{"id":985089,"date":"2026-08-06T18:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/985089\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:41:10","slug":"5-lawsuits-accusing-playstation-of-being-anti-competitive-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/985089\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Lawsuits Accusing PlayStation Of Being Anti-Competitive, Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sony Interactive Entertainment pulled digital download codes from retail stores<\/a> in April 2019 before announcing its disc-less future<\/a> earlier this month. Not only did lots of PlayStation fans hate these decisions, they also argued that they constitute anticompetitive behavior. PlayStation is forcing its players into purchasing video games exclusively from its online marketplace, the PlayStation Store, players who filed lawsuits said. Sony benefits from that, according to the lawsuits, because it\u2019s able to take a 30-percent cut of its sales, with little fear of other retailers undercutting their prices.<\/p>\n

Some of these lawsuits have been litigated for years, and others popped up recently, claiming Sony\u2019s announcement to stop selling discs is further anticompetitive behavior\u2014once again, players suing argued, Sony Interactive Entertainment is eliminating purchasing choice. The lawsuits are international, too, spanning the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Netherlands, Mexico, and the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysical games historically acted as an indirect competitive constraint for consumers<\/p>\n

with a PlayStation,\u201d Deviant Legal founder Ren\u00e9 Otto<\/a> told Kotaku in an email. \u201cConsumers could buy a boxed copy from Amazon, Walmart or a local retailer, wait for retailers to discount inventory, purchase a used copy, borrow a game from a friend or resell it afterwards. Even though Sony still controlled the platform, those alternatives limited the extent to which consumers depended on the PlayStation Store.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caccuri v. Sony Interactive Entertainment <\/p>\n

PlayStation user Agustin Caccuri filed a class action lawsuit on May 5, 2021 in the United States District Court\u2019s Northern District of California. His lawyers\u2019 argument centered on \u201cretailers\u2019 ability to sell download codes for digital PlayStation games,\u201d they said in the complaint. The change, they said, made the PlayStation Store the only place publishers can sell digital PlayStation games, and the only place gamers can buy them digitally. That\u2019s a monopoly, lawyers wrote, and it was already having an impact on pricing.<\/p>\n

Using data from retail stores and the PlayStation Store, lawyers claimed that the average price of a digital code for a video game on the PlayStation Store was 74 percent higher than physical discs at retailers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSony made approximately $17 billion in revenue from the sale of digital PlayStation games in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021,\u201d lawyers wrote in the complaint<\/a>. \u201cIf the average price difference of +74% indicated by the above data is representative of the broader market, then overcharges resulting from Sony\u2019s monopoly could be in the range of $7 billion per year as long as Sony\u2019s monopoly continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sony, for its part, said in its motion to dismiss<\/a> filed on Feb. 22, 2022 that the company is not doing anything wrong. It\u2019s just doing business. The lawsuit went on for years, and several similar lawsuits<\/a> were consolidated under this one in October 2023. Sony settled the case<\/a> in April, and will pay out $7,850,000 to anyone who purchased digital games through the PlayStation Store between April 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2023.<\/p>\n

PlayStation You Owe Us <\/p>\n

U.K.-based law firm Milberg London and a consumer rights group represented by Alex Neill filed the $7.9 billion lawsuit<\/a> with the Competition Appeal Tribunal on Aug. 19. (The same law firm is currently suing Valve<\/a> over its Steam platform for similar reasons. That case is ongoing.) The firm argued that Sony is \u201cripping people off\u201d because of the 30-percent commission it takes on all PlayStore Store sales. Sony has a \u201cnear monopoly on the sale of digital games and add-on content through its control of the PlayStation Store,\u201d PlayStation You Owe Us wrote on its website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The one big difference between this lawsuit and Caccuri v. Sony Interactive Entertainment is that the U.S. case is focused around Sony\u2019s decision to stop selling digital download codes at retailers. The PlayStation You Owe Us case is more aligned with Epic Games\u2019 lawsuits against Apple and Google. It argues more generally that Sony has created a broader closed ecosystem that lets them charge unchecked 30-percent fees on all sales made on the platform\u2014sales that cannot be made anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Otto said that this doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that Sony is violating antitrust rules. \u201cCompetition law doesn\u2019t prohibit companies from being successful or even dominant,\u201d he said. \u201cThe legal question is whether Sony is abusing a dominant market position.\u201d The big question here is what the market is. Sony\u2019s argument is likely that the \u201crelevant market\u201d is video games generally, Otto said\u2014competition with the likes of Xbox, Nintendo, and Valve. But these anticompete lawsuits argue that the relevant market is within Sony\u2019s own ecosystem, where there is essentially no competition.<\/p>\n

Again, Sony argued that it has a right to sell games in such a way, and that it\u2019s not a monopoly. The trial ended in May<\/a>, and the Competitional Appeal Tribunal is reviewing the case. A decision is expected within the year. Kotaku has reached out to Milberg for comment.<\/p>\n

Fair PlayStation <\/p>\n

Milberg Amsterdam\u2014the Dutch arm of Milberg, from the PlayStation You Owe Us suit\u2014announced in February 2025<\/a> that it was filing a complaint on behalf of Dutch consumer group Stichting Massaschade & Consument. This is effectively the same as the U.K. lawsuit, but it will be tried based on Dutch laws. This case is ongoing, and like the others, could take years to resolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Sony announced it was stopping production of physical discs, Lucia Melcherts of the consumer advocacy group told WCF Tech<\/a> that \u201cthe end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price.\u201d She continued: \u201cNo discs means no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, so from 2028, Sony alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it. That is exactly the harm our Fair PlayStation claim is about: a price can never be fair when the buyer is left with no ownership and no alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n

This case has not yet brought up PlayStation\u2019s disc-less future, yet, but clearly the group is thinking about the impact. Milberg Amsterdam is asking for roughly $500 million for consumers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update 8\/6\/2026, 1:44 p.m. ET:<\/strong> A representative of Milberg responded after publication with the following additional context:<\/p>\n

\n

A Dutch collective action (WAMCA) that proceeds in stages. We\u2019re currently in the first stage, where the court has to rule on several preliminary questions, including jurisdiction, the admissibility of the foundation that brought the claim, and the representativeness of the class. A short additional exchange of submissions between the parties will take place in October, after which we expect the court to rule shortly afterwards. We expect the foundation to be declared admissible, after which the case will move to the merits phase in 2027. At its core, the case concerns Sony\u2019s abuse of its dominant position, which translates into an unreasonably high \u201cSony Tax\u201d of 30% on PlayStation Store transactions.<\/p>\n

A few further data points we\u2019re looking at building into our own submissions on the disc phase-out: the secondhand game market is estimated at some $7.2 billion globally, and analysts have said it could steadily shrink, and potentially disappear altogether, once Sony stops producing discs. Physical media also remains far from dead: PlayStation still sold an estimated 70 million physical discs in 2025, and several of this year\u2019s biggest titles, including Ghost of Yotei and Resident Evil Requiem, sold well above the platform average in physical copies, suggesting demand for ownership is still there for the games people care most about. We\u2019d also note that Sony\u2019s own reported digital sales percentages run somewhat higher than our independent analyst estimates, a gap we think is worth scrutinizing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ius Omnibus v. Sony Interactive Entertainment <\/p>\n

Ius Omnibus v. Sony Interactive Entertainment is another lawsuit along the lines of law firm Milberg\u2019s, this one filed in Portugal by Sousa Ferro & Associados and Ferreira Pinto Cardigos Advogados. (Michael Sousa Ferro seemingly has worked with Milberg<\/a> in the past.) It was filed with the Portuguese Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court on Aug. 3, 2023 and is ongoing<\/a>. Ius Omnibus is a Portuguese consumer protection group.<\/p>\n

Kotaku has reached out to Ius Omnibus for comment.<\/p>\n

Mexico Antitrust Commission <\/p>\n

Shortly after Sony announced it wouldn\u2019t make any more physical discs, Mexican Federal Representative Ira\u00eds Reyes and Senator Luis Donaldo Colosio filed a complaint with Mexico\u2019s National Antitrust Commission, LevelUp reported<\/a>. A day later, Reyes posted a video on her Instagram page confirming the lawsuit<\/a>. On Monday<\/a>, Reyes and Colosio held a press conference to further discuss the complaint. Reached for comment, Reyes pointed Kotaku back to the original press release and press conference.<\/p>\n

This lawsuit is built upon the antitrust accusations of the other suits, but adds in what happens when physical discs are gone\u2014the secondhand market is erased. They claim that Sony is only exacerbating the problem of the PlayStation Store being the only place to buy digital games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf discs disappear, anyone who owns a PlayStation will no longer be able to choose where to buy their games and will be forced to purchase them exclusively through Sony\u2019s store,\u201d Reyes said, as reported by LevelUp. \u201cSony would become both the referee and the player within its own ecosystem, and we know what can happen when a single company controls every part of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colosio added that secondhand retailers could also be impacted.<\/p>\n

Otto said that Sony\u2019s decision to stop making discs \u201cdoesn\u2019t automatically make its conduct anti-competitive.\u201d He said it comes back to, again, defining the relevant market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Sony has a dominant position in that market and abuses it, then the conduct is anti-competitive,\u201d he said in an email to Kotaku. \u201cHowever, phasing out physical games removes one of the last remaining competitive constraints within the PlayStation ecosystem. That makes the plaintiffs\u2019 narrative, that PlayStation users have no meaningful alternative to Sony\u2019s own storefront, considerably more persuasive than before.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, this lawsuit is the only one that\u2019s used Sony\u2019s decision to phase out discs to make the anti-compete argument. But it\u2019s certainly something the other active cases will consider, and that Sony will have to contend with. Kotaku has reached out to Sony for comment on how it will respond to this lawsuit and others, as well as Reyes and Colosio.<\/p>\n