after starting one of the 'Predator' rooms within the free DLC Arkham packs.
I've cleared the cache, but that hasn't resolved the problem, so I think I may have to get MS to pick it up and fix it.
Anyone else had this happen to them? - any ideas on what I should do?
i dont think this will get them to do anything. bit of a joke really, since that update i havnt been able to play the old final fantasy games on mine. its a joke and sony should be testing these firmware updates fully before release
funny, only in this day and age. i still have a fully working and abused mega drive from 1990. got about 5 years of daily play and still gets a yearly retro gaming session on it.
every since sony and ms started making consoles -theyve been s**t!
funny, only in this day and age. i still have a fully working and abused mega drive from 1990. got about 5 years of daily play and still gets a yearly retro gaming session on it.
every since sony and ms started making consoles -theyve been s**t!
Indeed, my Spectrum 48k is still working perfectly.
To be fair though since the Playstation consoles have become a lot more complex and yet have to be affordable. the Spectrum was around £175 when it was released, which in the 80s was quite expensive. Plus the main heat was from the transformer rather than the chips.
funny, only in this day and age. i still have a fully working and abused mega drive from 1990. got about 5 years of daily play and still gets a yearly retro gaming session on it.
every since sony and ms started making consoles -theyve been s**t!
Not really a fair comparison though - for a start, the Megadrive (and all cartridge based consoles) did not have moving parts.
Anyone who doesn't think the guy attempting to sue Sony isn't doing it purely for easy cash must having a laugh. This guy isn't fighting for the rights of the everyman, he isn't doing it because he's a bit upset. He's an out and out money grabbing b@stard. If you can't see that I assume you supported the woman who tried (not sure of the outcome) to sue McDonalds because the food or a beverage was 'dangerously hot'.
whether he intends it or not, he is fighting for our rights. If this goes to court, then it will establish whether Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo or any other electronics manufacturer can issue an mandatory firmware update (that you require to continue making use of the services you have been using previously) and then expect you to pay the repair cost if their update breaks/bricks your hardware. Of course this will only apply in the US, but that would likely work it's way over here as well, and they companies would have to be more careful with their updates in the future.
I'm sure it will be argued that the user can continue to use their device without applying the update, therefore making it a decision on the uses part - but PSN, XBL and the Nintendo network (whatever that is called) are now integral parts of the experience, which could negate that arguement. for XBL Gold users, it may be more likely that XBL is part of the experience since that is a paid for service.
Someone I know who studied law told me that it was us (the English) who invented the concept of sueing, despite the Americans turning into their love child (like they have with a lot of things).
Though in all fairness these people do have a right to sue as people's PS3s have been bricked by Sony themselves, and then on top of that trying to make the consumer pay for it to be repaired.
I'm not sure about anyone else but I somehow can't see that being right
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