In 2021, Sony’s online platform had a total of 109 million subscribers worldwide.
Sony’s turnover amounted to more than 79 billion dollars in fiscal year 2021.
In 2021, the PS4 model has sold more than one hundred million units worldwide.
Currently, we live in a world where the experience that brands and companies provide to their consumers can be criticized if they abuse their offers. This is the case of a class action lawsuit filed against Sony PlayStation in the United Kingdom, where various consumers accuse the company of having “scammed players” in their purchases made through the PlayStation Store.
In the video game industry, Sony is one of the leading brands in the world market. That is why according to company dataPlayStation Network reported in 2021, Sony’s online platform had a total of 109 million subscribers worldwide.
Likewise, the technology company reported that the PlayStation Store as of June 2022, the network had approximately 102 million monthly active users.
The millionaire claim
A class action lawsuit filed against Sony PlayStation in the UK accuses the company of having “ripped off players” on your purchases made through PlayStation Store.
According to several reports, the lawsuit has been filed by Alex Neill, a person in charge of defending the rights of consumers, who claims that Sony violates competition law by demanding a part of each purchase made in its online store.
The class action demands 5.9 billion dollars and was filed on August 19 in the Court of Cassation of Competition by the consumer defense platform Resolve, on behalf of the nearly nine million customers of the Sony PlayStation console in the country, as read in a statement issued on PlayStation You Owe Us (PlayStation, you owe us), the website dedicated to this process.
Also, according to the portal Sony and PlayStation are accused of breaching competition law and “rob people”with the argument that the company made them pay a thirty percent commission on each digital video game or each purchase within the games in the PlayStation store.
“Video games are now the main entertainment in the UK, ahead of television, videos, music (…). Sony shares cost people millions who have no means to pay. A particularly complex context when we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis,” Alex Neill, CEO of Resolve, said in a statement.
For her part, Natasha Pearman, legal partner in charge of this case, pointed out that “Sony dominates the digital distribution of PlayStation games and game content. Therefore, it has implemented an anti-competitive strategy that has resulted in excessive prices for customers that are out of all proportion to the costs of Sony providing its services.
This complaint comes after Sony managed to convince a US court in July of this year to dismiss a lawsuit against it, which claimed that the PlayStation Store was anti-competitive. On that occasion, that lawsuit did not come to fruition because the plaintiffs could not prove the violation of the Sherman Act, which prohibits the monopolization of a market by the company.
In this sense, the authorities in many parts of the world are taking much more care of consumers in the face of the damage that brands may cause with their products or services.
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