The translation feature of Safari on macOS worked well enough for me. I would assume that functionality exists on another browser/OS, maybe yours has it?
I'm too small brain to understand the whole monopoly in my own business aspect. Because they are not arguing about game exclusivity, you can buy the same game most of the time on Xbox, Switch, PC (and if not that's an entirely different story) but the fact they want to buy on that platform (Playstation) but from a different store (not Sony). Can't wrap my head around that logic.
Taking Switch as an example, I can buy digital games at Walmart or Amazon. For instance, Amazon might have a sale where their price for a given digital game is ~10% lower than Nintendo's eShop.
Okay so if I understand this correctly they want Sony to compensate (Dutch) customers because Sony no longer sells digital download codes/game keys to third-parties? If they started doing that, would they still have a case?
For example, Nintendo does sell digital download codes, so this line of thinking doesn't apply to them? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Or is this about 3rd party app stores again?
There are already class-actions against Sony in the US and UK for what appears to be this exact thing (using their dominant monopoly position to charge high prices) so it's not surprising to see it pop up in other jurisdictions this late in the game.
I don't know how the specifics would work, but if they reversed course immediately, they would have still caused some harm to some consumers during a specific amount of time.
I would rather have a right to unlock. Make it law that Sony can't prevent alternatives OS installation. Then when you get Arch running on a PS5 you can install Steam on top
This would help but doesn’t solve the problem these people want solved (Sony being able to take away games after purchase and reselling games being impossible because the games are all digital)
Even when the PS3 supported Linux, Sony didn’t give OtherOS full access to the GPU. So I doubt you’d get any benefit running Steam on a hypothetical Linux-powered PS5.
> A right to unlock would mean that you get full access to your own hardware.
That very much depends on the wording of such a law. My point is that you can guarantee that console makers will look for a loophole to cripple their “unlocked” hardware.
> No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run.
I’m not the one suggesting people should buy consoles to unlock them
Why not buy a PC if you want a fully unlocked hardware platform? You can install Linux on it or whatever is supported.
No. What you actually want is a $400 console that sells at a loss or break even and has the graphics power of a $1,500 - $2,000 PC hardware and you want to be able to install anything on it.
How the heck does that make any sense financially for Sony? Common sense is often lacking in gaming communities.
So they want Sony to be required to sell slightly discounted codes to resellers who then sell them to consumers? How does that matter to anyone besides resellers? I guess the resellers could pass some of that discount on to consumers? This seems like a pretty irrelevant concern since Sony is has no state granted or effective monopolies in game sales, they aren't a common carrier, they aren't benefiting from access to public right of ways or other exclusivity that gives them a market advantage that citizens need to be compensated for. I don't think this matters and I don't care about this.
It matters to consumers because businesses have greater financial power to pressure Sony into reducing prices than individual consumers.
Additionally, businesses will not only sell Sony codes. They won't be like car dealerships, tied to 1 manufacturer. Due to this, they'll have even greater incentive and negotiating position to pressure Sony as if Sony doesn't want to play ball, the sellers can start promoting non-Sony products to consumers.
With direct sales only, Sony can have perfect vertical integration: they make the console hardware, they make the custom OS, they own the game publishers, they own the developers, and they own the store that sells games too. That's beneficial only to Sony.
How do they have any power over Sony at all? Sony is telling them we don't even want to sell you codes at all, we don't want your business, go away. They have 0 leverage, Sony isn't going to negotiate with them. Sony will charge them the max they are allowed so that they can't make a profit and stop trying to resell.
So McDonald's has a monopoly on the Big Mac? Because you can go to Burger King (Xbox) or KFC (Switch) or Sonic (PC) as well but this group is arguing they want to have a Big Mac but not from McDonald's? Or actually McDonald's doesn't have a monopoly because you can technically buy a Big Mac from Uber Eats or Doordash?
Your analogy falls apart somewhere for me but I can't pinpoint the exact correction to make your analogy work for me. Either way I agree. If they don't like only being able to buy digital PS games via Sony's platform, go to one where they can.
That's not the fight I'd personally focus on. I'd personally focus on them revoking digital access after you've "purchased it". Then again, I don't have a game console and I don't "buy" digital media. I either rent via streaming subscription or own the physical.
They make games, they just don’t make all the games. Similar like a grocery store having their own brands in the shelves, you don’t expect to be able to buy these at other shops.
And yes the upfront costs being subsidized is exactly the point.
As far as I can tell, despite Sony saying they would like the consoles to be profitable, they are still subsidized as of right now in aggregate. Perhaps some models are more profitable than others.
The PS5 was breaking even less than 6 months after its release. They don't subsidize anything. BTW, Nintendo also don't subsidize it. The BOM of the Switch 1 and 2 is lower than the total price including the margins for retailers!
I can see why you might think that, but that is not what this article claims or what Sony said.
The CFO said this in 2021:
“But the profitability of PS5 in -- there was this view of reaching breakeven point in June, but PS5 breakeven point for standard edition, more correctly on standard edition, that's how we explain the situation. And it's been progressing according to the plan. Overall, hardware profitability and peripherals hardware profitability, including peripherals, as we have been saying, is proceeding smoothly.”
And PCMag is inferring this means ONLY the $499 edition of the console which they previously suggested could become profitable later. It doesn't mean every edition of the PS5, and things have changed since 2021.
And Sony said it was having losses on consoles as recently as 2024.
Shops and distributors take a big chunk. The shoppe price is not given in whole to manufacturer if it was who would be paying the shoppe rental and employees ?
yes, that's called a differentiated product in economics and it confers market power the same way any other monopoly does, Sony controls the Playstation ecosystem, Apple its ecosystem and it gives them leverage over the consumer, those products are not commodities.
That's why pharmaceuticals, patented medical devices or cable and broadband providers are regulated, see net neutrality legislation. Which exists exactly to commoditize information access in a market that's dominated by differentiated providers so they can't exercise their gatekeeping power to drive prices between you and online services up.
If McDonalds were the only restaurant allowed to sell food within a particular market, and you couldn't buy food there from anyone else, then yes, your analogy would work. Otherwise it doesn't. A closer analogy would be Apple or the old company store model in company towns. In fact, why didn't you go with those?
This same kind of note seems to come up repeatedly in threads like this with no regard to a similar question ever having been thought up or discussed every other time the topic comes up. Different brands of course, but I'm not sure I've actually seen a net new discussion of this point here in years.
The usual answer is: If Sony raises the price of games in it's store, Sony denies 3rd party stores, and Sony removes the physical media option, then there are a significant number of people no longer able to consider open market dynamics in picking which low dollar game to buy next as they have massive (in comparison) investments in the platform.
McDonald's can certainly raise the price of a Big Mac, and McDonald's can certainly limit where it's sold to 1st party locations, but they don't really have the ability to bend the market to pay more than they'd like to for Big Macs because there is no platform investment. Like you say, people can go to Burger King and get a burger. It just doesn't cost hundreds of dollars to do so, making a few dollar increase have true market weight. You can also order the 3rd party burger from a number of places on those apps because there is no restriction that the person sold to is the only one entitled to a burger.
The part that leaves people debating is more "exactly how much interference is problematic rather than good business" than "what's the difference between A and B and doesn't that apply to every other situation too".
> then there are a significant number of people no longer able to consider open market dynamics in picking which low dollar game to buy next as they have massive (in comparison) investments in the platform.
Nothing prevents them from selling their Sony console and moving on
How can they sell their PlayStation library with it? Sony'll ban accounts that even try and Sony isn't allowing physical libraries be built anymore. Replacing a platform starts to pick up a lot of extra baggage once the company behind it controls more than the platform itself, even if you count switching the literal base platforms like that as frictionless.
Ignoring the above for a moment, this is exactly the kind of "exactly how much interference is problematic rather than good business" debate I was referring to. Obviously it's harder to sell a PlayStation and get another system than it is to eat a different burger that day. And obviously this is easier than if the burger joints in the region collude to raise prices on Saturdays but how impactful is it? Well, that's precisely the debate. Most side long before "it'd be impossible for an individual to do anything at all about it" but even that isn't universally held.
Their investment can still be used, though. The PS5 is compatible with 100% of their invested dollars. Just don't get a PS6. There was never any guarantee a PS6 would be backwards compatible.
Market freedoms are about the present/future, as that's the only time new purchases can be made. Removal of past purchased items is a completely different topic (outside it may relate to Sony and its Store).
Why not going with both? Choice is never bad for the consumer, even if the majority or sales is digital. I usually buy both and they just lost me, I won't buy into their dystopian store
Exactly. This is stupid. Physical is dead, there’s no point in arguing otherwise. And you will not win. Sony never signed a contract with you saying they would keep making physical forever.
Hell they could pull an old-school Apple, stop selling the PS5, make a tiny change, call it PS6 and be done with you. They could even announce that digital games for the PS6 are also compatible with the PS5! Wow, aren’t they nice.
We need laws providing consumer rights. Nothing else will work.
That's not what TFA is on about at all, it's about the monopoly Sony has on selling digital games exclusively through their store. Physical discs don't enter into it.
It's not a monopoly in the console market. There are two other competitors all of whom have roughly equal market share. And they are all walled gardens so Sony is not doing anything differently from its competitors.
I am reading a translation, so I might be off base, but not being a monopoly is not a defense.
EU competition regulations are not like American antitrust laws. They do not care about monopoly, and consumer harm is mostly a second-order effect. They care about competition, and punish anticompetitive behaviour and abuse of a dominant market position. "It’s not a monopoly" and "there are alternatives" are true, but that’s not all that relevant.
People don't focus on improving digital ownership because that requires butchering the sacred cow of copyright and DRM. These are the root of the problems and no one wants to touch them.
What’s happening is people are realizing how bad current rights for digital goods currently are, and are revolting at this obviously related scenario.
What people don’t realize is that physical != ownership. I remember wanting to pop The Dark Knight on Blu-ray into my ps4 for a date night… except the license on the disc expired, so I had to call WB for a new one??? Go figure.
Still, it’s fine if people react this way. If nothing else, it sends a message to lawmakers about priorities.
I actually feel like Nintendo's game key cards are a reasonable compromise, or at least a step in the right direction. Trade-able, lend-able, sell-able, fully offline with no need to periodically auth with a server as long as you have the game downloaded already. They also let you transfer games peer to peer so you don't even need to get it from their servers.
The issue with full digital ownership is I don't see how it can be implemented without totally killing the original owner's sales. Imagine if you could resell games on steam and undercut the developers: no-one would buy from them anymore after the initial round of sales, as there's no practical difference.
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For example, Nintendo does sell digital download codes, so this line of thinking doesn't apply to them? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Or is this about 3rd party app stores again?
There are already class-actions against Sony in the US and UK for what appears to be this exact thing (using their dominant monopoly position to charge high prices) so it's not surprising to see it pop up in other jurisdictions this late in the game.
I would rather have a right to unlock. Make it law that Sony can't prevent alternatives OS installation. Then when you get Arch running on a PS5 you can install Steam on top
No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run.
That very much depends on the wording of such a law. My point is that you can guarantee that console makers will look for a loophole to cripple their “unlocked” hardware.
> No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run.
I’m not the one suggesting people should buy consoles to unlock them
PC gaming lets me shop from Steam, GOG, etc.
I can't do any of that on a closed system.
Laws are.
Why ask that the fire doors in a building are unlocked when it’s on fire? Maybe they just shouldn’t ever be locked.
No. What you actually want is a $400 console that sells at a loss or break even and has the graphics power of a $1,500 - $2,000 PC hardware and you want to be able to install anything on it.
How the heck does that make any sense financially for Sony? Common sense is often lacking in gaming communities.
Additionally, businesses will not only sell Sony codes. They won't be like car dealerships, tied to 1 manufacturer. Due to this, they'll have even greater incentive and negotiating position to pressure Sony as if Sony doesn't want to play ball, the sellers can start promoting non-Sony products to consumers.
With direct sales only, Sony can have perfect vertical integration: they make the console hardware, they make the custom OS, they own the game publishers, they own the developers, and they own the store that sells games too. That's beneficial only to Sony.
Congratulations, you can buy anywhere you want. You don’t have to buy from Sony. It just costs more.
Yeah, that’s gonna be real great for making games cheaper for you.
That's not the fight I'd personally focus on. I'd personally focus on them revoking digital access after you've "purchased it". Then again, I don't have a game console and I don't "buy" digital media. I either rent via streaming subscription or own the physical.
Additionally, many of the games are already on different platforms (PC), just not any other consoles.
I think the biggest thing is that Sony doesn’t actually make the games (they don’t have the kitchen nor the cooks), they just sell it.
So a more apt comparison would be a grocery store, I think.
Sony does make the games, they have many excellent first party studios!
What are you talking about!
And yes the upfront costs being subsidized is exactly the point.
Sony’s 1st party stuff is (often) exceptional. It’s the reason an Xbox or PC isn’t a complete replacement.
This isn't true anymore.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-says-499-ps5-no-longer-sells...
The CFO said this in 2021:
“But the profitability of PS5 in -- there was this view of reaching breakeven point in June, but PS5 breakeven point for standard edition, more correctly on standard edition, that's how we explain the situation. And it's been progressing according to the plan. Overall, hardware profitability and peripherals hardware profitability, including peripherals, as we have been saying, is proceeding smoothly.”
And PCMag is inferring this means ONLY the $499 edition of the console which they previously suggested could become profitable later. It doesn't mean every edition of the PS5, and things have changed since 2021.
And Sony said it was having losses on consoles as recently as 2024.
yes, that's called a differentiated product in economics and it confers market power the same way any other monopoly does, Sony controls the Playstation ecosystem, Apple its ecosystem and it gives them leverage over the consumer, those products are not commodities.
That's why pharmaceuticals, patented medical devices or cable and broadband providers are regulated, see net neutrality legislation. Which exists exactly to commoditize information access in a market that's dominated by differentiated providers so they can't exercise their gatekeeping power to drive prices between you and online services up.
The usual answer is: If Sony raises the price of games in it's store, Sony denies 3rd party stores, and Sony removes the physical media option, then there are a significant number of people no longer able to consider open market dynamics in picking which low dollar game to buy next as they have massive (in comparison) investments in the platform.
McDonald's can certainly raise the price of a Big Mac, and McDonald's can certainly limit where it's sold to 1st party locations, but they don't really have the ability to bend the market to pay more than they'd like to for Big Macs because there is no platform investment. Like you say, people can go to Burger King and get a burger. It just doesn't cost hundreds of dollars to do so, making a few dollar increase have true market weight. You can also order the 3rd party burger from a number of places on those apps because there is no restriction that the person sold to is the only one entitled to a burger.
The part that leaves people debating is more "exactly how much interference is problematic rather than good business" than "what's the difference between A and B and doesn't that apply to every other situation too".
Nothing prevents them from selling their Sony console and moving on
Ignoring the above for a moment, this is exactly the kind of "exactly how much interference is problematic rather than good business" debate I was referring to. Obviously it's harder to sell a PlayStation and get another system than it is to eat a different burger that day. And obviously this is easier than if the burger joints in the region collude to raise prices on Saturdays but how impactful is it? Well, that's precisely the debate. Most side long before "it'd be impossible for an individual to do anything at all about it" but even that isn't universally held.
Hell they could pull an old-school Apple, stop selling the PS5, make a tiny change, call it PS6 and be done with you. They could even announce that digital games for the PS6 are also compatible with the PS5! Wow, aren’t they nice.
We need laws providing consumer rights. Nothing else will work.
EU competition regulations are not like American antitrust laws. They do not care about monopoly, and consumer harm is mostly a second-order effect. They care about competition, and punish anticompetitive behaviour and abuse of a dominant market position. "It’s not a monopoly" and "there are alternatives" are true, but that’s not all that relevant.
What people don’t realize is that physical != ownership. I remember wanting to pop The Dark Knight on Blu-ray into my ps4 for a date night… except the license on the disc expired, so I had to call WB for a new one??? Go figure.
Still, it’s fine if people react this way. If nothing else, it sends a message to lawmakers about priorities.
The issue with full digital ownership is I don't see how it can be implemented without totally killing the original owner's sales. Imagine if you could resell games on steam and undercut the developers: no-one would buy from them anymore after the initial round of sales, as there's no practical difference.