Just a day ago, Sony announced that it will discontinue physical disc production of new games for the PlayStation from January 2028. It claimed that this digital release-only strategy is in response to “shifting trends in consumer preferences”. They said the transition “will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
The response from the gaming community was swift and brutal, with many pointing to the recent removal of 500 movie titles from the PlayStation library after customers had already purchased them.
Sony has no respite today, as they now find themselves battling a UK lawsuit said to be worth almost $2.7 billion. The lawsuit alleges a “monopoly position” has inflated prices for digital games.
A report at Reuters says the case claims they have been abusing their dominant position by requiring digital games and console add-ons to be bought and sold only via the PlayStation Store.
Sony’s pushback is that they have invested years and billions into the integrated gaming platform, and that Nintendo and Microsoft use similar models. They say the margin Sony earns on sales of games and additional content is low, and the lawsuit ignores the company’s costs and the value of its PlayStation brand.
The case was brought at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) on behalf of around 12 million people in the United Kingdom. The rport also says that another case is underway in the Netherlands.
This all comes on top of reports that consoles will breach the $1,000 barrier in the next generation. Basically, a bad time for the console market in general.
