I don't think it's quite as cut and dry as that. In some sense, the restrictions _enhance_ THE thing I bought it for - playing a wide range of games. A platform

I don't think it's quite as cut and dry as that. In some sense, the restrictions _enhance_ THE thing I bought it for - playing a wide range of games. A platform where piracy is trivial is less attractive to some publishers, which may mean they don't release games there, or release later than on other platforms. If the largely theoretical benefits of a more open platform (I'm simply not interested in using the hardware for other purposes, whether I can or not) cause even modest damage to the range of games available, that's not a good trade off for me. Sony[1] with the PSP claimed that: > There's a number of titles from American publishers that will be there, but are we getting full-line support? No. I'm not going to bullshit you on that. > A lot of the stuff that will be announced at E3 we're very excited about, because they are huge titles. And we also believe that there's a way that you will be able to, not stop, but slow down the piracy in the first 30 to 60 days from a tech perspective. [...] That's been the biggest problem, no question about it. It's become a very difficult proposition to be profitable, given the piracy right now. Of course they're incentivised to portray piracy as damaging to the platform even if it isn't changing publisher decision making to any significant extent, but it's an argument that makes sense, and I find it difficult to believe that it wasn't dampening publisher enthusiasm to at least some extent. In some ways, I'd like to see a phased path to openness, where say ten years down the line or when official support is dropped, some of the barriers are taken away (most platforms get there anyway due to third party efforts, and as Sony allude to above, _slowing_ piracy can be sufficient), even if only to aid game preservation and avoid games being forever tied to a particular physical hardware platform. [1] Specifically, Sony Computer Entertainment America's then senior vice president of publisher relations, Rob Dyer - https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/133097/the_sony_situation_sceas_rob_.php?page=4 https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/133097/the_sony_situa...