Sony Interactive Entertainment’s shift towards a disc-free PlayStation future is intensifying scrutiny of its digital-store policies. Consumer groups and players argue that removing alternative ways to buy games could leave the PlayStation Store with too much control over pricing and distribution.
The dispute has international reach, with legal actions or complaints in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal and Mexico. The cases differ in scope, but they share a central question: does Sony’s control over PlayStation purchases amount to anti-competitive conduct?
Sony pulled digital download codes from retail stores in April 2019. Plaintiffs say that decision made the PlayStation Store the only authorised place to buy digital PlayStation games, while the proposed end of physical discs could remove another important source of competition.
For players, physical copies have traditionally offered several alternatives: buying from a retailer, waiting for discounts, purchasing used games, borrowing from a friend or reselling a title after finishing it. Those options can limit dependence on a platform holder’s own storefront, even when the company controls the console.
Competition-law specialist Deviant Legal founder René Otto has cautioned that dominance alone is not automatically unlawful. The legal issue is whether a company has abused a dominant position, and that depends partly on how the relevant market is defined.
United States: Caccuri v. Sony Interactive Entertainment
PlayStation user Agustin Caccuri filed a class action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on 5 May 2021. The complaint challenged Sony’s decision to prevent retailers from selling download codes for digital PlayStation games.
The lawyers argued that the change left publishers with only one digital sales channel and players with only one digital purchasing option: the PlayStation Store. They described that arrangement as a monopoly and claimed it had already affected prices.
Data comparing retail stores with the PlayStation Store was used to claim that digital game codes sold through the store cost, on average, 74 per cent more than physical discs available from retailers.
“Sony made approximately $17 billion in revenue from the sale of digital PlayStation games” in the financial year ending 31 March 2021, lawyers wrote in the complaint. They estimated that, if the 74 per cent difference represented the broader market, alleged overcharges could reach $7 billion annually.
Sony said in a 22 February 2022 motion that it had not acted unlawfully. The case continued for years, with several similar lawsuits consolidated into it in October 2023.
In April, Sony settled the matter for $7,850,000. The payment is intended for people who bought digital games through the PlayStation Store between 1 April 2019 and 31 December 2023.
United Kingdom: PlayStation You Owe Us
Milberg London and a consumer-rights group represented by Alex Neill filed a $7.9 billion claim with the Competition Appeal Tribunal on 19 August. The same firm is also pursuing a separate case against Valve concerning its Steam platform.
The British claim takes a wider approach than the United States case. Rather than focusing only on the removal of retail download codes, it argues that Sony operates a closed ecosystem in which the PlayStation Store has near-exclusive control over digital games and add-on content, allowing the company to collect a 30 per cent commission on sales made there.
PlayStation You Owe Us wrote on its website that Sony’s control gives it a near monopoly over digital PlayStation sales. Sony maintains that it is entitled to sell games through its chosen business model and denies that the arrangement is an unlawful monopoly.
The trial finished in May, and the Competition Appeal Tribunal is reviewing the case. A decision is expected within the year.
Otto said the outcome may turn on whether the market is defined broadly as video games, where PlayStation competes with Xbox, Nintendo and Valve, or narrowly as purchases inside the PlayStation ecosystem, where Sony faces little direct competition.
Netherlands: Fair PlayStation
Milberg Amsterdam, working from the same consumer-protection arguments as the British case, announced in February 2025 a complaint for Dutch group Stichting Massaschade & Consument.
The Dutch proceedings are based on national law and remain ongoing. The claim is seeking roughly $500 million for consumers. It had not yet formally incorporated the proposed end of physical discs, but consumer advocates say a disc-free market would remove a major source of price competition and eliminate the second-hand market.
Lucia Melcherts of the advocacy group argued that, without discs, Sony could become the only seller able to determine a game’s price and how long customers may use it. That concern goes beyond launch prices and reaches questions about ownership, resale and continued access to digital purchases.
Portugal: Ius Omnibus v. Sony Interactive Entertainment
Portuguese consumer-protection organisation Ius Omnibus brought another case against Sony through Sousa Ferro & Associados and Ferreira Pinto Cardigos Advogados. The action was filed in the Portuguese Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court on 3 August 2023 and is ongoing.
The Portuguese proceedings follow the same broad concern about Sony’s control of digital PlayStation purchases. Michael Sousa Ferro, whose professional history seemingly has included work with Milberg, is associated with the legal team.
Mexico: complaint to the antitrust authority
Following Sony’s announcement that it would stop making physical discs, Mexican Federal Representative Iraís Reyes and Senator Luis Donaldo Colosio filed a complaint with Mexico’s National Antitrust Commission. Reyes later shared a video confirming the lawsuit, and the pair held a press conference the following Monday to discuss it.
The Mexican complaint combines the existing digital-store allegations with the expected impact of losing physical games. Its argument is that removing discs would also erase second-hand purchasing and leave PlayStation owners unable to choose where to buy their games.
“If discs disappear,” Reyes said, PlayStation owners could be forced to buy games exclusively through Sony’s store, making the company both the referee and the player in its own ecosystem.
Colosio also highlighted the potential effect on second-hand retailers. The complaint is currently the only one described here to use the proposed disc phase-out directly as part of its anti-competition argument, although the issue may become relevant to the other active cases.
Why physical games matter to the cases
The legal arguments do not claim that every digital storefront is automatically unlawful. Instead, they focus on whether Sony’s control of the PlayStation Store, combined with restrictions on retail download codes and the possible removal of physical discs, leaves consumers without meaningful alternatives.
For arcade and retro-gaming enthusiasts, the issue also highlights the difference between owning a physical game and accessing a licensed digital product. Used-game trading, collecting and preservation all depend on a product being transferable outside a platform holder’s store.
As the cases develop, the definition of the relevant market will remain crucial. Regulators and courts may consider competition between different console ecosystems, or they may focus on the much narrower market for digital purchases by PlayStation users. The outcomes could influence how platform holders manage digital sales and physical media.
Readers interested in the wider hardware landscape can explore RETROCADE’s arcade news and industry coverage, compare options in the arcade machine buying guide, or browse arcade machines and arcade parts.
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