Sony Wins UK Battle Over Sales Of Imported Playstation Portable Consoles

[RichardTowler]

First News Post, let me see if this works and yes its a shameless plug, but thought this might be interesting for you readers.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has won its recent battle against importing and selling of its forthcoming PlayStation Portable console from Japan.

Nuplayer have been ordered to pay substantial Costs and Damages to Sony for bringing the case against them and to hand over its remaining stock, details of sales, supplier data and some customer data.

Thanks, GameFaction (http://www.gamefaction.com/article.php?story=20050719155528838)

[Royal Fool]

UMD is the future.

[thebuilder]

god damn sony

[Goronmon]

I can't think of one good reason why Sony should be able to do this.

[jeffool]

Short, concise, factual, no smack-talking... I dunno if you're cut out for EA. :(

Good post, even if it is fuckin' horrible news.

[Savok]

More reasons to hate Sony, not that I needed them.

[Royal Fool]

At least they're losing money on each PSP sold... right?

[Furious Wang]

Answer this question, Sony: Is it really worth all the bad PR?

[01010]

Once again Sony have lost this UK residents money. Until they can treat Europe as an equal territory I'm afraid I'm going to be sticking with my DS.

[mister_slim]

I still don't understand what the hell is going on with PSP manufacturing. There doesn't appear to be any shortage of them, and it would make more sense to sell them in Europe and risk a slight shortage elsewhere rather than just giving Europe the middle finger.

[jacktion]

So it is illegal to import game systems? Since when? I don't understand. Can anyone explain this?

[netcraazzy]

I still don't completely understand why this should be illegal. What exactly does Sony loose if somebody imports it from another country. Also, why start making a big deal of it now when this type of thing has been going on for years.

[Heretic Machine]

Ok... do European countries just not have a concept of a "free market" or what? Because I'm pretty sure that in America, such a ruling would be unconstitutional, and I would assume many European countries have similar laws.

[Royal Fool]

It's not really illegal to import them individually, but Sony is specifically going after resellers (The ones that import en massé and then sell the huge stacks of hardware back out on the street).

I can't believe Nuplayer lost this; I thought they had a chance of fighting back. Guess not. :(

[01010]

I don't understand what difference it makes, unless Sony are looking to assrape us on the price of them as is per usual.

[Heretic Machine]

It's not really illegal to import them individually, but Sony is specifically going after resellers (The ones that import en massé and then sell the huge stacks of hardware back out on the street).

Again, this basically makes it seem like people aren't free to sell thier own property in Europe. If I buy something legally, I can sell it. This is a bullshit case.

[MajSheppard]

How many more times can I say fuck sony and still mean it? Only time will tell...

[PhilR8]

Why would anyone want to like in Britain? I mean, seriously. The laws there seem so backwards sometimes. Free country my ass. This sort of shit, plus their baffling hatred of people who fight back against criminals. Someone please clue me in.

[Savok]

It affects sales when the PSP does go live in the EU, they like having numbers to boast. Especially as those numbers impact how much they can charge local distributors for rights.

It happened with Animal Crossing, no one in PAL bought the 2 year late PAL version as we'd all gotten Freeloaders and imported. Difference there is Nintendo just kinda shrugged, I don't even think they declared war on the Freeloader, might still work on modern GC games.

[Zeal]

UMD can juggle my balls, and so can its shitty video compression.