Reuters] Sony facing $7.9 bln mass lawsuit over PlayStation Store prices

[Gamernyc78]

Sony facing $7.9 bln mass lawsuit over PlayStation Store prices

Sony must face a mass lawsuit worth up to 6.3 billion pounds ($7.9 billion) over claims the PlayStation maker abused its dominant position leading to unfair prices for customers, a London tribunal ruled on Tuesday.

www.reuters.com

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Sony (6758.T) must face a mass lawsuit worth up to 6.3 billion pounds ($7.9 billion) over claims the PlayStation maker abused its dominant position leading to unfair prices for customers, a London tribunal ruled on Tuesday.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) was sued last year on behalf of nearly nine million people in the United Kingdom who had bought digital games or add-on content through Sony's PlayStation Store.

Alex Neill, a consumer advocate who has worked on previous campaigns, is bringing the case against Sony. She says the company abused its dominant position by requiring digital games and add-ons to be bought and sold only via the PlayStation Store, which charges a 30% commission to developers and publishers.

The claim alleges customers have therefore paid higher prices for games and add-on content than they would have done.

Sony's lawyers argued the case was "flawed from start to finish" and said it should be thrown out.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled that Neill's case could continue, though it said people who had made PlayStation Store purchases after the case was filed in 2022 should be removed from the proposed claimant class.

Neill said in a statement that Tuesday's ruling was "the first step in ensuring consumers get back what they're owed". Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459115/sony-facing-pound5-billion-class-action-lawsuit-over-playstation-store-prices/

 

[AshHunter216]

I heard about this. Most comments I've read about this said that the person suing is unlikely to win. Sill fishy that these courts always seem to be for Microsoft and against PlayStation though.

 

[Entropi]

MS is using the flood the zone tactic now.

 

[Johnic]

EDIT: It's that braindead lawsuit from last year that complained about Sony charging 30% from devs for every purchase. You know, like all the other storefronts. Just some braindead lawyer looking for an easy buck. Hoping she gets taught a lesson.

Yeah, bs lawsuit. You can't sue a company that prices its products the same as everyone else.

Moron will get laughed out of court.

What are these unfair prices?

 

[JAHGamer]

EDIT: It's that braindead lawsuit from last year that complained about Sony charging 30% from devs for every purchase. You know, like all the other storefronts. Just some braindead lawyer looking for an easy buck. Hoping she gets taught a lesson.

Yeah, bs lawsuit. You can't sue a company that prices its products the same as everyone else.

Moron will get laughed out of court.

What are these unfair prices?

She's actually suing because you can't buy digital games outside of the PlayStation Store anymore.

 

[Johnic]

She's actually suing because you can't buy digital games outside of the PlayStation Store anymore.

Hmm, I can see the point in that. What about Nintendo or Steam? Legally? I know Xbox allows it.

Also, can't sue for that. Consumers aren't forced to purchase luxury goods. You accept the ToS which mention things like this. If you don't like it, you walk away. And unless Sony is the only one that does that, tough luck.

 

[Snes nes]

Maybe the solution should be an opposing storefront. Competition would help keep prices low.

 

[Entropi]

Maybe the solution should be an opposing storefront. Competition would help keep prices low.

No.

 

[Johnic]

Maybe the solution should be an opposing storefront. Competition would help keep prices low.

You mean like Xbox, Steam and Nintendo? You're not forced into PSN.

 

[Box]

She's actually suing because you can't buy digital games outside of the PlayStation Store anymore.

For almost 8 billion? This is such a joke and a waste of everyones time

 

[JAHGamer]

Hmm, I can see the point in that. What about Nintendo or Steam? Legally? I know Xbox allows it.

Also, can't sue for that. Consumers aren't forced to purchase luxury goods. You accept the ToS which mention things like this. If you don't like it, you walk away. And unless Sony is the only one that does that, tough luck.

PC has a huge third-party key market and Nintendo only has a few titles you can buy outside the eShop digitally

 

[Shmunter]

Tim Sweeney said something along those lines the other day.

But let’s not pretend the only thing stopping Sony from gouging is the physical market competition.

 

[Loy310]

How, they are charging the same price as every other store and the same cut of 30%.
This is just a greedy lawyer looking for a payday, a good ole shakedown. Sony will settle for $9 million, the uk court will take $1 million, this scam of a lawyer will take $6 million and the last $1 million will be shared with 8 million games in the lawsuit so they will each take home less than fifty cent each.
Fucking scam.

 

[Bryank75]

Sick of these opportunistic parasites... they have no clue about the market and they are probably being funded and guided by Microsoft as a retaliation for the CMA and countering their ABK deal.

There's a real stench of Florian Mueller-ness off this lady.

 

[Entropi]

Sick of these opportunistic parasites... they have no clue about the market and they are probably being funded and guided by Microsoft as a retaliation for the CMA and countering their ABK deal.

There's a real stench of Florian Mueller-ness off this lady.

Exactly. I guess Epic and MS would love to set up shop and leach from PNS’ success too.

 

[anonpuffs]

"We'll leverage your server infrastructure to host and provide bandwidth to download our games, but you get a 0% cut because we can sell customers a digital key outside your store", surely a winning argument in court /s

Anyone know what other digital platforms charge? Oh, 30%? Case dismissed

 

[sugarbetik]

This anti consumer practice by Sony needs to be punished.

 

[Yurinka]

I thought they already got rid last year of this dumb lawsuit.

Yes, Sony -as most important game stores- gets almost a third of what you pay to fund the costs of updating and mantain the store, the servers for the store and the downloads, the approval process, customer support, plus marketing and other related costs involved with user acquisition to bring users to the store and so on.

If they would get a lower percentage (which all stores should do, I think charging 10-12% at least to indies would make more sense) the price would be the same, but the publisher of the game would get a bigger cut.

This lawsuit is super stupid.

 

[Dr Bass]

Exactly. I guess Epic and MS would love to set up shop and leach from PNS’ success too.

Epic is arguing that consoles aren't the same as phones because phones are basically computers (i.e. general purpose computing devices) and consoles aren't. Which is correct.

If Epic had any plans on trying to sue to open up console stores to anyone, this wouldn't be the way to go about it. Also, it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. The entire point of these trials is the fact that phones are basically most of the worlds primacy computing device, and to have just two companies in the entire globe be the gatekeepers for software distribution for these platforms is extremely anticompetitive, and also dangerous for business (Apple alone could kill so many businesses by just removing their apps).

By comparison, no one cares at all about consoles. They don't matter on this scale whatsoever. Apple will sell more than 200 million iPhones this year.

This literally happened today in court, so this is a little bit of a paranoid take IMO.

 

[Dr Bass]

I thought they already got rid last year of this dumb lawsuit.

Yes, Sony -as most important game stores- gets almost a third of what you pay to fund the costs of updating and mantain the store, the servers for the store and the downloads, the approval process, customer support, plus marketing and other related costs involved with user acquisition to bring users to the store and so on.

If they would get a lower percentage (which all stores should do, I think charging 10-12% at least to indies would make more sense) the price would be the same, but the publisher of the game would get a bigger cut.

This lawsuit is super stupid.

No, it's actually really important. It has nothing to do with console games either.

Google and Apple are on the losing end of this in the long term anyway. The EU is already requiring the ability for people to download apps outside of the App Store, as it should be.

Edit: I forgot what thread I was in.

Yes THIS lawsuit is stupid lol. Sorry.