Sony has warned that it will take legal action against anyone engaging in grey importing of its products after scoring a High Court victory over online retailer Lik-Sang.
In his ruling yesterday, Judge Michael Fysh found that Lik-Sang - which offered Japanese PSPs to European consumers via its website - was in breach of intellectual property rights.
Lik-Sang had claimed that it was operating within the law as the company is based in Hong Kong, and has no trading presence in the UK or European Economic Area.
But, as reported by the Financial Times, Judge Fysh ruled that, "The acts of which the complaint is made have, in my view, been perpetrated not in Hong Kong but here in the EEA, and without Sony's consent."
Sony declined to comment directly on the case. However, a spokesperson did tell GI.biz: "The law is clear; grey importing PS2, PSP or PS3 into the EU, without the express permission of SCE is illegal. Therefore, we will utilise the full scope of the law to put a stop to any retailers who chose to do this."
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
Gary Green said: We have a juxtaposition of 2D and 3D visuals, flashy turn-based combat, quirky anime characters with cheeky dialogue with plenty of partial nudity; Yes, this is a Compile Heart JRPG. Whilst the engine is borrowed from Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, Mugen Souls is more of a Disgaea spin-off. It’s not a strategy RPG as such, it merely sits within Disgaea’s ever-expanding universe (Multiverse? Netherverse? Your guess is as good as mine). You won’t find cameos though, since Mugen Souls is a franchise which aims to stand on its own two feet.
Sony finally wins a lawsuit and I'm sure people are going to be mad that this is the one they win...
What the hell? They sued a website for selling videogames to other countries? I don't get this at ALL
Meh, that's lame.
I hope it won't be the same for games, because i don't see the point of making the PS3 region free then =/
Sony didn't make the PS3 region free for gamers. They made it region free for developers and its another argument for use of their blu-ray disc capacity. All games on one disc regardless of region means they can "stamp" out disc's faster as they won't need to change out the software being put on disc, etc.
That said, with the prices varying in each country and exchange rates being better for some than others Sony would "lose" money as would developers if they let people mass import games from other regions that give them a favorable exchange rate.
If I was to own a PS3 for the first 2 months and for some reason I did not like it. Why couldn't I sell it to somebody over seas that's willing to pay the price to get it from me? Would that be illegal to sell what I do not want?
Anyhow it sounds dumb...wether they are not sony is being profitable, as a comsumer I'm out looking for the best bang for my bucks even if it means importing.
No wonder sony has screwed the rest of the world over when they slashed thier prices in thier own backyard.