Lik-Sang.com Taken to Court By Sony 219
Joe writes "As published on Lik-Sang's Website Sony has taken legal actions against Hong Kong's largest exporter of videogames and videogaming gear. One month before the official european launch and 9 months after the initial release of the PSP, this action looks very late at first sight. Since it's highly doubtful that Sony can permit the resale of the japanese PSP consoles in Hong Kong no matter if on the local market or for export, it looks like this is planned to be one of the not the bright marketing ideas of the Sony HQ. The japanese PSP has the same Region Code for UMDs as the ones which will be sold in europe in september. Since the shipping at Lik-Sang is free, the console is even cheaper to import than to buy it locally."
Sony has officially gone bananas. (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep doing this, sony and you will be publicly humiliated (again) and fewer people will buy your stuff. Hell, even Microsoft isn't that evil. Try to control the market in such an evil way, and it will always come back and bite you in the ass.
In summary: If Sony was an icecream flavor, they'd be pralines and dick.
Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Interesting)
And its Firmware version 1.50.
Will probably get another one from them when the white ones come out - then I can still do my SNES/Genesis emulation, as well as coding my own stuff as well as having all the cool new features.
Its a pity really, as Sony would earn so much respect by allowing programmers to sign their own code - why cant they come up with a way of doing it that only works on files of say 200MB or less, thus allowinf homebrew, surely they could make it as a loader library, and have it flash up a "This Software is not made or checked by Sony, Use is at your own risk".
Re:Region codes (Score:5, Interesting)
You can imagine my surprise when after reading all the crap about PSP games not being region encoded, then when UMD movies are finally available I can't play them.
I got my PSP the first week of January. Imported from japan. It's nice that the Japanese PSPs can play US games and vice versa, and not that I would buy them if I could, but it sucks that I can't watch US UMD movies on my japanese PSP.
Does Lik-Sang have the resources to fight this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nonsense lawsuits are only shown to be nonsense lawsuits after lots and lots of money is spent.
I have no idea how big Lik-Sang is, I just bought a GBA transfer cable from them awhile back once. For legitimate purposes, honest!
Region Codes (Score:5, Interesting)
Adjusting for typo... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is true, the sales themselves cannot be stopped. However, as UK importers have learned recently to their chagrin, you selling them can be stopped. All Sony has to do is claim that you are using their trademark on the term "PSP" without their permission, and you'll be forced to sell "popular black handheld video game unit from a major manufacturer of electronic devices," something that just doesn't get many hits in a search engine.
Re:Region Codes (Score:2, Interesting)
If you're going to get upset about the lack of free trade, I suggest you concentrate your efforts in areas like agriculture, raw materials and the draconian so called free trade agreements the West is making with Africa, South America and parts of Asia, rather than whine about how you have to spend more of your allowence to play games or movies.
Re:My Firefox isn't working... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sony has officially gone bananas. (Score:4, Interesting)
Amen to that MR Willeh.
I put a lot of value on design for the gadgets that I consume, hence I am a mac geek. However, a time came when I needed to run a Windows App and had to choose a laptop from the Wintel world.
From all the available options, the VAIOs were by far the most appealing ones, so I bought a GRX. The only problem? How awfully they are manufactured and supported, as I later unfortunately found out.
One day the thing just wouldn't recognize half of the RAM installed and sometimes it would freeze without any warning sign of any kind. When trying to find out what was wrong with it, I contacted SONY, and it showed me the finger. The official support site didn't mention anything and the help line guys told me that I needed to send in the laptop and pay a service fee at my expense just to see what was going on.
I later found out in here [hardwareanalysis.com] that the problem was indeed common (pins one to ten in the first memory socket were not soldered properly), that SONY knew about it for a long time, and still didn't EVEN put it in a website as a potential problem that could arise in a VAIO.
To this day (three and a half years after its release) SONY still hasn't aknowledged the faulty motherboard problem. Now, I really am not that picky as not to buy a product from a company that has had this kind of problem, because in the end, every company has had their fair share. But SONY has this strange corporate attitude.
Nice ideas, but... beats me. No wonder their shares have been tanking [digitalconnectmag.com]. I can tell you I will NOT buy a VAIO again and I wished there were some sort of AMAZON store for laptops with a similar "rating and comments" system where I could put this experience up.
If you are thinking of buying a VAIO... DON'T.
Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the choice between earning respect and earning revenue, I'm pretty sure I know which one Sony would rather have.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Interesting)
The PSP is a Jaguar overpriced, flashy, and not too practical, the DS is a VW, a little cramped but cheap, reliable and has great gas mileage.
No Sympathy (Score:5, Interesting)
Leave it to them to decide not to bring a game to the US and then complain whenever people from the US import it from Japan or Europe, saying that we're making them lose money.
We're buying their product. At a higher price than normal. And WE get bitched at?! Why should I have to wait a year or more for a game if I can read Japanese and want to play it when it comes out in Japan?
Why should I have to import a DVD player if I move to Japan or Europe? Oh, I know. So that they can make more money by locking out entire continents.
In retrospect, I still have no sympathy. And I'm actually surprised that the US doesn't have 5 region codes.