A UK tribunal has rejected a bid made by Sony to quash the lawsuit which alleges that Sony ripped off their consumers.
Sony has been accused of overcharging PlayStation Store customers by as much as $5 billion ($6.27 billion) and the class action lawsuit that was issued can now proceed to trial.
The lawsuit was initially filed in August 2022 by Alex Neill, a consumer rights campaigner on behalf of over 8.9 million PlayStation customers. The lawsuit alleges that Sony abused their dominant position in the gaming market by charging excessive prices on their PlayStation Store.
The Japanese company seems to be using its near monopoly on the sales of add-on content and digital games for their PlayStation consoles which allows them to enforce strict terms and conditions on publishers and game developers, the lawsuit argues.
According to the lawsuit, this allows Sony to dictate the price of digital content and charge a whopping 30% commission on every purchase made on the PlayStation store, this then results in unfair and excessive prices to consumers that are out of all proportion to the costs of Sony who provide these services to their customers.
Sony has hoped to quash the lawsuit and had argued that the case was "flawed from start to finish" but on Tuesday 21st November, class representative Neil was grated approval to go to trial with the claim against Sony by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal.
As quoted by Alex Neill
The class lawsuit includes anyone who bought DLC or games through the PlayStation Store between August 2016 - August 2022 and who lived in the UK at the time of purchase, unless they chose to opt out.
It is estimated, if the class action lawsuit is successful that each class member would be entitled to between £67 - £562 in damages with interest included.
It could take several years for the case to conclude and the case is being paid for through conditional fee agreements with legal advisors and by a third-party litigation funder
Sony has been accused of overcharging PlayStation Store customers by as much as $5 billion ($6.27 billion) and the class action lawsuit that was issued can now proceed to trial.
The lawsuit was initially filed in August 2022 by Alex Neill, a consumer rights campaigner on behalf of over 8.9 million PlayStation customers. The lawsuit alleges that Sony abused their dominant position in the gaming market by charging excessive prices on their PlayStation Store.
The Japanese company seems to be using its near monopoly on the sales of add-on content and digital games for their PlayStation consoles which allows them to enforce strict terms and conditions on publishers and game developers, the lawsuit argues.
According to the lawsuit, this allows Sony to dictate the price of digital content and charge a whopping 30% commission on every purchase made on the PlayStation store, this then results in unfair and excessive prices to consumers that are out of all proportion to the costs of Sony who provide these services to their customers.
Sony has hoped to quash the lawsuit and had argued that the case was "flawed from start to finish" but on Tuesday 21st November, class representative Neil was grated approval to go to trial with the claim against Sony by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal.
As quoted by Alex Neill
The class lawsuit includes anyone who bought DLC or games through the PlayStation Store between August 2016 - August 2022 and who lived in the UK at the time of purchase, unless they chose to opt out.
It is estimated, if the class action lawsuit is successful that each class member would be entitled to between £67 - £562 in damages with interest included.
It could take several years for the case to conclude and the case is being paid for through conditional fee agreements with legal advisors and by a third-party litigation funder
