More than 8,000,000 PlayStation owners could be entitled to over £500 amid Sony claim
You could be in for a payment following a major lawsuit
PlayStation owners from the United Kingdom could be in for a financial boost following the announcement of a lawsuit, as a £5,000,000,000 lawsuit has been levied against Sony that could give over 8,000,000 gamers up to £500 if successful.
One of the biggest shifts in gaming over the past 15 years is the transition from a physical marketplace to a digital one, which has been pushed by companies like Valve on PC, alongside Sony and Microsoft on their respective consoles’ storefronts.
While this has had negative ramifications on some of the biggest brick and mortar games stores – which partially led to the infamous GameStop short squeeze saga in 2021 – the companies themselves have benefitted significantly by cutting out the middle man.
PlayStation and Xbox are now able to sell to consumers directly through their own closed-off storefronts, and this also allows publishers to save cash on production and distribution.
A new lawsuit has argued that PlayStation have monopolized their digital storefront in order to charge ‘unfair’ prices (Rasit Aydogan/Anadolu via Getty Images)
One particular claim, under the banner of PlayStation You Owe Us, aims to challenge what they distinguish as a monopoly for UK consumers, and have landed Sony with a £5 billion lawsuit in order to adequately compensate over 8 million gamers that have, in the eyes of the claim, been overcharged.
Led by ‘consumer champion’ Alex Neill, The PlayStation Claim argues that Sony has had a “near monopoly on the sale of digital games and add-on content through its control of the PlayStation Store.”
On top of this, they indicate that “Sony uses this dominance to enforce strict terms and conditions on game developers and publishers,” affecting individuals on both sides of the industry.
As a result, prices set on the PlayStation Store have been deemed to be “excessive and unfair,” and the claim in turn is seeking compensation for this, as reported by Runcorn & Widnes World.
If you happened to own a PlayStation console between the dates of August 19, 2016 and August 19, 2022 then you are eligible to receive money if the claim is successful, and it’s indicated that payouts could range between £67 and £562.
Eligible gamers could earn up to £562 in compensation – enough to buy a whole new console! (Rasit Aydogan/Anadolu via Getty Images)
You might unfortunately be waiting quite a while though, as if Sony doesn’t decide to settle the case, it’s set to go to trial on March 2, 2026, and is expected to last around eight weeks.
Thankfully you don’t need to do anything else in order to qualify for compensation as anyone eligible will automatically be included in the claim, and will be notified once the case has been resolved.
Many are feeling the effect’s of PlayStation’s alleged monopoly on the store in recent days too, after a lengthy PSN outage that left everyone unable to play most of their games.
This, combined with outrage surrounding the ‘pathetic’ reimbursement of just five additional days added to active PlayStation Plus subscriptions, has left patience waning in the gaming world.
Featured Image Credit: Emanuele Cremaschi / Contributor / Getty
Playstation users demand refunds after PSN was down for over 24 hours
Sony blamed the outage on an ‘operational issue’
Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) went down on Friday evening, leaving tens of thousands of gamers locked out of online services for over 24 hours.
Reports of connection failures and login errors flooded social media, with around 71,000 users reporting issues on PlayStation’s official website.
Popular online games like Fortnite, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto were completely unplayable with some players unable to access even their offline titles due to license verification issues.
The timing couldn’t have been worse either as it was a weekend of promotional in-game events including a double XP weekend for COD Black Ops 6.
The developers released a brief statement through their AskPlayStation account on X (formerly Twitter), writing: “We are aware some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN”.
Network services have fully recovered from an operational issue. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their patience. All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.
Sony later announced that the network had now ‘fully recovered’ and apologised for the disruption, but did not explain what caused the outage.
As compensation, Sony informed that all PlayStation Plus members would automatically receive ‘an additional 5 days of service.’ Meaning that if your monthly or yearly subscription was set to expire, you’d get five extra days.
But that hasn’t sat well with many players especially as those who don’t have PS Plus will receive no compensation at all.
However, many players have been left outraged by the total lack of transparency throughout the outage and fair compensation to its loyal customers.
“Unacceptable lack of communication. We pay for your services,” the top comment read. “Many people make plans to play together on the weekend. You have allowed a disruption in services we pay for and plan for, without communication with us about what is happening. Reimbursement would be the thing to do.”
Some users believe a refund is in order with one replying: “Like this if PlayStation should give everyone a free year of PS+ due to their lack of communication and care for the community.”
Someone else argued: “Yeah, been down since 6pm, so 5 hours now… sucks I CAN’T PLAY ANY OFFLINE GAMES I OWN cuz my PS5 can’t verify I own it EVERY TIME I LOG IN instead of, you know, just SAVING THAT INFO TO THE SYSTEM. Sure would make this down time an almost non-issue.”
Emanuele Cremaschi / Contributor / Getty
Meanwhile, one PS player told the BBC: “Paying a monthly fee for their service is one thing but not being able to play games that we’ve purchased is something that’s beyond frustrating.”
This time marks the second longest outage in PlayStation’s history, beaten only by the 2011 outage that lasted almost an entire month.
While this was not as long as the 2011 outage, it marks the second-longest downtime in PSN history. Back then, players received free games such as Burnout Paradise as compensation but that was weeks of downtime, not a day.
Again, a 24-hour outage is pretty rare in the gaming industry leading many users to presume it was a hack. And Sony’s silence has done little to reassure the community.
Featured Image Credit: NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty
PlayStation gamers could be entitled to up to £500
How much you’d get would depend on how much you spent between 2016 and 2022.
PlayStation 5 owners in the UK may receive up to £500 in compensation on the back of a $7.9 billion lawsuit.
Alex Neill, a consumer advocate, has stepped forward on behalf of 8.9 million UK users of PlayStation, filing a lawsuit against Sony’s monopoly of the digital store.
Neill alleges that the marked-up prices on the PlayStation Store between 2016 and 2022 were an abuse of Sony’s dominant position in the gaming market.
Sony has allegedly exploited its leading position in the gaming market / NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty
When Neill first announced the lawsuit last year, she said: ‘The actions of Sony is costing millions of people who can’t afford it, particularly when we’re in the midst of a cost of living crisis and the consumer purse is being squeezed like never before.’
She claims that games are becoming more about ‘spending as much money as possible (including children).’
The lawsuit claims that the tech corporation deliberately inflated prices for digital games and content prices on its PS Store. Sony required digital games and DLC add-ons to be bought and sold only via the PlayStation Store, which also charges a 30% commission to developers and publishers.
Whilst Sony has dismissed the claim as ‘flawed from start to finish’, it may need to defend itself if the case ends up going to court.
The objective of the lawsuit is to deliver compensation to PlayStation 5 owners who bought digital content between 2016 and 2022, with a cap of £500.
Neill has made a website called PlayStation You Owe Us / Gonzalo Arroyo – FIFA / Contributor / Getty
The amount owners will receive will depend on how much they’ve spent on the PS Store during that period.
The consumer champion’s claim has been spreading like wildfire and has been compiled its information and updates into a website called PlayStation You Owe Us.
Her site reads: ‘In the UK, it is illegal for companies to abuse their dominant position.
‘This includes directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions.
‘We believe that PlayStation occupies a dominant position in relation to the digital distribution of PlayStation games and in-game content and that it has been unfairly charging its UK customers too much for digital games and in-game content purchased through the PlayStation Store.’
PS5 owners don’t have to do anything at this stage. However, they are welcome to read more information on the lawsuit or find out whether they are in the ‘class of claimants’ on Neill’s website.
Featured Image Credit: NurPhoto / Contributor / Gonzalo Arroyo – FIFA / Contributor / Getty
GTA 6 could have vital issue that will annoy millions of PS5 and Xbox owners
We guess we’ll wait for the PC release…if it ever comes
The gaming gods are supposed to smile down on us in 2025, with Grand Theft Auto 6 finally set to arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
By the time GTA 6 arrives for its rumored fall 2025 release date, it will have been 12 years since GTA V broke records as the fastest-selling entertainment product in history and earned over $1 billion in its first three days.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so it’s no surprise that GTA 6 is poised to make over $1 billion in pre-orders alone.
This is an amazing feat when you remember GTA 6 has no plans to release on the last-gen PS4 or Xbox One, while a PC release is expected to eventually release – although there are fears that won’t happen.
It makes sense for GTA 6 to be a next-gen only game, and after all, the PS4 and Xbox One are as old as GTA V.
Despite years of leaks revealing everything from a return to Vice City to female protagonist Lucia spoiling the surprise ahead of time, we’ve only had one 91-second trailer to satiate our hunger.
Although the one and only GTA 6 trailer blew up the internet and revealed a ton of details, gamers are dying to know more. Notably, we’re hopefully just a matter of months away from release and there’s been no official GTA 6 gameplay.
GTA 6 could leave some fans disappointed in 2025 (Rockstar Games)
Now, GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 animator Mike York has dashed our hopes of one major featured in a now-deleted episode of the Kiwi Talkz podcast (via GamesRadar+). Discussing the idea of GTA 6 hitting that holy grail of 60 frames per second, York admitted: “I don’t know if they’ll be able to pull off 60fps.
“I don’t think so. I think they’re gonna be shooting for 30fps – and a locked 30fps, meaning it never dips below that.”
The site notes that while GTA V can hit a steady 60fps on PS5, it’s had years to be optimized. Looking at the glossy graphics in the GTA 6 trailer, many think it would be a ‘miracle’ to lock down 60fps.
York continued: “They’re gonna try to optimize as much as they can to where it never goes below 30. But it can be bumped up to 40, 41, 52, whatever, and I bet you, like, later, once it’s on PC, it’ll probably get super optimized and changed and new graphics cards that come out and you’ll be able to run it at 60fps probably at that time.”
Unfortunately at the request of Mike, I have had to take down my latest interview, apologies everyone. I will have an awesome podcast guest next week though, so watch this space.
🎮NEW PODCAST OUT NOW🎮 with Mike York. We talk about the culture at Rockstar, working on Red Dead Redemption 2, the combat system he pushed for on GTA V, his thoughts on GTA VI, the Houser Brothers and more…. WATCH HERE ➡️ youtu.be/04yoqDmfnVc
The idea that GTA 6 will eventually land on PC means we could push the framerate higher, while York said he’s not sure if the PS5 Pro’s framerate boosting could even push us higher than 60fps at launch.
It’s also important to note that York hasn’t worked for Rockstar since 2017, meaning GTA 6 could pull it out of the bag and surprise us all. York concluded that whatever Rockstar is working on, he’s sure GTA 6 can live up to the hype: “I don’t know what they’re doing over there. I don’t know how massive this is going to be.
“But from my experience, they’re going to squeeze every little freaking thing they can out of it and then optimize later for 60 frames because it’s not as important as just making the game amazing at 30 frames.”
While our hopes are high for GTA 6, we’ve been burned before. Yes Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077, we’re looking at you!
Featured Image Credit: Rockstar
PlayStation 5 is entering ‘the latter stages of its life’, Sony says
It feels a little soon, doesn’t it?
If you thought the PS5 was still a spring chicken, think again – its very own creators have confirmed the console could be on its way to the great PlayStation farm in the sky.
Sony confirmed this attitude in an earnings call this week, prompting plenty of shock and disbelief on social media as people agreed that the console still feels new to them, and still doesn’t necessarily have the library of games you’d associate with its middle-age.
The key fact is that the PS5’s sales slowed down a little in the last financial year, and undercut Sony’s hopes, reportedly selling 21 million units instead of the 25 million it was looking for.
NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty
That led it to revise its estimates and expectations for the rest of the console’s lifespan, and prompted Sony’s senior vice president, Naomi Matsuoka, to admit that the PS5 is looking ahead to “the latter stages of its life cycle”, as per Bloomberg.
Sony also admitted that it doesn’t have a massive library of upcoming first-party games to release in 2024, so it looks like it might be a fairly quiet year for the console, after a more barn-storming 2023.
Of course, since late 2023 saw the release of a slimmed-down version of the PS5, it shouldn’t really come as a major surprise that the console is now getting long in the tooth – these smaller versions always come once a PlayStation has been around for a while.
The PS5 launched while the pandemic was still coming in big waves, too, so there’s almost been a sort of compression of time that makes it easy to overlook how long it’s been around for.
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NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty
There’s also the possibility that Sony is working on a long-rumored PS5 Pro, which would bring boosted specs and power to let gamers enjoy the same library of titles at higher resolutions or frame rates.
However, this has never been confirmed and wasn’t hinted at by Sony in the call, so there are plenty of people who now think we’re instead just strapped in to wait a couple of years before the eventual reveal of the PlayStation 6.
If 2024 is going to be quiet from Sony’s first-party games perspective, one big silver lining comes in the form of persistent industry rumours that Xbox will bring some of its former exclusives to the platform, at least. So, from Sea of Thieves to Starfield, there could still be some big games arriving on PS5 this year that we don’t yet know about.
