A years-long legal battle over PlayStation Store prices is now ending.
Sony must pay $7.85 million to settle a class action lawsuit in the US. The accusation was that the company had exploited its dominant position to keep prices high for digital games on PlayStation consoles. However, German PlayStation players will not see any of the money.
What is the PlayStation lawsuit about?
The trigger for the lawsuit was a decision by Sony in 2019. At that time, the company stopped the sale of digital download codes by external retailers such as GameStop or Best Buy.
The plaintiffs argued that Sony thereby gained a monopoly on the distribution of digital games and thereby prevented cheaper prices from third-party providers. A US judge in San Francisco has now tentatively approved the settlement, so we won’t know which side would have prevailed in court (source: Engadget).
These PlayStation players get money from Sony
Unfortunately, German and European users come away empty-handed in the comparison. Class actions of this type are always limited to a specific jurisdiction and geographic area.
The settlement payment will instead be paid out to PlayStation players in the US who purchased certain digital games between April 2019 and December 2023. The long list includes big games like The Last of Us, NBA 2K18, Need for Speed Rivals and Destiny 2, but also smaller hits like Limbo and Journey.
According to Engadget, the compensation will be credited to the more than 4.4 million affected US accounts on PlayStation Network. It is unclear how the money will be distributed. If every affected player receives the same amount, every US gamer will receive less than $2. So German users don’t have to be too sad.
There is also currently a class action lawsuit in Great Britain surrounding prices in the PS Store. Sony could face a claim of up to $2.7 billion. In the Netherlands, too, a consumer organization wants to take action against possibly excessive prices in the PS Store.