Overview
- Sony agreed to a $7.85 million preliminary settlement that a federal court in California has approved for notice, covering certain PlayStation Store purchases linked to past voucher sales.
- Eligible titles are games that moved from third‑party vouchers to digital‑only sales between January 1, 2017 and March 31, 2019 and then rose in price by at least 50 cents, with eight titles reportedly including The Last of Us, Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China.
- Payments are expected to be issued as PlayStation Network credits after a final fairness hearing on October 15, with individual amounts likely small because millions of users may qualify.
- Separately in the U.K., a class‑style claim seeks about $2.6 billion for digital PlayStation purchases made from August 2016 to February 2026, alleging Sony’s 30 percent store fee inflated prices, a charge the company denies.
- This litigation sits within wider fights over platform commissions, including a recent U.K. damages ruling against Apple and U.S. cases that have tested whether closed console and mobile stores overcharge consumers.