Opening the case for the claimants, Robert Palmer KC said Sony had “implemented a sustained strategy” to exclude competition over digital distribution of products “by monopolising their sale through the PlayStation store”.
In order to publish “any content at all” for the PlayStation, he said, developers must sign a contract agreeing that it won’t be distributed outside the official shop without Sony’s consent.
The case claims the shop built into the PlayStation’s operating system was designed to make players a “captive class”.
Mr Palmer further claimed users faced restrictive licence conditions that prevented them from seeking to bypass those controls and obtain digital content from elsewhere.
“The result is that Sony can and does set the retail prices of all such content itself without facing any retail competition for digital content,” he said.
“It allows it to obtain monopoly profits from digital distribution, setting retail prices at what it refers to as its target margin of an excessive and unfair 30% above the level of the digital wholesale prices.”
