Sony could owe early PS3 owners some money

A lawsuit that has been bubbling for six years has ended with Sony agreeing to refund some of the purchase price for a select few who bought PS3.

ArsTechnica reports that Sony has reached an agreement with lawyers representing as many as 10m PS3 owners aggrieved by Sony decision in 2010 to remove OtherOS and Linux support from the console.

Essentially, Sony has agreed to pay a certain amount to those who can prove they either used this feature or purchased a console with the intent of doing so, with the argument being that said consumers ended up with a device functionally different to that which they purchased.

Specifically, those who used Linux on PS3 may be eligible for a $55 payment. Those who bought the machine in part based on OtherOS could get $9. To be eligible buyers must have purchased the older ‘fat’ version of the machine between November 1st 2006 and April 1st 2010. $2.25m in lawyer fees is also on the table.

The agreement will be placed in front of a judge next month. Sony has also agreed to email customers about the rebate and promote it via online ads should the agreement be approved.

OtherOS was disabled via a firmware update when it was found to facilitate possible piracy techniques. Sony did at the time say the update was voluntary, although not updating the console cut off a number of features, most notable of which was PSN connectivity. Sony also argued that few buyers cared about the Linux functionality, which is likely very true.