Sony faces lawsuit over alleged “monopoly pricing” of PlayStation downloads

[khalbrae]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/...ion-downloads/

In Apple's opening statements in the Epic Games v. Apple trial on Monday, the company argued that "the law protects Apple's choice to have a closed system, just as it protects Sony and Nintendo." A new proposed class-action lawsuit against Sony's alleged monopoly control over the market for downloadable PlayStation games seems set to test that argument in the near future.

The lawsuit, filed in Northern California federal court (first reported on by Bloomberg News and obtained by Polygon), alleges that Sony's monopoly control over the PlayStation Store leads to "supracompetitive prices for digital PlayStation games, which are... [priced] significantly higher than they would be in a competitive retail market for digital games."

No more retail code competition
Microsoft and Nintendo also maintain digital storefronts that provide the only legitimate way to download software on the Xbox and Switch platforms, of course. But the lawsuit says the PlayStation Store differs from its console competition for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, in 2019, Sony became the only console maker to stop allowing the sale of digital game codes through brick-and-mortar and online retailers. In doing so, the suit alleges, Sony "specifically intended to and did eliminate price competition from other digital video game retailers," limiting players to "a single source for purchasing any digital PlayStation content" and forcing those players "to pay a higher price for digital PlayStation games than they would in a free and unrestrained competitive retail market."
The suit suggests that "where download codes are available from outside retailers, the retailers compete amongst themselves and with the in-console stores to offer the best price." That seems somewhat true in other console markets; as of this writing, digital codes for games like Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe are selling for $39.99 on Amazon, less than the $59.99 price for a direct purchase through the Nintendo Online Store.

[Batman90]

I guess those people never heard that Sony offers great deals on games digitally. Plus it’s not up to Sony if or when games go on sale it’s the developer who says so.

[jayturner514]

A lot more of this will come to light soon. Sony’s policy for cross-platform revenue share is interesting to say the least.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22...mes-agreements

[TheBlayman]

Target sure sells a lot of digital download cards for Sony games.

[Batman90]

Originally Posted by TheBlayman

Target sure sells a lot of digital download cards for Sony games.

I know and so does Walmart. Someone people just don’t know where to look it seems. People are sue happy anymore since when does a company have to provide other ways of being able to buy games for their systems? The person who is doing this lawsuit are idiots and just refuse to use their brains.

[Batman90]

Originally Posted by jayturner514

A lot more of this will come to light soon. Sony’s policy for cross-platform revenue share is interesting to say the least.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22...mes-agreements

I don’t see where Sony is wrong. Sony doesn’t have to allow any kind of cross plays with other systems. Is it me or do people forget that Sony is a business and why should they allow any kind of access to other gaming consoles?

[Wingman1977]

It's nothing more than lazy people trying to get free money.

[Eidolon]

Nintendo is vastly worse than Sony for game pricing. There's things on thier wiiU and 3ds stores that have been at full price since launch day, and they were too expensive back then.

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

Nintendo is vastly worse than Sony for game pricing. There's things on thier wiiU and 3ds stores that have been at full price since launch day, and they were too expensive back then.

Well that won’t matter to me since I never did manage to get any DS system or a Wii U console before Nintendo decided to remove adding funds for those systems with a Nintendo Prepaid Card. At least with Sony even though they removed using a Credit or Debit Card for PS3/Vita/PSP titles but can still use the Prepaid Cards as much as you want.

[PenguinInfinity]

If people have a problem with any company controlling distribution and pricing they should buy physical games. If more people did that there wouldn't be so many games that are only available digitally and therefore completely controlled.

[Eidolon]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

If people have a problem with any company controlling distribution and pricing they should buy physical games. If more people did that there wouldn't be so many games that are only available digitally and therefore completely controlled.

You're never going to get physical media releases of smaller games, the more 'casual' or arcade type of things, which is what I mostly actually play when I'm using one of my modern systems.
For games that would sell at a much smaller price point due to them being much smaller, they'd never justfiy the cost of pressing physical copies. And bear in mind that there are versions of the latest Playstation and xbox that don't even have disc drives.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

You're never going to get physical media releases of smaller games, the more 'casual' or arcade type of things, which is what I mostly actually play when I'm using one of my modern systems.
For games that would sell at a much smaller price point due to them being much smaller, they'd never justfiy the cost of pressing physical copies.

Smaller physical games used to sell fine before digital games became popular. If people bought more physical games then more games would be released physically.

And bear in mind that there are versions of the latest Playstation and xbox that don't even have disc drives.

Why is that relevant? No one is forced to buy those consoles.

All of the lawsuits focused on digital games and movies are trying to get the same rights that physical media already has. It's ridiculous that people will buy digital media and sue in a (vain) attempt to make it more customer-friendly instead of just buying physical media.