7 ms·

Sony facing $7.9B mass lawsuit over Playstation Store prices

45 points by toblaroni 3y ago

pipes 3y ago
This seems ridiculous. Sony sells consoles at a loss and makes it money on game sales etc. If this succeeds that will kill that business model and who benefits from that?
- diggan 3y ago
  If Sony is forced to allow alternative stores on PlayStation with different pricing, so they actually have to compete, then the consumers benefit.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    If Apple isn't forced to allow other stores why would Sony be?
    - drooopy 3y ago
      This looks like it's about to change, at least in the EU.
  - crop_rotation 3y ago
    Nobody benefits if the game consoles get commoditised like PCs. In the long run it would become an unattractive business like PC and people will just buy PCs if the prices become similar for the spec.
    - danuker 3y ago
      Which begs the question: why do people buy consoles at all? Why don't they buy PCs? I have never owned nor seen the attraction of a gaming console as opposed to a general PC.
      - id00 3y ago
        A few: cheaper, takes less space, don't need to know what cpu/gpu you need to buy, it just works, don't need to look for game hardware reqs The older I get and the less time I have to tinker with PC, the more I appreciate consoles
        dvngnt_ 3y ago
        you end up waiting for console updates
        falcolas 3y ago
        While the console still has to do updates, their sleep mode makes even those fairly painless for an end user.
      - gjsman-1000 3y ago
        Well, I’ll give you my logic, why I collect for the Nintendo Switch. I inherited an Atari and small NES game collection from my grandparents. They’re games about ~35-45 years old. When my grandparents bought those games, and when my mother was playing them, handing them on to the next generation certainly wasn’t a consideration - but that day came. Now imagine yourself 35 years from now. That Steam game that was delisted 25 years ago, barely runs on Windows whatever-it-is, and can’t be transferred, isn’t going to be a very viable option. And that’s just the beginning. I get a mountain of joy from loaning titles to friends and family. Often, more than even playing the game itself. Not happening with Steam. You might say, “just go pirate.” To which I say, you seriously expect a free and open internet in 35 years at this rate?
      - nightski 3y ago
        Have fun building a 4k ray tracing capable PC for $500. The GPU alone is going to cost you that much. Plus while steam big picture mode is possible, it's kind of a pain compared to the simplicity of hooking up a console right to your big screen TV.
      - crazygringo 3y ago
    - xxs 3y ago
      >if the game consoles get commoditised like PCs That might be bad for Sony share holders (to a degree) but it's excellent in general.
      - ericmay 3y ago
        I would definitely disagree and I think you can look squarely at appliances like "Smart" TVs as an example of a more obvious future with the commoditization. It'll basically turn into fast-fashion. Drop a new console with the latest features and OS, stop supporting it, move on to the next one. Etc. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have done in my opinion a great job in the gaming sphere by producing pretty good quality consoles at affordable prices. Certainly there is room for improvement, but this continued assault seeking to "commoditize" everything from iOS to Playstation just ensures that it turns to shit. Commoditization isn't a moral good, neither is open-source.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  The $499 PS5 is not sold at a loss: https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-5-ps5-loss-profit https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-... Consoles are often sold at a loss initially but quickly become profitable as hardware costs fall. The razor-and-blades model isn't as ubiquitous as you might believe.
  - dalbasal 3y ago
    Precisely. Sure, considering the platform-game paradigm different products sources cross subsidize one another a different stages of their life cycles. This is just how firms work, and is often mostly a matter of accounting.
    - xxs 3y ago
      Alternatively, the goods can have different taxes applied as well.
  - TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
    I think it yo-yos because eventually they cut the cost of hardware over its life cycle. On average I think consoles are sold at break even.
  - pipes 3y ago
    Commented below, but applies this too, at console launch gamers get a Great piece of kit subsidized by the manufacturer's bet that they can make the money back on games. Equivalent spec pcs cost way more. For years this model has worked great in physical media sales, I don't have a problem with it in online media. If we want companies like Sony to produce consoles they need a way to make them profitable. It's an extremely risky investment with no guarantee of success. Lastly if 30 percent is "unfair" developers would not use the platform. But they do. Same for consumers. If all parties in this didn't derive value they wouldn't trade with each other.
    - rchaud 3y ago
      > Lastly if 30 percent is "unfair" developers would not use the platform. But they do. Same for consumers. My PS3 was my last console for this reason. Developers pay the publishing charge and make up the loss with micro-transactions or shallow GOTY editions. In cases where they don't add tedious amounts of "grind" mechanics to extend gameplay time, they'll just make them multiplayer-centric. The whole thing has become a racket.
- xxs 3y ago
  >Sony sells consoles at a loss and makes it money on game sales etc. So you are saying that they are engaging in anti-competitive practices. Also at $500, it's unlikely a loss.
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    Selling something at a loss to make money elsewhere is not inherently anti-competitive in many locations. Depends on where you are.
    - xxs 3y ago
      >Depends on where you are. The filed case is in the UK. So there is that. It applies to the EU as well.
  - Algent 3y ago
    Pretty sure it's 550 now, price went up a while ago.
    - xxs 3y ago
      Ahh well, at that price point, I guess one can just get a similar new PC with way better spec - e.g. intel 12400 on 660B + amd 7600xt + 32gb ram + 2TB ssd + case/psu is around $600 new, entirely retail (newegg) price. It does not include keyboard/mouse/gamepad, but thing has 44GB of combined memory (compared to the 16 of ps5). It's a pretty decent machine for everyday use.
- delecti 3y ago
  Realistically, most people won't install another store. And if that prediction doesn't come true, then Sony will stop selling hardware at a loss, so the people who benefit would be people who buy a lot of games. And in any case, console manufacturers aren't "owed" a razor-and-blades business model.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  Frankly I think they can allow this without hurting their business. I mean “allowing other stores” was the default before online stores - i.e. vast majority of games used to be sold by retailers that aren’t Sony. How does Sony/Nintendo/Sega make money back in the day? Royalty fees. Every copy of a game sold on their platform, they get 10-20%. If you refuse then you don’t publish at all - all consoles have lockout mechanisms; NES/SNES has a lockout chip you can only get from Nintendo, modern consoles require all executables to be digitally signed or they won’t run and guess who has the keys, … Apple would be hurt by allowing alt stores though since they don’t charge royalties. But if forced to open up iOS to alt stores, I think they will start charging royalties like consoles do.
- criddell 3y ago
  > kill that business model That's not really their business model. Sony has never sold a console that, over the life of the product, has lost money on hardware. Microsoft may have with the XBox and their red ring problem, but that's not really relevant to this discussion. Who benefits? Consumers mostly. Sony likes that model because it is more profitable for them. It also raises a barrier to competitors. If everybody else sells hardware at a loss, it makes it more difficult to launch a new console.
- danaris 3y ago
  No business model is more important than upholding consumer rights and preventing anticompetitive behavior. No business model has a Constitutional right to exist, period.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > If this succeeds that will kill that business model and who benefits from that? Everyone. They shouldn't be allowed to price dump computer components so they can charge fat margins by enforcing DRM. They shouldn't even be allowed to own the platform at all. The EU should hit these video game companies with the same laws they're going to hit Google and Apple with. Gotta put an end to their little digital fiefdoms.
  - pipes 3y ago
    Careful what you wish for. If Sony can't profit from license fees for games on its console then there is no incentive to create the console in the first place.
userinanother 3y ago
Ps5 games are Usally more expensive than Xbox. If you only play multi platform games buy the Xbox
- tapoxi 3y ago
  I've never found this to be the case. The big titles are usually $70 USD new, and it's easier to find physical copies of PS4 and PS5 games because Microsoft has been focusing on digital-only as of late.
crazygringo 3y ago
I honestly don't have a strong position on app stores being exclusive or not -- I see pros and cons on both sides. But I do find it ridiculous that a lot of people (including lawmakers) want to force Apple to open its store, but defend Sony/Xbox. No. From a legal standpoint, there's no good reason to treat a $499 consumer CPU+GPU device differently, depending on whether it sits in your pocket or under your TV. If you support government-mandated third-party app stores for your iPhone, you should support them for PS and Xbox as well.
- toyg 3y ago
  I agree. The whole model stinks - whether it's apps, games, books, or anything else digital. Stores should be open to competition, end of.
  - rahilb 3y ago
    Why though? If I build a big fancy shopping mall should I let business owners use units rent free? I’ve paid construction costs, electricity, taken the risk etc, so it’s obvious I should be able to profit from tenants otherwise I wouldn’t have built the thing in the first place. If you don’t like how I’ve built my mall you can go to the Xbox mall next door, or the PC slums where you are free to do whatever you like.
    - rahilb 3y ago
      I guess the analogy kind of falls down as a physical business owner and move and setup somewhere else, but then they won’t have access to the mall’s traffic… actually I guess this kind of still holds up
    - toyg 3y ago
      But you really can't just "go to the mall next door", since your faithful customers cannot follow you and your entire merchandise has to be remade from scratch. For that reason, no real mall-owner ever can even dream of extracting 30% from every sale. Why can Apple/Google/Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo get away with it? Because they don't suffer competitive pressure in the same amount. Most of them are effective monopolies in their segments, thanks to network effects, so they can get away with the worst type of feudal rent-extraction.
jerf 3y ago
Much, much bigger fish have argued this and failed, most notably Epic vs. Apple [1]. (Although there's a separate Epic vs. Google, which I was not clear on [2]; I had those conflated in my mind, which the process of digging up links has now cleared out.) I won't conclude that the case is hopeless but I can definitely say that the companies will defend this to the hilt, and this does strike me as very weak coming from the consumer, who has the option to not buy and also for the most part buy elsewhere on different platforms. You're not being forced to buy things at higher prices than you want, and games are not anything resembling a human right. Epic's case strikes me as stronger for the developers being hurt by the gouging. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22667769/apple-epic-lost-lawsuit-verdict-ruling https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22667769/apple-epic-lost-... [2]: https://www.theverge.com/23944251/epic-google-antitrust-trial-explainer-monopoly https://www.theverge.com/23944251/epic-google-antitrust-tria...
- semiquaver 3y ago
  > Much, much bigger fish have argued this and failed True, but this is a different jurisdiction. Is there any equivalent case you can point to in the UK?
  - jerf 3y ago
    I'm aware of that, which is why you may note my last paragraph did not actually make any arguments based on precedent, instead using the court cases to observe that the companies have a history of hitting this with everything they have. But they are under common law as the US is, so pointing out that the customer complaint about being damaged strikes me as rather weak and much weaker than the developer's complaints is still valid in their system. I can't complain that Maserati are making way more profits than they should because they're charging high prices on their luxury goods. They could demand 10 times the price and I'm still not being damaged. It's their prerogative. Games are luxury goods too and if Sony wanted to sell them for 10x more, the remedy is to not buy them, and that's generally a much more competitive market where customers have a lot of other options too, e.g., most of the games being "overpriced" on PS5 are also available on at least one other platform, if not 3.
Waterluvian 3y ago
> The claim alleges customers have therefore paid higher prices for games and add-on content than they would have done. It's always fun when they try to use us as an excuse for their lawsuit. The Playstation Store prices are pretty famously cheap. New titles are consistently priced at the typical price points. And they deeply discount stuff all the time. You can get premium games for 75-90% off almost any day of the week (though this feels closer to 50-70% these days). If this was a lawsuit against Nintendo, their complaints might resonate with me. Nintendo never really puts anything on sale and when they do it's barely a scratch. Indie titles are consistently overpriced on the Nintendo store.
costanzaDynasty 3y ago
I've been buying games digitally for about 3 generations and I've found the pricing across all game stores to be the same or cheaper than buying physical on balance. But I don't ever pay full price for a game and I use tracking websites.
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  >I've been buying games digitally for about 3 generations Of people, cars, or - i presume, games: but how are the generations defined? Sorry, not a gamer and never heard such a phrase.
  - Kapura 3y ago
    Console generations; Playstation 5 is a generation after Playstation 4, with Playstation 3 before that. There are rough equivalents on the Nintendo and Xbox side, but Playstation numbering makes generation identification easier.
    - costanzaDynasty 3y ago
      Yup. Using playstation as the spine its a little easier though not complete to base console generations off of. When I think ps1: Sega Saturn, and a few others. Ps2 has Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube. Ps3 has 360 and Wii etc. Though there is a chance that this will be the last generation of this and that there will be universal platforms instead of consoles for at least Xbox and probably Playstation. Why make a console that I lose money on when I can sell you a $100 controller and a subscription to our cloud service instead.
- UberMouse 3y ago
  FWIW I have the opposite experience, I never buy digital playstation games unless I'm forced to because they all sell for MSRP in New Zealand ($129/$139 NZD), whereas I can always get them physically for $99/$109 brand new. I would much prefer to buy digital games, but I'm not paying an extra $30 for the privilege of saving someone _else_ money
Algent 3y ago
Compared the apple vs epic case this time the angle seem to be from consumer side with an added argument "consumer would pay less if Sony made less margin" which is technically correct but is absolutely insane from a business angle. That's basically claiming business shouldn't be able to set their price if their margin is deemed unfair... which is a pretty daring claim. While regulation on pricing could be interesting it's not exactly a judge job and it would be a bit counter current with how the world economy currently work. As for the whole "closed ecosystem" part this have been debated thousand of time already, nothing new here except I'm not sure it was attempted in UK yet.
- Spivak 3y ago
  Yeah this lawsuit doesn't have a chance but I do think there's an interesting observation in there that these platforms aren't price takers like they ought to be in a more competitive market. I don't think anyone expects there to be perfect competition but the pricing power Sony and others enjoy to just set their margin I think is indicative that something has gone wrong.
- cacois 3y ago
  This analysis doesn't seem right to me, let me try to think it through. It seems more like "the business is blocking competition from selling at lower prices". The problem in question here is actually the playstation "store". I'm trying to find a good analogy. Say we're in the early NES days (no online stores, just physical). Nintendo gets a margin on games, because presumably game developers have to pay them for dev kits or some such to make an NES game. The game devs (distributors, publishers, whatever) then sell the game to the stores for some price that gives them a margin. Then the stores add their margin on and sell it to customers. Three margins in there, from there different businesses that have competitors, so they try to keep their margins competitive. Now let's say Nintendo made a deal with Toys R Us such that NES games could only be sold there, no other stores. Assuming that didn't destroy demand for NES games, Toy's R Us could then ramp up their margins to whatever they want, because there's no other option to consumers. Unfair advantage? Stifling competition? With Sony, they own the store, and have ensured there's only one. So they get to leverage the same advantage as above. Is it unfair?
tobi117 3y ago
Well..the Sony Ponys sure hope this dies quietly. Sony may lead console share, but thats only good for revenue. Their profit margins are on the storefront.. and their buiness would be nonviable if they where to lose the gouging on that store. Couldent happen to nicer people. Look forward to seeing this progress as sony is slowly assimilated by trillion doller players.

45 points by toblaroni 3y ago

This seems ridiculous. Sony sells consoles at a loss and makes it money on game sales etc. If this succeeds that will kill that business model and who benefits from that?

diggan 3y ago
If Sony is forced to allow alternative stores on PlayStation with different pricing, so they actually have to compete, then the consumers benefit.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  If Apple isn't forced to allow other stores why would Sony be?
  - drooopy 3y ago
    This looks like it's about to change, at least in the EU.
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  Nobody benefits if the game consoles get commoditised like PCs. In the long run it would become an unattractive business like PC and people will just buy PCs if the prices become similar for the spec.
  - danuker 3y ago
    Which begs the question: why do people buy consoles at all? Why don't they buy PCs? I have never owned nor seen the attraction of a gaming console as opposed to a general PC.
    - id00 3y ago
      A few: cheaper, takes less space, don't need to know what cpu/gpu you need to buy, it just works, don't need to look for game hardware reqs The older I get and the less time I have to tinker with PC, the more I appreciate consoles
      - dvngnt_ 3y ago
        you end up waiting for console updates
        falcolas 3y ago
        While the console still has to do updates, their sleep mode makes even those fairly painless for an end user.
    - gjsman-1000 3y ago
      Well, I’ll give you my logic, why I collect for the Nintendo Switch. I inherited an Atari and small NES game collection from my grandparents. They’re games about ~35-45 years old. When my grandparents bought those games, and when my mother was playing them, handing them on to the next generation certainly wasn’t a consideration - but that day came. Now imagine yourself 35 years from now. That Steam game that was delisted 25 years ago, barely runs on Windows whatever-it-is, and can’t be transferred, isn’t going to be a very viable option. And that’s just the beginning. I get a mountain of joy from loaning titles to friends and family. Often, more than even playing the game itself. Not happening with Steam. You might say, “just go pirate.” To which I say, you seriously expect a free and open internet in 35 years at this rate?
    - nightski 3y ago
      Have fun building a 4k ray tracing capable PC for $500. The GPU alone is going to cost you that much. Plus while steam big picture mode is possible, it's kind of a pain compared to the simplicity of hooking up a console right to your big screen TV.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
  - xxs 3y ago
    >if the game consoles get commoditised like PCs That might be bad for Sony share holders (to a degree) but it's excellent in general.
    - ericmay 3y ago
      I would definitely disagree and I think you can look squarely at appliances like "Smart" TVs as an example of a more obvious future with the commoditization. It'll basically turn into fast-fashion. Drop a new console with the latest features and OS, stop supporting it, move on to the next one. Etc. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have done in my opinion a great job in the gaming sphere by producing pretty good quality consoles at affordable prices. Certainly there is room for improvement, but this continued assault seeking to "commoditize" everything from iOS to Playstation just ensures that it turns to shit. Commoditization isn't a moral good, neither is open-source.
crazygringo 3y ago
The $499 PS5 is not sold at a loss: https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-5-ps5-loss-profit https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-... Consoles are often sold at a loss initially but quickly become profitable as hardware costs fall. The razor-and-blades model isn't as ubiquitous as you might believe.
- dalbasal 3y ago
  Precisely. Sure, considering the platform-game paradigm different products sources cross subsidize one another a different stages of their life cycles. This is just how firms work, and is often mostly a matter of accounting.
  - xxs 3y ago
    Alternatively, the goods can have different taxes applied as well.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  I think it yo-yos because eventually they cut the cost of hardware over its life cycle. On average I think consoles are sold at break even.
- pipes 3y ago
  Commented below, but applies this too, at console launch gamers get a Great piece of kit subsidized by the manufacturer's bet that they can make the money back on games. Equivalent spec pcs cost way more. For years this model has worked great in physical media sales, I don't have a problem with it in online media. If we want companies like Sony to produce consoles they need a way to make them profitable. It's an extremely risky investment with no guarantee of success. Lastly if 30 percent is "unfair" developers would not use the platform. But they do. Same for consumers. If all parties in this didn't derive value they wouldn't trade with each other.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    > Lastly if 30 percent is "unfair" developers would not use the platform. But they do. Same for consumers. My PS3 was my last console for this reason. Developers pay the publishing charge and make up the loss with micro-transactions or shallow GOTY editions. In cases where they don't add tedious amounts of "grind" mechanics to extend gameplay time, they'll just make them multiplayer-centric. The whole thing has become a racket.
xxs 3y ago
>Sony sells consoles at a loss and makes it money on game sales etc. So you are saying that they are engaging in anti-competitive practices. Also at $500, it's unlikely a loss.
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  Selling something at a loss to make money elsewhere is not inherently anti-competitive in many locations. Depends on where you are.
  - xxs 3y ago
    >Depends on where you are. The filed case is in the UK. So there is that. It applies to the EU as well.
- Algent 3y ago
  Pretty sure it's 550 now, price went up a while ago.
  - xxs 3y ago
    Ahh well, at that price point, I guess one can just get a similar new PC with way better spec - e.g. intel 12400 on 660B + amd 7600xt + 32gb ram + 2TB ssd + case/psu is around $600 new, entirely retail (newegg) price. It does not include keyboard/mouse/gamepad, but thing has 44GB of combined memory (compared to the 16 of ps5). It's a pretty decent machine for everyday use.
delecti 3y ago
Realistically, most people won't install another store. And if that prediction doesn't come true, then Sony will stop selling hardware at a loss, so the people who benefit would be people who buy a lot of games. And in any case, console manufacturers aren't "owed" a razor-and-blades business model.
TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
Frankly I think they can allow this without hurting their business. I mean “allowing other stores” was the default before online stores - i.e. vast majority of games used to be sold by retailers that aren’t Sony. How does Sony/Nintendo/Sega make money back in the day? Royalty fees. Every copy of a game sold on their platform, they get 10-20%. If you refuse then you don’t publish at all - all consoles have lockout mechanisms; NES/SNES has a lockout chip you can only get from Nintendo, modern consoles require all executables to be digitally signed or they won’t run and guess who has the keys, … Apple would be hurt by allowing alt stores though since they don’t charge royalties. But if forced to open up iOS to alt stores, I think they will start charging royalties like consoles do.
criddell 3y ago
> kill that business model That's not really their business model. Sony has never sold a console that, over the life of the product, has lost money on hardware. Microsoft may have with the XBox and their red ring problem, but that's not really relevant to this discussion. Who benefits? Consumers mostly. Sony likes that model because it is more profitable for them. It also raises a barrier to competitors. If everybody else sells hardware at a loss, it makes it more difficult to launch a new console.
danaris 3y ago
No business model is more important than upholding consumer rights and preventing anticompetitive behavior. No business model has a Constitutional right to exist, period.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> If this succeeds that will kill that business model and who benefits from that? Everyone. They shouldn't be allowed to price dump computer components so they can charge fat margins by enforcing DRM. They shouldn't even be allowed to own the platform at all. The EU should hit these video game companies with the same laws they're going to hit Google and Apple with. Gotta put an end to their little digital fiefdoms.
- pipes 3y ago
  Careful what you wish for. If Sony can't profit from license fees for games on its console then there is no incentive to create the console in the first place.

userinanother 3y ago

Ps5 games are Usally more expensive than Xbox. If you only play multi platform games buy the Xbox

tapoxi 3y ago
I've never found this to be the case. The big titles are usually $70 USD new, and it's easier to find physical copies of PS4 and PS5 games because Microsoft has been focusing on digital-only as of late.

crazygringo 3y ago

I honestly don't have a strong position on app stores being exclusive or not -- I see pros and cons on both sides. But I do find it ridiculous that a lot of people (including lawmakers) want to force Apple to open its store, but defend Sony/Xbox. No. From a legal standpoint, there's no good reason to treat a $499 consumer CPU+GPU device differently, depending on whether it sits in your pocket or under your TV. If you support government-mandated third-party app stores for your iPhone, you should support them for PS and Xbox as well.

toyg 3y ago
I agree. The whole model stinks - whether it's apps, games, books, or anything else digital. Stores should be open to competition, end of.
- rahilb 3y ago
  Why though? If I build a big fancy shopping mall should I let business owners use units rent free? I’ve paid construction costs, electricity, taken the risk etc, so it’s obvious I should be able to profit from tenants otherwise I wouldn’t have built the thing in the first place. If you don’t like how I’ve built my mall you can go to the Xbox mall next door, or the PC slums where you are free to do whatever you like.
  - rahilb 3y ago
    I guess the analogy kind of falls down as a physical business owner and move and setup somewhere else, but then they won’t have access to the mall’s traffic… actually I guess this kind of still holds up
  - toyg 3y ago
    But you really can't just "go to the mall next door", since your faithful customers cannot follow you and your entire merchandise has to be remade from scratch. For that reason, no real mall-owner ever can even dream of extracting 30% from every sale. Why can Apple/Google/Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo get away with it? Because they don't suffer competitive pressure in the same amount. Most of them are effective monopolies in their segments, thanks to network effects, so they can get away with the worst type of feudal rent-extraction.

jerf 3y ago

Much, much bigger fish have argued this and failed, most notably Epic vs. Apple [1]. (Although there's a separate Epic vs. Google, which I was not clear on [2]; I had those conflated in my mind, which the process of digging up links has now cleared out.) I won't conclude that the case is hopeless but I can definitely say that the companies will defend this to the hilt, and this does strike me as very weak coming from the consumer, who has the option to not buy and also for the most part buy elsewhere on different platforms. You're not being forced to buy things at higher prices than you want, and games are not anything resembling a human right. Epic's case strikes me as stronger for the developers being hurt by the gouging. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22667769/apple-epic-lost-lawsuit-verdict-ruling https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22667769/apple-epic-lost-... [2]: https://www.theverge.com/23944251/epic-google-antitrust-trial-explainer-monopoly https://www.theverge.com/23944251/epic-google-antitrust-tria...

semiquaver 3y ago
> Much, much bigger fish have argued this and failed True, but this is a different jurisdiction. Is there any equivalent case you can point to in the UK?
- jerf 3y ago
  I'm aware of that, which is why you may note my last paragraph did not actually make any arguments based on precedent, instead using the court cases to observe that the companies have a history of hitting this with everything they have. But they are under common law as the US is, so pointing out that the customer complaint about being damaged strikes me as rather weak and much weaker than the developer's complaints is still valid in their system. I can't complain that Maserati are making way more profits than they should because they're charging high prices on their luxury goods. They could demand 10 times the price and I'm still not being damaged. It's their prerogative. Games are luxury goods too and if Sony wanted to sell them for 10x more, the remedy is to not buy them, and that's generally a much more competitive market where customers have a lot of other options too, e.g., most of the games being "overpriced" on PS5 are also available on at least one other platform, if not 3.

Waterluvian 3y ago

> The claim alleges customers have therefore paid higher prices for games and add-on content than they would have done. It's always fun when they try to use us as an excuse for their lawsuit. The Playstation Store prices are pretty famously cheap. New titles are consistently priced at the typical price points. And they deeply discount stuff all the time. You can get premium games for 75-90% off almost any day of the week (though this feels closer to 50-70% these days). If this was a lawsuit against Nintendo, their complaints might resonate with me. Nintendo never really puts anything on sale and when they do it's barely a scratch. Indie titles are consistently overpriced on the Nintendo store.

costanzaDynasty 3y ago

I've been buying games digitally for about 3 generations and I've found the pricing across all game stores to be the same or cheaper than buying physical on balance. But I don't ever pay full price for a game and I use tracking websites.

InCityDreams 3y ago
>I've been buying games digitally for about 3 generations Of people, cars, or - i presume, games: but how are the generations defined? Sorry, not a gamer and never heard such a phrase.
- Kapura 3y ago
  Console generations; Playstation 5 is a generation after Playstation 4, with Playstation 3 before that. There are rough equivalents on the Nintendo and Xbox side, but Playstation numbering makes generation identification easier.
  - costanzaDynasty 3y ago
    Yup. Using playstation as the spine its a little easier though not complete to base console generations off of. When I think ps1: Sega Saturn, and a few others. Ps2 has Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube. Ps3 has 360 and Wii etc. Though there is a chance that this will be the last generation of this and that there will be universal platforms instead of consoles for at least Xbox and probably Playstation. Why make a console that I lose money on when I can sell you a $100 controller and a subscription to our cloud service instead.
UberMouse 3y ago
FWIW I have the opposite experience, I never buy digital playstation games unless I'm forced to because they all sell for MSRP in New Zealand ($129/$139 NZD), whereas I can always get them physically for $99/$109 brand new. I would much prefer to buy digital games, but I'm not paying an extra $30 for the privilege of saving someone _else_ money

Algent 3y ago

Compared the apple vs epic case this time the angle seem to be from consumer side with an added argument "consumer would pay less if Sony made less margin" which is technically correct but is absolutely insane from a business angle. That's basically claiming business shouldn't be able to set their price if their margin is deemed unfair... which is a pretty daring claim. While regulation on pricing could be interesting it's not exactly a judge job and it would be a bit counter current with how the world economy currently work. As for the whole "closed ecosystem" part this have been debated thousand of time already, nothing new here except I'm not sure it was attempted in UK yet.

Spivak 3y ago
Yeah this lawsuit doesn't have a chance but I do think there's an interesting observation in there that these platforms aren't price takers like they ought to be in a more competitive market. I don't think anyone expects there to be perfect competition but the pricing power Sony and others enjoy to just set their margin I think is indicative that something has gone wrong.
cacois 3y ago
This analysis doesn't seem right to me, let me try to think it through. It seems more like "the business is blocking competition from selling at lower prices". The problem in question here is actually the playstation "store". I'm trying to find a good analogy. Say we're in the early NES days (no online stores, just physical). Nintendo gets a margin on games, because presumably game developers have to pay them for dev kits or some such to make an NES game. The game devs (distributors, publishers, whatever) then sell the game to the stores for some price that gives them a margin. Then the stores add their margin on and sell it to customers. Three margins in there, from there different businesses that have competitors, so they try to keep their margins competitive. Now let's say Nintendo made a deal with Toys R Us such that NES games could only be sold there, no other stores. Assuming that didn't destroy demand for NES games, Toy's R Us could then ramp up their margins to whatever they want, because there's no other option to consumers. Unfair advantage? Stifling competition? With Sony, they own the store, and have ensured there's only one. So they get to leverage the same advantage as above. Is it unfair?

tobi117 3y ago

Well..the Sony Ponys sure hope this dies quietly. Sony may lead console share, but thats only good for revenue. Their profit margins are on the storefront.. and their buiness would be nonviable if they where to lose the gouging on that store. Couldent happen to nicer people. Look forward to seeing this progress as sony is slowly assimilated by trillion doller players.