Sony hit with a lawsuit for the alleged PS Store Monopoly digital game
Sony faces a lawsuit looking for an upscale status of claims that it creates ‘monopoly itself on digital playstation content,’ allows it to be allegedly too expensive in digital games. At the heart of this problem is Sony’s change made for the way the owner of the Playstation console can buy digital games, eliminate third-party digital code options and vice versa requires direct purchases through PS stores.
The lawsuit entitled ‘Cendejas v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC ‘was submitted on May 7 at the US District Court for the Northern District California by Joseph Saveri’s law firm. The lawsuit claims to represent the class proposed by more than one million US Playstation owners accused of “billions of dollars” in digital games through PS stores.
In the heart of the lawsuit is Sony’s decision to prevent the owner of the PlayStation console from buying digital game download code through third-party retailers such as Amazon and Target. Sony confirmed this change in 2019, effectively forcing the owner of Playstation to only get digital games through PS stores.
Although physical game discs remain an option, the lawsuit runs to show that consumers who buy Playstation 5 Digital Edition can only buy digital games because the console does not have an optical drive. The accusation includes claims that three popular (nameless) games available for PS5 are more expensive as digital downloads on the PS Store compared to the physical discs sold by retailers.
The lawsuit continues to claim:
By limiting the options owned by users, Sony effectively triggered all retail price competition in the PlayStation game, creating its own monopoly on digital playstation content and thus allows Sony to fill the price increases for these games. Consumers, limited to one source to buy any digital playstation content, forced to pay a higher price for digital playstation games than they do in the free and uncontrolled competitive retail market.
