Maybe they just
claimed the console was not upgradable to naively thinking that
hackerspeople won't care and even try to do whatever stuff to it then.
The functionality of the USB port was there for maybe purposes like when some games break, such as freezing or crashing due to faulty game ROMs or buggy emulation (mainly because of not testing enough on the
developers' part) they would just issue upgrades to the firmware to stop the consumers complaining. In other words, they
lied. Geez, being able to have the firmware changed so easily means you can do
anything with that console. It would be fun if someone makes it run a SMS emulator.
Though it's not official, maybe it was also supposed to support some simple USB peripherals, such as USB speakers and mice. Anyone tried that?