PlayStation: why Sony was heavily sanctioned because of its PS4 controllers

This is a rare sanction in a sector, video games, where concentration reigns around a handful of console manufacturers and their official accessories. This Wednesday, the Competition Authority imposed a fine of 13.5 million euros on the Japanese giant Sony and three of its subsidiaries.

For the first time, such a sanction applies to a commercial policy on accessories. In question: “having abused its dominant position in the market for the supply of video game controllers for PlayStation 4 consoles”, justifies the competition watchdog in France.

Implementation of “technical countermeasures”

Contacted by Le Parisien – Today in France, Sony Interactive Entertainment France, responsible for marketing the controllers, did not wish to comment on this decision. Seized in 2016 by Subsonic, a French manufacturer of video game controllers, the authority carried out the investigation over several years before reproaching two fairly common practices in the video game sector.

Sony would have knowingly put in place “technical countermeasures” in order to prevent the proper functioning of PS4 controllers manufactured by independent prop makers in order to encourage purchases of its own controllers or models sold under exclusive license. Less expensive, unofficial accessory controllers were regularly disconnected from the console during an update. Designed to combat counterfeiting, “such measures were disproportionate, since they indiscriminately affected all “off-license” controllers,” judges the administrative authority.

“The consumer has been wronged for years”

The other complaint concerned the “opaque” allocation system for official licenses for a compatible DualShock controller. “The granting criteria were so vague that we never had a response to our license requests. These practices took us out of the controller market on this console while we were sales leaders on the PS3,” Eric Pernelle, the boss of Subsonic, told us, relieved after 7 years of procedure.

“It is above all the consumer who has been harmed for years by paying for official controllers twice the price of a third-party accessory,” he denounces. “We hope that this decision will set a precedent for PS5 controllers, which is a console that is often out of stock and where few unofficial controllers are produced at affordable prices,” highlights the manager.