$7.85M Sony Antitrust Settlement Over Alleged Digital PlayStation Games Monopoly Approved by Court

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A federal judge has preliminarily approved a $7,850,000 settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that alleged Sony Interactive Entertainment illegally suppressed competition for the sale of digital PlayStation games when it banned third-party retailers from selling game-specific vouchers, which allegedly allowed Sony to charge supercompetitive prices and forced gamers to pay more for in-system purchases.

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The $7.85 million Sony Interactive Entertainment refusal-to-deal settlement received preliminary approval from the court, after two previous requests were rejected, on April 8, 2026. The deal covers all individuals in the United States who purchased through the PlayStation Store one or more video games for which a game-specific voucher (GSV) was available at retail prior to April 1, 2019, for which a total of at least 200 GSV redemptions were made prior to April 1, 2019, and for which the post-discount price increased by at least fifty cents from the period between January 1, 2017 and March 31, 2019 in comparison to the period between April 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023.

Court documents say that more than 4.4 million people are covered by the Sony class action settlement.

ClassAction.org will update this page when the Sony Interactive Entertainment settlement website—PSNDigitalGamesSettlement.com—is live.

According to the second revised settlement agreement, class members with active PlayStation Network accounts do not need to do anything to receive an equal-share payment. This payout will be automatically distributed as PlayStation Network account credits that may be redeemed for any content in the PlayStation Network store, court documents state.

Per court documents, class members with deactivated PlayStation Network accounts will be able to contact the settlement administrator to receive a check in an amount equal to the PlayStation Network account credits to which they may be entitled under the settlement.

Sony settlement class members who wish to exclude themselves from the deal and retain any legal rights must submit a request for exclusion to the settlement administrator by July 2, 2026.

The court will determine whether to grant the Sony settlement final approval following a hearing on October 15, 2026. Compensation will be distributed to class members only after final approval has been granted and any appeals have been resolved.

The Sony Interactive Entertainment class action lawsuit alleged that, beginning April 1, 2019, Sony placed restrictions on digital download codes so they could no longer be sold by third-party retailers, and instead directed consumers to the PlayStation Network store. Per the complaint, this resulted in Sony charging supercompetitive prices for digital PlayStation games, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Act.

United States District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín declined to preliminarily approve the Sony settlement in January over concerns that two of the named plaintiffs might receive a service award despite no longer being members of the proposed class. Judge Martínez-Olguín also rejected a request for preliminary approval in July 2025 due to questions about whether a settlement payout of PlayStation Network account credits amounted to “coupons.”

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