Keep this in mind if you own a PlayStation 3 or any other piece of hardware that has features removed in forced updates. Following the removal of support for third-party operating systems on the PS3, one customer complained to Amazon about the machine no longer functioning as advertised at the time of purchase.

This customer’s PS3 was bought some time ago and was no longer covered by Amazon’s 30-day warranty. In fact it wasn’t even covered by Sony’s own warranty anymore. But rather than being brushed aside as you might expect, the customer was given an £84 refund.

It turns out that we’re protected against these "feature downgrades" under European law. So if any other hardware manufacturers get it in to their crazy little heads that they can forcefully remove features from hardware that we already own, and there’s nothing we can do about it because we’re only the customers, then remember: The law is on our side.