European imports of the PS3 have been suspended for at least 10 days after Sony lost an important legal battle against rival LG.
Korean electronics giant LG is alleging the PS3 infringes patents it holds on technology used in the Blu-ray format, and has been seeking various injunctions on its sale and import as part of its ultimate goal of wringing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from Sony in markets around the world.
European courts recently granted one such injunction, in the form of a 10 day freeze on PS3 imports (said to be 100,000 a week), which are now piling up in a warehouse under the custody of European customs authorities.
European sales of the PS3 itself are unaffected, but as these sales are dependent on imports retailers are now only able to sell whatever stock it is they have on hand – assuming the injunction is not extended, it is thought supplies should be sufficient to allow continued availability.
Needless to say, any further injunction is likely to be a colossal setback for Sony.
Sony for its part has been busy suing LG back, seeking various injunctions on its products as well, as part of a much larger patent war between the two.
Coming not long after Sony managed to get German police to raid the homes of PS3 hackers and seize their computers (a move which predictably backfired immediately as all their code was subsequently spread far and wide as the “screw you” effect kicked in), sympathy for Sony is understandably in short supply.
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So Sony are pirates too?
European lawmakers themselves are criminals too, though.
As is the police. Reverse engineering whatever is not even forbidden under German law. The hackers got their homes raided on what isn't even a case.
That'd be the World police putting out pressure.
i hate korean
it will be quite funny if they close PSN access for Europe
//////i don't own PS3 anymore so i don't really give a shit about this.
This is about the PS3 units themselves not-so-awesome. The PSN is an online service and completely unrelated to the BR drive.
In Europe? Damn... That's one of their strongest territories as of now. They're selling fairly well in NA but compared to that of the others it's somewhere near the tail end.
PS3 has noconsoles
Life ain't so good for you anymore now, is it Sony? lol
I honestly feel sorry for sony.
They are honestly the best console in this gen.All other consoles went for casual market.
Wii has big amount of waggle and a few good title.
Xbox only focuses on COD and Halo games and has brought us nothing except for graphical stagnation and overpriced DLC. Sony has released some of the most unorthodox and original games like LBP and Valkyria when it suffered the most because of it's price and bad 3rd party games.
Playstation is the last console that actually cares about "hardcore" gamers.
I agree with this entirely. I almost regret buying my Xbox. Or I /would/ if it wasn't for Deadly Premonition, but that's like the only excellent Xbox exclusive. Every other great game on the Xbox is also available on the PS3.
I bought my 360 solely for Fable 2... Imagine my anger/disappointment when it turned out that the sequel to a great game is an arcade beat-em-up where your character is invincible from the very start... bought a PS3 a couple months later.
360 is a faulty product lacking many features present in the cheapest PS3 variant. Microsoft are the ones that should be sued, not Sony. I mean, shit, the 360s of the Core bundle didn't even have the HDMI-out, what a scam. It's a next gen console, for crying out loud. Not to mention ovepriced HDDs, WiFi adapters, controllers with crappy d-pads, RRODs... I can't recall Sony doing such cheap stunts to get more cash.
Yes they have done cheap stunts.
1. They made the PS1 easily pirateable and PS2 easy pirateable as well. So was the Xbox too, just following in the footsteps of a great champion, this was a cheap tactic widespread piracy to make their machines popular,
2. XBOX 360 was released WWWWAAAYYY before the HDMI cable became popular or when the LCD TVs became cheap (Check you facts before your accusations champ). The recent ones have HDMI and keep in mind 2 Xboxs < 1 PS3 no matter what you say. Same can be said for the Wii, even though Xboxes released before Wii (WHY AREN'T YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT THE WII HYPOCRITE). This can lead to 2 conclusions, your shop is selling outdated Xboxes or you bought one before HDMI became popular.
3. Region-Free that's also a benefit and also a cheap tactic however the Xbox 360 can do that too.
4. Sony's YLOD cause of overheating much like the Xbox 360 though not as numerous, prolly cause they didn't use cheap parts.
5. Before you jump the gun. Sony products don't get replaced even if they screw-up, none whatsoever even if there was a major fault in all their products. Microsoft has a 3 year warranty and they do replace/fix-up your machine. I know this was after a massive court battle but it is a point, they will help you not only that Microsoft does have fantastic customer service (they even supplied me with a cheap PS for my US xbox 360 to work in Australia).
6. I have a Core bundle and it has a HDMI port.
@Anon 23:52
1. Made it easily pirateable, huh? Lol. PSP is easy to pirate games on, so was the Dreamcast. You say the original Xbox was "easily pirateable"... now, there's one link between all of these consoles: they didn't sell well (compared to competition). Your logic lacks something there.
The ease of playing "backups" isn't an important aspect or a marketing trick. PS1 was obviously better than Saturn, which couldn't handle 3D well and more advanced than N64, which is why it succeeded. PS2 offered games that were more sophisticated, richer in content and could play DVDs, unlike the Dreamcast (which was also abandoned by some companies in favor of PS2), which is why it sold well.
2. That's no excuse. HDMI ports on Core bundles were added in late 2007. That's 3 years after it's initial release. 2 years after PS3 was released.
3. If both consoles can do it, why use it as an argument against either one?
4. PS3's failure rate fits within the acceptable norm, unlike Xbox's. I heard they decreased the failure rate in the Jasper ones a little bit. They still break more often than the PS3's anyway.
5. Good point.
6. See point 2.
inb4xboxfanboys
inb4notthisshitagain
and inb4hackeraregoodpeoplesonyisthedevil
i'll take my leave now ..
It's a phony...
Why is the originator of BLu-Ray get sued for it's own technology?
It's not.
BL was 'invented' by a consortium of companies - Sony is only one piece of the puzzle. LG didn't try to sue them however until Sony sued LG to try and get LG phones taken off the US market.
This^
Typical Sony dick move... I'm glad to see that it backfired.
The Blue ray consortium was founded by nine companies : Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG (Lucky GoldStar) Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, and Samsung.
They worked together and shared IP to create a defacto standard format.
LG was working on a advance data storage devices of course Sony beat them to it with there own version.
Sony track record of lawsuits Sony got sue by Canadian company that claim some of there decryption software was being used for Blu-Ray.
LG and Samsung have a big grip of market share in Europe. Those Koreans are smarter than Japanese when it comes to the European market.
Sony will survive as long as they promote music services and the American filming industry. I want Sony to purchase Comcast (including NBCUniversal). Comcast is doing a huge disservice against the American consumers and this isn't right until Sony will take over Comcast.
Sony taking over a giant internet provider like Comcast, imagine that. I think the term 'Sony rootkit' should be remembered whenever a subject like this comes up.
This isn't completely Sony's fault. This is more of a great mistake made by the US government for being crazy over intellectual properties. Imagine if Sony could fund better internet connections to the USA. Now that's a great gift.
And why would they do that without the consumer paying for it in the end? What goodwill do you think a corporation possibly has towards society in general as long as individuals will buy their product regardless?
Well, the founds could be taken from the margins.
What margins does the goverment have?
Try answering that. It's "classified"; great country that.
If you could find it; I don't doubt it that it'd be about 60%-ish of the total cost of your actual bill.
Subtract the pay-off on construction and voila. Newsflash; scandal.
Considering how much debt they get from getting sue all the time It won't effect Sony as much they still make a lot of money off of anything they sell.As for LG there Cellphones are cheaply made and crappy.
But they don't deal mainly in phones; so point-nil.
i hate korean related people,things,culture,product, whatever
The entire patent system is a gigantic fraud in its current state anyway. It's no surprise that these sort of underhanded tactics using lawyer scum will ultimately harm us, the consumer, the most.
One tech giant sues another over patents, the other sues back, the case is settled outside the courtroom.
Repeat.
Case in point Apple sueing HTC over over the android Os With google in court over it too.
They are playing for the gallery.
It's not about them; it's about making the others seem bad.
The lawyers are wearing shit-faced smiles today.
And tomorrow.
Probably for the next ten years.
Cause then they will be rolling 'round in ghysal-greens; squeaking like chocobos.
Next on CNN: The industry screws you over; again.
HEY! Dont sue me! Sue me and Ill Sue you for Sueing me!
ahh sony.. trying to hand pat out the inferno on the top floor while the rest of the 100 floor tower burns below them~
But there's helicopters up there.
Say that to the people that were working inside the Twin Towers on 9/11.
More like a tip over cruse ship and its sinking.
i hate samsung,LG,and all other korean based ! MMO too
I'll sit in the jury box and make chit chat! ChiT ChaT! CHIT CHAT!!!
-
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCPGPFQexBA
@Kuraudo
lawyer scum? I hate to say this, but if sony break the patent of lg in bluray tecnology, they aren't better than chinese patent breakers. Sony oficials should just be real mans and create their own tecnology or pay for using the tecnology someone else developed.
real mans
Considering that blue-ray has been around at least 15 year now.....they probably are arguing about some minor compression-type or something.
It's unbecoming really and more importantly: hampering the market.
"Because I don't care who sell what as long as I get what I want. And f-c-u-k the rest of them pricks. "
How can LG claim anything from Blu-ray technology when it was the porn industry that invented it?
how can lg claim that?
blu-ray was invented by sony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc
Don't trust wiki
because the technologies involved in bluray are all but invented by sony. take for example the video codecs: thomson holds a large share of the patents, so does lg, and many others. and that doesn't even mean they were the ones who invented the math behind it.
Actually BD was not 100% developed by Sony.
A consortium worked together on the format with various companies developing key technologies.
TDK for example came up with the coating that eliminated the need for the discs to be kept in a cartridge.
LG is a huge company larger then Sony in fact they're the second largest company in South Korea and likely invested a lot of capital in the R&D for the format.
Hey Europe? The Japanese actually Make STUFF work!! Why are siding with Korea with silly court nonsense. Just Get out of the Playstations way!
How ironic to see a capitalist support thieves. Oh wait...
Because buyin' LG U seva more money for a bOOze dude. PPl are gready you know...