Sony forced to stop selling PS2s in USA

Kai Lover Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 638

Sony faces $90.7m patent damages and forced to stop selling PS2s
>> From BBC.co.uk:

Quote:

Sony has been told to pay $90.7m (£48m) in damages and stop selling PlayStation consoles in the United States after losing a patent infringement lawsuit.
Sony said it would appeal the decision, stemming from a 2002 case brought by US firm Immersion, and would continue to sell its products pending the hearing.

A California court found that Sony had infringed sensory technology developed by the small tech business.
This allows a controller to vibrate in time with the game's actions.

Read the whole article on BBC.co.uk and joystiq.com.
(March 28 08:55 EST) - (direct link to article)
(Posted by:: XanTium)

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:38 pm

Seen it...sucks Sad

Wonder how the appeal will go? $90 million could very well kill Sony in the console business, and a suspension could very well end the PSP here and now.

I don't like the PSP as much as the DS, but the PS2 is a great console, and the PS3 should be great (compared to the peice of crap that is the XBox 2).

Kai Lover Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 638

Some people just don't understand the console wars - Xbox won back in the halo days - PSP is better than the DS - The features are greater, but DS games are better. Sony will be put at a handicapp no doubt -

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 7:25 am

[_Dp_]Princess @ Tue Mar 29, 2005 1:45 am wrote:

Some people just don't understand the console wars - Xbox won back in the halo days - PSP is better than the DS - The features are greater, but DS games are better. Sony will be put at a handicapp no doubt -

Uh, what?

XBox has *definitely* lost the console war.

It overtook the PS2 *only* in the US- even the GameCube beat it in Japan. And it took a massive loss. Looking at worldwide sales, the PS2 wins by a huge margin. GC and XBox were fighting for second place, I don't remember who got it worldwide (XBox outsold in US, GC outsold in Japan, Europe I can't remember). Me, I play GameCube mostly, but I almost got a PS2 originally.

As for DS vs PSP...
http://gear.ign.com/articles/599/599454p1.html

Quote:

If you add up the tallies, it comes out to Nintendo DS: 3, PSP: 3, Tie: 2, or an overall tie. But that doesn't really tell the whole story. If you look at the category winners, the PSP takes the system power, control and media categories while the Nintendo DS takes battery life, portability and load times.

So in theory, the Nintendo DS is a better portable system but the PSP is the better all-around system. This seems like a fair enough assessment and the final word we'll stick with.

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 9:49 am

They can still sell them becuase of an appeal action.

Basically all they need to do is pay up and they will be fine, you cant go using other companies technology without paying for it Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:41 pm

Yeah, for now they'll keep selling them. If they lose the appeal, then they have to stop selling them until they pay $90 million, which will hurt Shocked

Kai Lover Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 638

United States is the only that matters. The only reason Xbox didn't outsell in other parts of the world is because of the massive black market. I'll show you the harvard review article when I relocate the link.

As for the PSP and DS - It is in the air - some magazines favor one some the other.

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:25 am

[_Dp_]Princess @ Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:13 pm wrote:

United States is the only that matters.

ROFL!

No it doesn't. Japan and Europe are MASSIVE markets for overall sales. Japan especially is a big buyer, and XBox got last place there.

Quote:

As for the PSP and DS - It is in the air - some magazines favor one some the other.

Agreed.

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:04 am

Praxis @ Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:41 pm wrote:

Yeah, for now they'll keep selling them. If they lose the appeal, then they have to stop selling them until they pay $90 million, which will hurt Shocked

Its only fair that they pay it Rolling Eyes

I am sure the PSP will help ease the payment of that bill for them Wink

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:56 pm

[MF]mkjones @ Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:04 am wrote:

I am sure the PSP will help ease the payment of that bill for them Wink

Depends really. If they launch it in Europe at too high a price, then it might not sell brilliantly as people will be reluctant to fork out, say, £200 for a PSP. But if they sell it too cheaply, it may sell like water in a desert, but they may take too big a loss per system to make a substantial amount of money. $90 Billion is a hell of alot of money, even to SCE.

Team XLink Moderator Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1357

muckers @ Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:56 pm wrote:

they may take too big a loss per system

i was planning on laughing to myself, but come on, do you honestly think they're gonna lose money anywhere other than this lawsuit?

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:23 am

muckers @ Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:56 pm wrote:

$90 Billion is a hell of alot of money, even to SCE.

Yes $90 Billion is a hell of a lot of money.

Good job then that the court case is for $90 Million Rolling Eyes

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:50 pm

DK.SwiftTank @ Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:05 am wrote:

muckers @ Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:56 pm wrote:

they may take too big a loss per system

i was planning on laughing to myself, but come on, do you honestly think they're gonna lose money anywhere other than this lawsuit?

Actually, yeah. Sony takes a small loss on every PSP sold and hopes to make up for it in software sales. But if someone buys a PSP and say one non-Sony game (meaning Sony only gets a small percentage), then Sony doesn't make up the loss and doesn't make anything.

Now granted with the $50 games, people don't need to buy too much to give Sony cash...

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 5:37 am

[MF]mkjones @ Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:23 am wrote:

muckers @ Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:56 pm wrote:

$90 Billion is a hell of alot of money, even to SCE.

Yes $90 Billion is a hell of a lot of money.

Good job then that the court case is for $90 Million Rolling Eyes

Yea i guess that if the company who sued Sony wanted 90 Billion dollors they'd just sue Microsoft. Laughing

J/K

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 4:39 pm

H01Y $H¡T

9 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0 $?!?

This really sucks. Stupid Sony, trying to steal technology. . . Crying or Very sad

you can make it!

DC547

Kai Lover Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 638

Spong spoke with Immersion CEO about Sony lawsuit
>> From Spong.com:

Quote:

Following on from news earlier this week which saw Sony lose a key IP case and almost had all PlayStation products withdrawn from sale in the US Immersion Corp CEO Victor Viegas has spoken exclusively to SPOnG about the case.

There were two key issues we wanted outlining, not least the fact that Nintendo has never been mentioned in the case(s) Immersion Corp brought against Sony and Microsoft.
“We never analysed Nintendo products.” Is the more-than surprising answer offered. “There is, I believe, a difference in the technologies used but we never investigated those of Nintendo.”

On February 11, 2002, Immersion filed a complaint against Microsoft and Sony in the Northern District Court of California alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,889,672 and 6,275,213
Then on July 25, 2003, Immersion contemporaneously executed a series of agreements with Microsoft that:
1. Settled Immersion’s lawsuit against Microsoft
2. Granted Microsoft a worldwide royalty-free, irrevocable license to Immersion’s portfolio with Microsoft splashing out around $6 million on a 10% stake in Immersion
3. Provided Microsoft with sublicense rights to pursue certain license arrangements directly with third parties including Sony Computer Entertainment which, if consummated, would result in payments to Immersion.

Immersion, backed by Microsoft will have the right to demand royalties from Sony on every single PlayStation product that makes use of DualShock, an astoundingly astute move resulting in a case that Sony simply must win.
The idea of paying Microsoft’s Xbox division a royalty on all PlayStation sales if perhaps only second in the list of Thing That Officially Must Never Happen to having all SCE products suspended from sale altogether, a catastrophe narrowly avoided earlier this week.
When this was put to Viegas he simply said, "I cannot argue with the logic in what you say. Microsoft took full advantage of the opportunity offered to it and was fair in its dealings with us throughout."

Nintendo Specialist Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 1889

[MF]mkjones @ Tue Mar 29, 2005 9:49 am wrote:

They can still sell them becuase of an appeal action.

Basically all they need to do is pay up and they will be fine, you cant go using other companies technology without paying for it Rolling Eyes

Sony is fighting the company. They already sued M$ and M4 gave up 26 mill to this company and gave the company m$ stock. If sony sells out of the US psps they would make aprox 300,000,000. the 90.7 mill suit would leave them with 210,000,000 left from the psp sales. It wont cripple sony besides sony gets alot more money from other electronic devices. The Playstation 1,2 and psp arent the only thing the company makes. Neither is M$. Nintendo only makes games so all of their cash comes from console and game sales. If all next gen consoles were to horibble fail and blow up nintendo would be dead. sony and microsoft would be ok but microsoft would be better along than sony.