A new report revealed that Sony Interactive Entertainment will be facing a class-action lawsuit over its PlayStation Store exclusivity.
Media outlet Bloomberg revealed that the class-action lawsuit will be centered on SIE’s digital storefront due to its third-party digital sales. It is said that the selling process by the game company a direction opposition to antitrust laws, which makes it a monopoly.
Some customers have stated that SIE has already restricted third-party retail shops from selling their PlayStation game digital download codes way back in 2019. To name a few of these shops, Amazon and Best Buy. Consumers will be forced to buy directly on the PlayStation Store and nowhere else for digital-only purchases. Good thing physical PSN load was still available on many shops, but with the credit-card option, it would have been inevitable that it would come exclusivity too. This led to the consumers to push for legal action against SIE.
“Sony’s monopoly allows it to charge supracompetitive prices for digital PlayStation games, which are significantly higher than their physical counterparts sold in a competitive real market, and significantly higher than they would be in a competitive retail market for digital games,” the class-action lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also claims that the digital games number of downloads got an increase of about 175 percent compared to physical copies.
Do note that this is just a class-action lawsuit and most of them actually do not have a resolution in the end. It will all depend on what SIE does later on, unless this particular lawsuit gains a lot of traction and the company will be forced to make a move.
Source: Bloomberg via Game Informer