PlayStation facing legal action for overpricing digital games

Sony has landed themselves in a bit of legal trouble this week, following news that the media giant is being sued by “over three million Dutch PlayStation players” for abusing “its dominant position in the console market.”

According to a recent report by Game Developer’s Justin Carter (per Tweakers), a Dutch consumer foundation named Massaschade & Consument is suing Sony for overpricing their digital PlayStation titles by “47 percent” vs their physical titles.

"The Japanese company abuses its dominant position in the console market," Massaschade & Consument stated in their lawsuit.

"Millions of Dutch people have been paying too much for PlayStation games and in-game content for years… This monopoly on digital sales, together with PlayStation's large market share in the console market, leads to a so-called 'Sony tax.'"

If you’re curious as to why Sony is getting sued for something like this, but the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo aren’t, that’s because Sony banned third parties from selling codes for digital games back in 2019.

Over on the r/PS5 subreddit, most fans seem to support the lawsuit.

“In Australia, new games are normally $10-$20 CHEAPER physical than digital on release day. It's such a rip off,” commented user HarrowingAbyss.

“I definitely notice that a lot of games I'm interested in are still getting sold at 79€ despite being like, 4 years old. I'd love to own Demons Souls digitally but I'm not paying 79€ for that when the retail version hasn’t cost that much in over 6 months on Amazon and you can get it for as low as 29€ readily available when you buy it used,” replied user llliilliliillliillil.

“People claim physical games are dying, and they aren’t wrong, but stuff like this makes a pretty compelling case why they won’t go away that easily.”

It’s a little too early to say exactly how this will play out and I’m not going to pretend that I’m familiar with the intricacies of Dutch law, but this could have huge ramifications for the prices of digital titles on PlayStation platforms moving forward.

Personally, if we’re truly moving towards an all-digital future, I’m all for it - but at that point, how would we even know what to compare said prices against, if physical games didn’t exist?