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Time of India
15 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Why is PlayStation facing lawsuits from thousands of Gamers?
(Image via Getty Images) Sony 's PlayStation is confronting a massive legal battle all across Europe. The class action lawsuit has accused Sony of some unfair practices that center on the dominance of digital game stores and the impact they have on consumer wallets. The core grievance here revolves around a perceived PlayStation's market control, leading to unexpected results that impact the gamers at last. Why is PlayStation being targeted by Gamers? The lawsuit, led by the Stichting Massaschade & Consument consumer group, targets Sony and its exclusive control over the digital game sales on the PlayStation consoles. It's been claimed by gamers that they are being forced to buy all the digital titles directly from the PlayStation digital store. It eliminates any competitive pricing from any third-party retailers. Quite critically, it's been alleged via a suit that Sony's monopoly allows it to set artificially higher prices. Economic research even suggests that digital games cost the Dutch consumers approx. 47% higher than identical physical discs. Such a significant price gap persists despite digital distribution being cheaper for Sony, thereby eliminating expenses like logistic and physical production costs. PlayStation lawsuits bring Sony's market dominance under scrutiny Central to the lawsuit is Sony's overwhelming market position in the Netherlands. It is estimated to own 80% of the console market. It's asserted by consumer group that such dominance allows Sony to operate without any meaningful competition. They even claim that Sony exploits its position, completely blocking all other potential app stores from having access to PlayStation consoles. The lack of alternatives, together with a push towards only digital consoles like PS5 Digital Edition, locks consumers into Sony's ecosystem. Gamers cannot buy cheaper physical games from any other retailers. The group has further stated that Sony makes pricing decisions, including the recent increases, without considering developers, competitors, or even consumer backlash. They do not have any fear of losing their customers. Such control is seen as stifling the fair market dynamics there. Stichting Massaschade & Consument seek damage and change BIG PlayStation Store LAWSUIT - OVERPRICED PSN Store Games? The lawsuit is not just about past grievances, but it demands some significant restitution. As per Stichting Massaschade & Consument estimates, the Dutch gamers have, since 2013, overpaid approx. €435 million ($505 million) due to such alleged practices. They are now seeking compensation for such purported damages that were suffered by approx. 1.7 million Dutch PlayStation owners. Beyond compensation for gamers, plaintiffs even seek some fundamental change. They want the court to force Sony to open the PlayStation platform for competing digital game sellers. It will introduce real competition. It will potentially lower prices and increase the consumer choice for making digital purchases on PlayStation consoles. The first hearing of this lawsuit against Sony monopoly, is anticipated for late 2025. Game On Season 1 continues with Mirabai Chanu's inspiring story. Watch Episode 2 here.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sony's PlayStation Network is back up.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Update, 2/8 8:20 p.m. ET - Sony confirmed Saturday evening, 24 hours since it went down, that the PlayStation Network is back up. The original report of the outage can be found below. The PlayStation Network suffered a massive outage, and it doesn't appear to be coming fully back up anytime soon. Some unknown issue caused PSN to go down Friday evening, according to the PSN status website. The outage is affecting all online functions of the network including online play, the PSN Store, and account management. "You might have difficulty getting PlayStation Video content. We're working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience," reads the message posted on the website. Sony didn't immediately respond to an email about the outage. The last official update from Sony came Friday evening on the Ask PlayStation account on X. "We are aware some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN," the post said. Sony's new PS1-inspired PS5, PlayStation Portal, and DualSense controller are the blast of '90s nostalgia I've been waiting for PS5 randomly shutting off? Here's how to fix it PS5 vs. PS5 Pro: Will the upgrades justify the price to go Pro? First reports of PSN being down began at 6:14 p.m. ET on Friday, according to reports on DownDetector. The number of reports skyrocketed to more than 70,000 not long after at 6:43 p.m. ET. DownDetector's map of the outage shows it spans the U.S., but there are some PlayStation gamers who have said their service has returned while most are still unable to get online. The outage is affecting not only online play or buying a game from the PSN Store, but it's also preventing gamers from playing certain digital games on their PlayStation devices. Those games that require a license check via the network will not load up because of the network being down. PlayStation Portal owners are significantly affected by the outage. With no network to connect to, they are unable to do the two main functions of the device, which are to play their PS5 remotely or stream PlayStation games from the cloud. This outage also appears to be affecting PC gamers. In recent years, Sony began porting its PS5 flagship games like God of War Ragnarök and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 to PC. These games used to require access to PSN in order to play, but Sony changed its stance on that requirement at the end of January. It does appear, however, that some gamers are unable to play their PC games due to the network being down although the reason why is unknown. PlayStation gamers are no strangers to PSN outages. Back in 2011, PSN went down not for a few hours, but for a few weeks. A massive cyberattack took down the network for 24 days, and it took Sony months to fully fix the issues. Sony's servers were breached during the attack, resulting in millions of PSN subscribers' information being stolen. The fallout from the hack was significant for Sony. It settled a class action lawsuit for $15 million and paid for 12 months of identity theft protection services for subscribers.
