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Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

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Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#131

Post by kergonath »

aurareturn wrote: post #118
kergonath wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sony sells their consoles at break even or sometimes at a loss. They hope to make money from their software sales. I don’t have a strong opinion in this case (of the games marketplaces on consoles), but this argument is fallacious. The question would not be whether they’d always done it, it would be whether that’s legal. It is not difficult to find business plan that don’t work because of laws and regulations. Anyt…

If locking out competition in your own platform breaks the law, then nearly no business is legal. Common sense needs to prevail.

The law draws a line. Plaintiffs think that line was crossed, Sony thinks they it was not. We have mechanisms to arbitrate this kind of dispute, and I am not taking sides.

My point is that it can be perfectly legitimate for a law to outright ban or effectively prevent some business models.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#132

Post by kergonath »

mikestew wrote: post #51
tumidpandora wrote: post #15

Going digital was inevitable, i'd rather focus on making digital ownership better than fight to restore discs or game codes to 3rd parties

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.

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.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#133

Post by parski »

aurareturn wrote: post #99
keoneflick wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they have a better price?

How can a physical store that pays rent possibly beat a website that costs $10/month to host?

The physical stores already beat that website despite offering physical discs in physical cases.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#134

Post by aurareturn »

kergonath wrote: post #131
aurareturn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If locking out competition in your own platform breaks the law, then nearly no business is legal. Common sense needs to prevail.

The law draws a line. Plaintiffs think that line was crossed, Sony thinks they it was not. We have mechanisms to arbitrate this kind of dispute, and I am not taking sides. My point is that it can be perfectly legitimate for a law to outright ban or effectively prevent some business models.

Sony sells the PS5 for $400 that can produce the graphics of a $1,500 - $2000 PC.

In return, only Sony can have an app store in the Sony hardware. No! This business model is not allowed!

Just yikes. Like I said, let's bring back some common sense.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#135

Post by dataflow »

aurareturn wrote: post #120
dataflow wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't see how this is inconsistent with what I described. If your business is to sell consoles at >$X/unit then your business is to sell consoles at a profit. If it is to sell at <$X/unit then your business is to sell them at a loss and make up for it later at the gaming app store. Console businesses prefer the latter model nowadays; of course they can still always go for the former model too. So you believe…

You are drawing a line I'm not drawing. There is no magic cut off. My point is that cheap/subsidized hardware and a closed store is one viable business model. The other business model is expensive hardware and an open ecosystem, which already exists in the PC. Consumers should have a choice instead of forcing Sony into the PC model.

That makes no sense, I'm sorry. The criteria ultimately need to be clear so people know what is allowed and what is not. Either the fact that Sony has a sell-console-at-a-loss business model is why they deserve a pass for anticompetitive behavior... or it is not. In the first case (what you're arguing) then Sony indeed gets a pass like you want, but it comes with uncomfortable questions you apparently would rather avoid. In the latter case then you're not even divulging what criteria you're using. You can't just keep waving your hands around and repeating how poor Sony's entire business model is selling these at a loss while refusing to claim that that's your criterion, it makes no sense.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#137

Post by danaris »

kergonath wrote: post #130
danaris wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the consumers decide what is best for them. Both business models should be allowed. Yeah! And let's make sure the customers have the choice of whether flour should have asbestos in it! And whether watches should have radium dials! Sorry, this only works when you've got a robust market with lots of competition. The console market is almost the textbook definition of a non-free market: only three players of any c…

> Sorry, this only works when you've got a robust market with lots of competition. It’s even worse than that. It only works with goods that are fungible and suppliers that are interchangeable. Otherwise it’s just a race to the bottom to build higher walls, increase friction and seek to extract rent from an audience that’s as captive as possible.

Indeed: and the most common good that is largely non-fungible is media.

Sure, if all I'm looking for is "entertainment", I can watch Star Wars or play Final Fantasy or read The Lord of the Rings. And for some people who enjoy gaming, they'd be just as happy with Call of Duty as they would with Battlefield as they would with some version of Halo.

But if I've heard about this new game Breath of the Wild and it sounds really cool, the only way I can experience that is, in fact, to play Breath of the Wild. And the only way to play Breath of the Wild is to have a Switch. And the only company that makes the Switch is Nintendo.

And while some of the other big names in gaming have been moving away from console exclusivity (which is an unqualified benefit to us gamers), the games themselves are still (largely) nonfungible.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#138

Post by aurareturn »

dataflow wrote: post #135
aurareturn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are drawing a line I'm not drawing. There is no magic cut off. My point is that cheap/subsidized hardware and a closed store is one viable business model. The other business model is expensive hardware and an open ecosystem, which already exists in the PC. Consumers should have a choice instead of forcing Sony into the PC model.

That makes no sense, I'm sorry. The criteria ultimately need to be clear so people know what is allowed and what is not. Either the fact that Sony has a sell-console-at-a-loss business model is why they deserve a pass for anticompetitive behavior... or it is not. In the first case (what you're arguing) then Sony indeed gets a pass like you want, but it comes with uncomfortable questions you apparently would rather av…

I'm arguing that what Sony is doing isn't anticompetitive behavior at all. Period.

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#139

Post by BadBadJellyBean »

derektank wrote: post #82
axus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike a disc, you can't use the code without going through the PlayStation Store. And you likely cannot resell it, either. You can't buy a non-Sony PlayStation, I guess they'll argue it's similar.

It does seem like a reasonable middle ground would be something like selling a dongle that provides PIV attestation of ownership, that could be resold and could even be used across platforms. Of course, there’s no incentive for the console manufacturers to offer this.

You wouldn't even need a dongle if your license wasn't permanently bound to one account. It's not hard to transfer a license, but it's very undesirable for Sony, Microsoft, Valve, etc...

Re: Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

#140

Post by zamadatix »

tripleee wrote: post #129
zamadatix wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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).
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