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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

 

[tabzer]

I think that people should see an obvious savings in buying digital content as opposed to physical media, and the absence of that has indicated that there has to be some sort of price-fixing going on. All of these store-fronts profit from being the single source of games, and that is why there is an emphasis on exclusives in order to capture audiences. Before, the argument was "Oh, you don't like Sony, go with XBox. See, that's an open market!". Now we have lawsuits like this saying something akin to "Sony has a monopoly over Sony". They are trying their way of hacking Sony via legalese.

I think I would prefer to buy/sell/trade my games via NFT in a type of decentralized market place, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

[OldManLav]

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

Yeah it's called Apple iPhone

 

[gundamu]

my boy jim ryan told hes been having nightmares since these news came out, can somebody please think about the shareholder??

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Cheaper games would be great, sure, but I'm not sure this lawsuit holds much water.
Games are purposely priced the same on retail and digital, so that they are priced competitively with eachother. The 30% commission has little to do with the digital pricing. That argument works on PC, where physical copies have all but gone away and digital storefronts are only competing against other digital storefronts, it doesn't work so well on consoles where the pricing of physical copies also has to compete with the pricing of digital ones.
Moreover, that 30% commission is probably comparable to the cost of manufacturing and selling physical copies, and the logistics involved with that. So the pricing kinda works out in a way so that the developers/publishers receive roughly the same amount for each sale regardless of whether it's digital or retail. As a result, there is no need to inflate the price of digital copies, and it keeps publishers/devs happy.
If digital copies were cheaper, physical copies would also have to be made cheaper in order to still be competitive, that would be bad for the devs/publishers as they would be making very little profit on physical copies sold.

 

[Foxi4]

Cheaper games would be great, sure, but I'm not sure this lawsuit holds much water.
Games are purposely priced the same on retail and digital, so that they are priced competitively with eachother. The 30% commission has little to do with the digital pricing.
Moreover, that 30% commission is probably comparable to the cost of manufacturing and selling physical copies, and the logistics involved with that. So the pricing kinda works out that way.

They’re actually *not* priced the same, at least not universally. Physical copies are notoriously cheaper by £5-10 in my area on launch day and get progressively cheaper as time goes on. The opposite should be true - digital games should logically be cheaper due to decreased distribution cost, but all those savings just translate into higher margins. Case in point, Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition came out today. It’s £57.99 on PSN and £44.99 in GAME. The publisher had to press the discs, get them packaged, delivered to stores across the country, so on and so forth, everybody along that chain got their cut of the pie and yet somehow the physical copy is £13 cheaper, which is no small potatoes. It adds up over the course of the year when you buy games regularly.

 

[RichardTheKing]

When was the last time I used the PlayStation Store...? It's been at least a year, if not longer, I'd say.
I haven't used my PS4 Pro in ages, as most of its games are now on Steam (and thus moddable), and I don't have a PS5. My old PS3 also hasn't been touched for quite some time, too.

I'm also banned from Nintendo's eShop, due to updating my console via Daybreak, and I refuse to get an Xbox, so...yeah, the only storefronts I've used in the past year (if not more) are Steam and GOG.
Unless you count NSP/XCI sites as a 'storefront', anyway, then those would be my most-used store - followed by Steam.

 

[elk1007]

Seems like a lot of munny

 

[tabzer]

It's concerning to see Sony embroiled in a 7.9 billion lawsuit over PlayStation Store prices by the London Tribunal. Fair pricing and consumer trust are paramount in the gaming industry. This legal battle highlights the importance of transparent pricing practices to maintain a positive relationship with gamers and the gaming community.

I don't think trust has anything to do with it. We aren't look for relationships, we are looking for good games.