I'm guessing all the "STFU U R TEH SUK" fanboys aren't affected by this decision in a small business context.
A couple of months ago my girlfriend and I updated her A/V equipment to a high-def home theatre system. When we considered the fact that the 40 inch LED TV could also double as a monitor for a media PC, we immediately thought of getting a media PC as my girlfriend is also starting up a photography business and using a monitor of that size would have been advantageous for her.
However when we looked around, it soon became clear that our cheapest option going the way of a media PC would be about $1000. At the same time we were toying with the idea of getting a high def gaming console as a possible purchase at some point as it seemed a fitting addition to the setup we have.
When we looked into it, it was in fact the we could get all of the above in the one console that made us choose the PS3. That wads about 3 weeks ago, just after the announcement that the PS3's other OS functionality would still be retained. I also spoke to Sony customer service who confirmed that the phat versions could indeed run Linux and how easy upgrading the hard drive was.
I want to make this clear- this was not going cheap on a supercomputer of cheating Sony out of games sales, it was a case of using it as exactly what Sony had advertised as both a business machine and entertainment machine. We wound up buying a 60Gb model pre-owned from GAME for $500, spending $100 on a new 500gb hard drive for it, buying a few games then and there and I've already racked up about 40 hours of game play on there while also spending hours configuring and learning Linux.
The plan was in the next month to buy Lightroom for Linux at which point it would have been right to go as her photo editing business machine.
Now Sony expects us to choose between one or the other in what amounts to a case of exortive theft, less than a month after buying it not only for personal reasons but also for business reasons. I'm only glad I hadn't blindly installed the update after we'd installed Linux and more importantly when my girlfriend had photos taken for her clients on there being processed- I don't even want to think about the damage that would have been done to my girlfriend's business in terms of revenue and reputation.
If you bought a slim, and aren't affected by this or don't care, good for you, but bear in mind that some of us have done the right thing here are affected as small business owners and are less than impressed by what amounts to extortive theft, not to mention millions of dollars in tax evasion where the console was marketed as a computer in order to dodge taxes in places like the EU...
I'm currently in the process of looking at returning it and not only will I never touch another Sony product again, but I will advise everyone I know not to touch a PS3 with a 10 foot bargepole after they've proven they're nothing more than a bunch of extortive thieving tax cheats who think that completely bending over and kornholing their customers is perfectly acceptable in the process of making a quick buck.
