I understand that entirely. I just don't think that this absolves Gateway of responsibility for deliberately placing code which bricks consoles. Add code which prevents knock-off cards from working with their firmware? Sure, of course that's a sensible business move. But bricking the console itself is spiteful and unnecessary, and shows contempt not for the people making the knockoffs but for the console users.
Because I might otherwise be a Gateway user in the future. If I bought a knockoff card to use with Gateway's firmware and got an error message that the knockoff card isn't supported, I would think "silly me, shouldn't have bought the knockoff, better buy a Gateway." This means more sales for Gateway, But if, instead, Gateway chose to make my console unusable, I would think "fuck Gateway" and be sure never to become a Gateway customer.
Maybe, maybe not. But I don't agree that it's the right thing to do under any circumstances.