Back in 2022 we first reported on the news that a consumer rights group in the UK was attempting to launch the British equivalent of a class action lawsuit (it’s the same but with more “u”s) against Sony on the basis that the company charges a 30-percent commission fee on all digital purchases with no option for competition. After failing to get the multi-billion dollar “PlayStation You Owe Us” lawsuit thrown out in 2023, Sony’s time in court comes to an end this week. And if this all sounds very familiar, yes, it was only this weekend that Sony lost a similar case in California.
The argument in both cases is that by being the sole store and distributor for digital purchases on the PlayStation, Sony is able to enforce its 30-percent cut of every sale without fear of being undercut by others, although in the U.S. version this was more specifically focused on vouchers sold by other outlets. Were other stores able to sell digital PS4 and PS5 games, there would be market competition, the UK case claims, and without it customers are therefore being overcharged. And, yeah, that seems pretty true. The Northern District of California certainly suggested there’s merit to the claims, ruling that Sony owed those who’d bought specific games on PSN a total of $7.8 billion, although it didn’t rule that any practices were illegal. Come the end of this week, Sony will have to just sit and wait to find out if it’s going to be hemorrhaging cash on both sides of the pond.
As covered by The Game Business, the UK’s $2.6 billion lawsuit covers those who bought digital PSN games between August 2016 and February 2026, based on the same monopolistic claims and its 30-percent charge. Sony has countered by arguing that there’s plenty of competition actually (although this is somewhat spurious as the logic only applies to cross-platform releases and not PlayStation exclusives) and that the 30-percent tithe keeps hardware costs down (a tougher pill to swallow after PlayStation prices saw a massive hike just over a month ago). The Japanese company attempted to have the case thrown out in late 2023, but its appeal was unsuccessful.
This of course also brings to mind the case against Apple’s 30-percent cut in another British case, where the ruling went against the big firm and it ended up being required to pay out £1.5 billion ($2 billion) in damages to UK customers. But as The Game Business observes, in Apple’s case the garden walls are a lot higher than Sony’s, where the company could more successfully argue that cross-platform competition keeps prices “honest.” (Although having just paid $95 for Saros in the UK, I’m not exactly convinced.) And it’s hard not to think about Epic’s recent cases against Apple and Google, which also focused on the lack of competitive digital store options and 30-percent cuts.
A possible outcome of the UK case is Sony being required to lower its 30-percent fee, which could lead to lower prices (publishers and indies would therefore receive a greater proportion of the sale price, and thus could charge less to begin with), but given Sony’s willingness to just keep raising the price of a PlayStation it likely wouldn’t end anywhere particularly wonderful for consumers. Either way, it will likely take at least three months for the glacial courts to produce a ruling, and could be as long as a year-and-a-half.
