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Back on 2022, Sony received a lawsuit from consumer advocate Alex Neill of the United Kingdom, on behalf of 9+ million users in the region, with the claim that Sony is abusing its standing as the main seller by allowing the sale of any kind of digital content only through their PlayStation Store, which charges a 30% commission to developers and publishers, and therefore also overcharging customers for any kind of digital content being sold on it, be it actual games, or DLC itself.

According to the reports, Sony's lawyers tried to dismiss the lawsuit, but on November 21st, 2023, London's Competition Appeal Tribunal has allowed the lawsuit to go forward, although with the customers that have made any kind of purchase since the filling of the lawsuit back in 2022 not being accounted for as part of the claimants.

The case against Sony is valued to a possible worth of up to $5 billion pounds, but with the aggregate damages, the sum is now estimated to be around $6.23 billion pounds, amounting to something close to 7.84 billion USD in case the lawsuit rules in favour of the customers.

Source

 

[samcambolt270]

Next they'll sue Steam, then Nintendont eStore, then x-bot store and finally(a big maybe/maybe not) Epic game store.

Desperate €ash grab in my opinion.

Considering you just listed both epic and steam in that, you clearly didn't understand what the lawsuit was for. It's for holding a monopoly over where people can sell games, not for being a store. The fact that both steam and epic stores both exist and you can release on either shows that they aren't holding a monopoly. There are other places you can sell games from on pc.

 

[Xzi]

I don’t think people quite understand what this lawsuit is about. It’s not about having another store on the console itself besides PSN’s, it’s about third-party sellers being able to sell digital codes for games on their storefronts outside of Sony’s jurisdiction. Nintendo and Microsoft both allow this - you can go on Amazon right now and buy digital codes for games from their catalogue, Microsoft especially. Sony is the only company out of the big three that only offers digital credit, not direct codes. In an ideal world all games from digital storefronts should be available for sale by third-party sellers just like physical copies are, that introduces an element of competition that is currently lacking in the marketplace.

Oh okay, that makes sense. Thought they were suing over the 30% cut, which remains industry standard.

 

[SeventhSon7]

I detect the hands of Timmy Tencent behind this

 

[Kitocco]

My only stake in this is I love seeing multi-billion corpos take a beating

But I wish they'd go after Sony for their deceptive refund policy that constitutes the console even loading the Auth ticket for a digital game (which it does AUTOMATICALLY ON BOOT OR WAKE, EVEN IF you have "Automatic Downloads" off like their customer service repeatedly BULLSHITS you on) as a "download" so you can't refund. Which has led me to have to wrangle with customer service a few times for games I NEVER downloaded.
(And yeah, I have video proof of this.)

 

[nikeymikey]

How are they "standing as main seller"?
Well, with microsoft just refusing to have any exclusives, and nintendo and their underpowered console.......... Maybe?

As others have said in the thread, it is about PSN being THE ONLY place to buy digital PS software. You cannot buy a PS game code on Amazon or anywhere else. MS, Nintendo and Valve all allow devs to sell game codes in other places as well as their own stores.

 

[Jayinem]

Fuck digital pricing across the board since day 1 as far as I'm concerned. You cut out the middle man of shipping something to a store yet you still want the same price? And physical copies go on sale faster and more often than digital. It should be the opposite.

 

[Hassal]

7.84 billion USD / 9 million = 871 USD each

 

[Foxi4]

in theory. in practice digital codes on amazon rarely go on sale and if they do its during a sale thats also happening on the console store at the same time for the same price

Sure, but you can’t have competition even in theory if you hold a distribution monopoly. That’s why the “cut” is a problem - 30% relative to what? How much is the product and how much is the margin? What’s the wiggle room? There’s something to say about pricing transparency alone being beneficial to the consumer.

Oh okay, that makes sense. Thought they were suing over the 30% cut, which remains industry standard.

The core of the suit is that PSN is the *only* way to get games on PlayStation, the 30% cut is a supporting argument, the article says as much. Without a viable alternative a developer or publisher doesn’t have an option to distribute their product any other way. This problem is non-existent in regards to physical copies and there’s no reason why digital distribution should be any different, it’s all just 1’s and 0’s, they’re merely distributed in different ways. There’ll be more lawsuits like this in the near future, no doubt - digital distribution is already the main way people get games on PC and it’s only growing bigger and bigger on consoles.

 

[K3Nv2]

This is Rich of ReviewTechUSA...

 

[tabzer]

I don’t think people quite understand what this lawsuit is about. It’s not about having another store on the console itself besides PSN’s, it’s about third-party sellers being able to sell digital codes for games on their storefronts outside of Sony’s jurisdiction. Nintendo and Microsoft both allow this - you can go on Amazon right now and buy digital codes for games from their catalogue, Microsoft especially. Sony is the only company out of the big three that only offers digital credit, not direct codes. In an ideal world all games from digital storefronts should be available for sale by third-party sellers just like physical copies are, that introduces an element of competition that is currently lacking in the marketplace.

It's about Sony being the only one, anywhere. Monopoly.

If there was a competing storefront on the PS, hosting the same content, this lawsuit wouldn't exist.

In respect to selling digital content codes outside of the platform storefronts, the access of said content is still only accessable through the platform's storefronts, so the prices are still fixed as far as I can tell. What part of selling dlc codes makes it competitive? The fact that people can sell digital codes at a loss? Isn't it the publisher who controls the pricing of their games anyway?

If you can buy an XBox or PC to play the same content, then there could be a defensive argument at foot here.

We should make Nintendo allow Mario on other platforms next.

 

[Xzi]

In respect to selling digital content codes outside of the platform storefronts, the access of said content is still only accessable through the platform's storefronts, so the prices are still fixed as far as I can tell. What part of selling dlc codes makes it competitive? The fact that people can sell digital codes at a loss? Isn't it the publisher who controls the pricing of their games anyway?

If a storefront's cut is 30%, then the publisher can sell keys from their own website at a 30% discount while still making the same amount of profit. Pretty sure sites like GMG and Humble take a lower cut to incentivize greater discounts, as well.

 

[ertaboy356b]

Not even just playstation but Sony in general. They pushed a broken firmware which broke my earbuds to unrepairable level then refused me service. Like wth.

 

[tabzer]

If a storefront's cut is 30%, then the publisher can sell keys from their own website at a 30% discount while still making the same amount of profit. Pretty sure sites like GMG and Humble take a lower cut to incentivize greater discounts, as well.

So the likes of Nintendo and Xbox offers publishers/retailers digital content codes and the hosting service thereof at a rate that doesn't consider the MSRP? My understanding is that the codes correlate with the listed products and the price, which is why we don't see much variation between the storefront price and the cost of a digital code from a retailer, even with sales. I suspect Humble negotiates their pricing with Steam and publishers. I don't know how GMG profits, but my thought was that they hosted "digital overstock"--if that's a real thing or not.

Not even just playstation but Sony in general. They pushed a broken firmware which broke my earbuds to unrepairable level then refused me service. Like wth.

I'm still sour about how they ruined the WF-1000XM4s, and they try to hide it. I get about 30 minutes on my right ear bud now. I have to be the one who fixes it (temporarily?), or shells out significant dollars for the opportunity to trust them to fix it.

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[Xzi]

My understanding is that the codes correlate with the listed price, which is why we don't see much variation between the storefront price and the cost of a digital code from a retailer, even with sales. I suspect Humble negotiates their pricing with Steam.

Nah, pre-orders on Green Man Gaming regularly go for like $15 to $20 off the full price on Steam, and games hit half off much quicker. Not all Steam games are available of course, only those with participating publishers, but there are a fair number of indies available as well. Same deal with Humble, owned by IGN. They don't consult Valve on anything, they just have their own discounts with stackable membership discounts.

 

[ertaboy356b]

I'm still sour about how they ruined the WF-1000XM4s, and they try to hide it. I get about 30 minutes on my right ear bud now. I have to be the one who fixes it (temporarily?), or shells out significant dollars for the opportunity to trust them to fix it.

​

Same issue my man. In my case, it's the WF-L900. I love that thing, you know the weird earbuds with ring. They want me to give them $100 just so they can replace the broken bud, like what the heck, I didn't even break the damn thing.

 

[tabzer]

Nah, pre-orders on Green Man Gaming regularly go for like $15 to $20 off the full price on Steam, and games hit half off much quicker. Not all Steam games are available of course, only those with participating publishers, but there are a fair number of indies available as well. Same deal with Humble, owned by IGN. They don't consult Valve on anything, they just have their own discounts with stackable membership discounts.

Sorry, I didn't mean to conflate Xbox and Nintendo with Steam. I believe Steam operates differently when it comes to issuing codes, though there still isn't more clarity on the caveats. Do Nintendo and Xbox offer publishers to sell their digital game codes elsewhere, maybe at a flat rate that doesn't consider the MSRP?

Same issue my man. In my case, it's the WF-L900. I love that thing, you know the weird earbuds with ring. They want me to give them $100 just so they can replace the broken bud, like what the heck, I didn't even break the damn thing.

I have a pair of those too, and it's the same exact issue. It's stupid with these. You can't even buy a working pair. You have to buy a pair, and then pay Sony to "fix" them. Whether they fix them or not is uncertain. No more future Sony earbuds for me--at least not until they address the issue on clear terms.

 

[Lazyt]

good

 

[Xzi]

Sorry, I didn't mean to conflate Xbox and Nintendo with Steam. I believe Steam operates differently when it comes to issuing codes, though there still isn't more clarity on the caveats. Do Nintendo and Xbox offer publishers to sell their digital game codes elsewhere, maybe at a flat rate that doesn't consider the MSRP?

Yes, you can buy Nintendo and Xbox game keys through third-party sites. I imagine that they are more strict about price parity than Valve, but I can't be certain.

 

[pedro702]

I think the idea is that they don't allow other sales platforms to exist on PlayStation

Take for instance the android phone - imagine if Google locked down the OS so you couldn't download other app stores or apps

I think the idea is they are stifling competition by not allowing alternative stores

I suspect nothing will come of this, but would love if console developers had to open up consoles more

a console is a closed environment with closed source os... every console only has a single store to sell games so i dont get how this is even an issue, also i never ever heard anyone ever wanting to put a steam store or any kinda store inside PS os at all and was blocked.

 

[whitesword7]

damn, must be hard to be such a poor country that you can’t even spend 60$ on video game