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.
Platform lock-in sucks, and it would be nice if a ruling on one of these became legal precedent so that console players also got a choice on their digital purchases.
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.
Her lawyers said the aggregate damages estimate of the case was up to 6.3 billion pounds in court filings last month.
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.
Neill said in a statement that Tuesday’s ruling was “the first step in ensuring consumers get back what they’re owed”.
The original article contains 262 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 42%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The best thing about steam is you can buy keys from other sites
The worst thing about those sites is in most cases it results in the developer being ripped off because the keys are either stolen or purchased using stolen credit cards.
Countless devs have said they would rather people pirate their games than buy keys from those sites
This is true for a small category of sites I won’t name, but there’s also lots of sites that have a direct business relationship with the publisher. Ex: greenmangaming, gamersgate.
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.
Maybe Nintendo has a similar practice with their Nintendo shop that they could be sued over, but regardless they’re still allowed to price their own games however they want.
Ultimately, I suspect the entire model for digital game delivery on consoles will have to change as a result of this case. Not that those changes would be bad, of course (indeed, they’re sorely needed), but they will occur as a result of console manufacturers having to open up their consoles to…sideloading (not sure this is the word, but it’s all I’ve got right now)?
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Platform lock-in sucks, and it would be nice if a ruling on one of these became legal precedent so that console players also got a choice on their digital purchases.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
Her lawyers said the aggregate damages estimate of the case was up to 6.3 billion pounds in court filings last month.
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.
Neill said in a statement that Tuesday’s ruling was “the first step in ensuring consumers get back what they’re owed”.
The original article contains 262 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 42%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The best thing about steam is you can buy keys from other sites, or even add incompatible games so they still showed up in your library.
PSN won’t even show you the current price for a game you own because it would encourage users to wait for a slae.
The worst thing about those sites is in most cases it results in the developer being ripped off because the keys are either stolen or purchased using stolen credit cards.
Countless devs have said they would rather people pirate their games than buy keys from those sites
This is true for a small category of sites I won’t name, but there’s also lots of sites that have a direct business relationship with the publisher. Ex: greenmangaming, gamersgate.
wouldn’t xbox store have the same developer fee?
And isn’t this the same battle epic fought with Apple?
removed by mod
That’s not why they’re going after Sony though.
Maybe Nintendo has a similar practice with their Nintendo shop that they could be sued over, but regardless they’re still allowed to price their own games however they want.
Ultimately, I suspect the entire model for digital game delivery on consoles will have to change as a result of this case. Not that those changes would be bad, of course (indeed, they’re sorely needed), but they will occur as a result of console manufacturers having to open up their consoles to…sideloading (not sure this is the word, but it’s all I’ve got right now)?