Judicial setback for Sony. The Japanese company has received a class action lawsuit from consumers, alleging that the company operates an illegal monopoly by restricting purchases of games from the PlayStation Store.
The information, revealed by Bloomberg, that the case has been presented in the Court of the Northern District of California, in the United States. According to the outlet, the class action lawsuit claims that Sony has prevented third-party retail stores from selling download codes for PlayStation for two years.
In this way, brands such as Amazon, Walmart or other corporations would see an impediment when it comes to providing these products. Consumers continue to claim that the consequence is that the PlayStation Store has become the only way to obtain digital titles for Sony systems. As Robert Burnson relates, this is one of the arguments that is used from the lawsuit:
“Sony’s monopoly allows it to charge supra-competitive prices for PlayStation digital games, which are significantly higher than their physical counterparts sold in a competitive retail market, and significantly higher than they would be in a competitive digital game retail market.”
The lawsuit states that the public ends up paying up to 175% more for downloadable games than their physical versions. Despite the request, Sony has not yet responded to Bloomberg about its version of what happened.
Recall that Sony made the decision to stop distributing digital copies of its games through physical stores in 2019. At that time, it was communicated by the company that the measure ” was taken to continue aligning key businesses globally ” . Of course, the DLC and other accessories would remain on the shelves.
