Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC is under fire for “establishing a monopoly” over the sale of digital PlayStation games.
In a proposed class action lawsuit revealed today, consumers said that Sony has prevented retailers, including Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, and Walmart from selling download codes for digital PlayStation games since April 1, 2019.
The result of this is a “monopoly” that allows Sony to charge “supracompetitive prices” for games, which are “significantly higher” than its “physical counterparts” sold in the retail market, and “significantly higher” than it would be in a “competitive retail market” for digital games.
In the lawsuit, the consumers claim this has led to people paying as much as 175 percent more for downloadable games than they would have spent on physical copies over the course of the past two years.
“Because delivering digital content to PlayStation consoles requires access to Sony’s PlayStation Network, the new policy established the PlayStation Store as the only source from which consumers can purchase digital PlayStation games, and the only source to which video game publishers can sell digital PlayStation games,” consumers said in the lawsuit.
Sony has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
The “proposed” class lawsuit may never fully get off the ground.
