How would it be countless legal issues? Why would it be any different to anything else that allows you to record anything? I don't understand how recording to USB is any different legally than recording to any device. Sony make DVDr players right? They make Bluray players with recording features. I'm not quite sure how there's legal issues about a TV having the ability to record a peripheral attached to it. It's not against the law to record anything like that anyway, that was settled way back when the evil entertainment industry tried to shut down video casette recorders.
It would be incredibly nice to get this functionality out of the TV itself. I don't suppose you know of any possible alternate methods? Like as I said can the TV broadcast it's image to something else? Such as the laptop? Or to a separate screen? This would probably allow me to work out a method without having to fork out for something else.
Just done a bit of research on the above. There are Samsung TVs that allow recording to usb from hdmi sources
Now I feel like I have the wrong TV.
You say "many games" cat but really it's just the Halo and Call of Duty series that offer a battle recorder of sorts, and again, those only apply to multiplayer.
I really think this is something that ought to be part of Bravia, it's like a missing niche that Sony hasn't seen, from a marketing standpoint it would make Bravias the superior TV to own for gamers because they'd be able to record their gameplay without buying an alternate peripheral. It's an entire market of consumers that ALL need a TV to play their games and are almost all generally into internet culture, youtube, machinima and the like. Cuts out the costly capture card market.
I dunno, perhaps Sony have already considered it, it seems like something that might have been overlooked and ought to at least be suggested. There's a hell of a lot of gamers and it'll only ever be a growing market, the culture of gaming commentaries and uploading gaming videos is still in it's infancy too, so it's only going to get much much bigger.
Oops, went on a bit of a ramble there.