bit-tech.net | A porting shot

animeguru 25th October 2006, 21:53

While I can see where you're going with your argument, to think that the average person who's buying a PS3 in the UK is going to be looking to import it seems a bit off to me. Of course, I live in the United States, but honestly, if I asked my casual gamer friends if they knew they could import games and hardware from overseas, most of them would have no clue. Additionally, how many of those people would also know that any hardware they bought was region locked and how to circumvent it? Hell, how many of them probably have any idea what the regions are?

Honestly, the people who were buying from Lik-Sang knew exactly what they were getting in to. You don't buy gear from an importer without a little knowledge of what you're getting in to. The argument that a person who bought from Lik-Sang wouldn't realize their product would not be covered by Sony Europe is really stretching it.

Sony went after Lik-Sang not because of their I/E business, but because of their mod-chip business. Of course, that's just my opinion, but I'd say it seems a whole lot more likely than your "We're protecting EU customers who wouldn't have a proper warranty (and when their gear breaks we can say tough crap, guess you're ponying up for another unit)." An extremely brief foray onto any gaming forum will quickly reveal that, while the 360 had plenty of problems with defective units, Sony branded merch fails far more regularly. I personally know a number of people who are on their second, third, or in extreme cases, fourth PS2. When you've invested in a number of titles that are only playable on a single console, you're a lot more likely to rebuy it so you can continue to play your favorite games.

Also, I can't believe you ignored Nintendo in your column. Thats just plain ignorance. Maybe they're not at the top of the console business, but to write them off completely (give all your money to Microsoft quote) doesn't exactly lend much credence to your article.

Stevedroid 25th October 2006, 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da Dego
Warranty is the greatest cost to any electronics unit...

Actually no. Selling new systems, with a significant loss on each unit as they do, is the greatest cost to the electronics unit. We're talking game consoles here, not TVs, money is not made on the hardware.

Quote:

And Sony wouldn't give a rat's ass if it weren't somehow experiencing enough problems to chance yet more bad press, lose potential sales, and anger an entire industry. I'm just saying - the company is not stupid, it had to know it was getting into a consumer-rights hotbed.

This is conjecture. You don't have any factual basis to suggest import sytems were a significant problem for Sony. Additionally, don't assume companies can't make stupid decisions just because they're large. How do you think big companies become smaller companies or ex-companies? If the company culture is right, it's not impossible this whole incident is childish vengeance for the mod chip altercation from years past.

---

Let's revisit the point that profit is made on the games not the console hardware. How many systems do you think Lik-Sang sold? What percentage of those sales resulted in warranty claims? I wish I knew and didn't need to engage in the same baseless conjecture. However, when pressed, I'd have to guess that it was not a significantly large enough number to be any more detrimental than in-region warrany claims.

Now how many games do you think Lik-Sang sold? More games sold = profit for Sony. Were the warranty problems caused by import systems costing Sony more than the profit made by the additional games sales? If they're sane I guess we can assume yes, but I'm not willing to assume they're sane.

In any case, I realize you were just showing things from the other side, but we really need some facts here (which we'll never get unfortunately) before we can deduce Sony's motives with any degree of certainty.

Phil Rhodes 25th October 2006, 22:32

Hi,

About a year ago, I bought a Fostex FR-2 compactflash audio recorder in LA. It's a piece of film and TV production gear, okay, but it's really just another lump of electronics.

It was about half the effective price.

That most certainly does not have anything to do with guarantees.

Phil

TheoGeo 25th October 2006, 23:13

good article, but what i was hoping you would raise is how the judge could have gone on sony's side. I understand why sony did it and i'm not happy about it, but why did the judge even consider it?

edit: not only that but what will be the impact on future imports?

ChiperSoft 26th October 2006, 05:36

Sony. Sony. Sony is on fire. We don't need no water, let the mother F-er burn.

I've hated Sony ever since they killed Virtual Game Station (never heard of it? Gee, I wonder why). Then the PS2 muscled out the Dreamcast, granted not directly Sony's fault, but I still want to put the blame on them. But killing Lik-Sang, that's a whole new low.

While I can see the point this article is making, I think it's misdirected. Every person that bought merch from LikSang knew exactly what they were getting and what the risks were. I get why they would delay the euro release (now that I know about the 2 year warranty thing), but all Sony has to do is throw a condition into the warranty legal text stating that it isn't valid when bought from an importer. Viola, problem solved, and you piss off only a few individuals instead of an entire customer base.

I'm very sad to see LikSang die, mostly because they were the only place I could buy a replacement GD-ROM drive when my Dreamcast died on me.

peteer01 26th October 2006, 07:19

A good article, but...please don't over look the potential for the PS3's gaming ability to be a Trojan Horse for Blu-Ray.

Sony wants to make sure that if you buy a PS3, you can buy/rent Blu-Ray disks at your local store. See, unlike HD-DVD movies, Blu-Ray is region coded, similar to DVDs. They're stripping away the consumer's choice to import to protect their proprietary formats. (Think BetaMax, MiniDisc, MemoryStick, MemoryStick Duo, UMD, Blu-Ray, etc.) That's why they don't want people importing their systems, particualrly the PS3.

Denying choice to your end users by putting your resellers out of business in the name of their "safety" because you want to protect your proprietary formats is pretty low. I wish the Blu-Ray aspect of this debacle had been mentioned in the article. Otherwise, good job.

Skullmonkey 26th October 2006, 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by peteer01
Denying choice to your end users by putting your resellers out of business in the name of their "safety" because you want to protect your proprietary formats is pretty low. I wish the Blu-Ray aspect of this debacle had been mentioned in the article. Otherwise, good job.

Actually I think its obvious this is the reason. Being an Australian, as you know we allways get bundled in with your release schedule, and before every major release just after we find out that we will get thier new hardware months after everyone else, Sony make a scrificial lamb out of someone.

Sony Australia have been extremely vocal about trying to make parallel importing illegal, and in Australia at least have failed misserably. When trying to push this point in thier last few court cases here, they ended up with the Judges upholding the current wording of our import laws. In Australia it is LEGAL to import games and or hardware movies and music reguardless of format, PAL/NTSC as to stop this is anti-competitive and ILLEGAL. The reason is to try and make sure that we don't have to pay exorbitantly higher prices than say the Americans for the identical products. So parralell importing means that those Australians that wish to import, to either save money, or to get unreleased items, are free to do so; taking on the obvious risk of no warranty if something goes wrong but at least retaining choice.

Whats more, the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has pushed very hard to have region codeing itself deemed illegal in Australia. Although the Judges wouldn't go that far (yet), Sony seem unwilling to push their luck further in case that changes, at least at the moment.

This is why I see this shortsighted ruling in the UK case such a worry, as Australian courts are perfectly willing to look to overseas courts for precedence, especially the UK. Now it may still take Sony's Aussie arm a while to move on this, (I doubt it) but the reason for Lik-Sang being the target is to remove the biggest HK I/E from the equation, making it that much harder for any Aussies to LEGALY obtain their PS3 at Japans launch window from a reputable dealer. With the dual plus of giving Sony Austalia "precedence" to work with.

On a final note, I find the whole repair problem that was stated in the article BS, as even in Australia it is easy to find reputable repair agents that service consoles. The reason for this is twofold:

1) After warranty expires (1 year for electronics min. by Federal Law) the big 3 are so damn dear, that the non authorised repair agents are able to do the job much faster and cheaper buy buying and butchering whole NEW units if need be, and then offering the same 3 month repair warranty that the big three offer.

2) Sony in particular are so damned overpriced for repairs, and everything that is most likely to go bunk in the first 12 months is NOT covered due to being "high wear" parts, ie. the laser unit in the PS2. In the 3 months after the PS2 launch the repair cost of IN warranty units that weren't DOA (which do get replaced) was a set fee of in excess of $400AU (reguardless of what the actual problem was, which they didn't have to say), when it cost $700AU to buy!!

Also Sony WOULDN'T honour any repairs or even DOA's if the customer wasn't able to produce the original sales reciept, even though there wasn't a single Australian PS2 that was over 12 months old at the time. They were sod out of luck and just had to buy a new unit. Sony made a LOT of unhappy customers back then. Can you imagine how much it will cost to repair if your PS3 dies in under 12 months but isn't DOA, and its the Blue-Ray drive thats dead!!!! Theres another $1000AU right there!

I used to be very fond of Sony before they started to worry more about getting the laws in Australia crafted into something that would suit them, instead of keeping customers happy. Time they moved back OUT of politics, and into being a full time electronics manufacturer.

Skull

PS: Sorry about the insanely long first post, and hi there everyone :D

rupbert 26th October 2006, 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skullmonkey
Actually I think its obvious this is the reason. Being an Australian, as you know we allways get bundled in with your release schedule, and before every major release just after we find out that we will get thier new hardware months after everyone else, Sony make a scrificial lamb out of someone.

Sony Australia have been extremely vocal about trying to make parallel importing illegal, and in Australia at least have failed misserably. When trying to push this point in thier last few court cases here, they ended up with the Judges upholding the current wording of our import laws. In Australia it is LEGAL to import games and or hardware movies and music reguardless of format, PAL/NTSC as to stop this is anti-competitive and ILLEGAL. The reason is to try and make sure that we don't have to pay exorbitantly higher prices than say the Americans for the identical products. So parralell importing means that those Australians that wish to import, to either save money, or to get unreleased items, are free to do so; taking on the obvious risk of no warranty if something goes wrong but at least retaining choice.

Whats more, the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has pushed very hard to have region codeing itself deemed illegal in Australia. Although the Judges wouldn't go that far (yet), Sony seem unwilling to push their luck further in case that changes, at least at the moment.

This is why I see this shortsighted ruling in the UK case such a worry, as Australian courts are perfectly willing to look to overseas courts for precedence, especially the UK. Now it may still take Sony's Aussie arm a while to move on this, (I doubt it) but the reason for Lik-Sang being the target is to remove the biggest HK I/E from the equation, making it that much harder for any Aussies to LEGALY obtain their PS3 at Japans launch window from a reputable dealer. With the dual plus of giving Sony Austalia "precedence" to work with.

On a final note, I find the whole repair problem that was stated in the article BS, as even in Australia it is easy to find reputable repair agents that service consoles. The reason for this is twofold:

1) After warranty expires (1 year for electronics min. by Federal Law) the big 3 are so damn dear, that the non authorised repair agents are able to do the job much faster and cheaper buy buying and butchering whole NEW units if need be, and then offering the same 3 month repair warranty that the big three offer.

2) Sony in particular are so damned overpriced for repairs, and everything that is most likely to go bunk in the first 12 months is NOT covered due to being "high wear" parts, ie. the laser unit in the PS2. In the 3 months after the PS2 launch the repair cost of IN warranty units that weren't DOA (which do get replaced) was a set fee of in excess of $400AU (reguardless of what the actual problem was, which they didn't have to say), when it cost $700AU to buy!!

Also Sony WOULDN'T honour any repairs or even DOA's if the customer wasn't able to produce the original sales reciept, even though there wasn't a single Australian PS2 that was over 12 months old at the time. They were sod out of luck and just had to buy a new unit. Sony made a LOT of unhappy customers back then. Can you imagine how much it will cost to repair if your PS3 dies in under 12 months but isn't DOA, and its the Blue-Ray drive thats dead!!!! Theres another $1000AU right there!

I used to be very fond of Sony before they started to worry more about getting the laws in Australia crafted into something that would suit them, instead of keeping customers happy. Time they moved back OUT of politics, and into being a full time electronics manufacturer.

Skull

PS: Sorry about the insanely long first post, and hi there everyone :D

A well written and thoughtful first post, welcome to the forums :)

Darkedge 26th October 2006, 16:27

Thanks for that link about 2 year warranties in Europe, I'll be using that when my 360 blows up..
Interestingly MS do claim that the 360 only has a 3 month warranty and you have to pay 60 quid to extend this to 2 years. What a gyp!

Havok154 27th October 2006, 08:13

I think the problem doesn't lie in the mandatory 2 year warranty not being applied to the imported units, but the fact that they have to worry about it causing a backlash. If they made a quality product, they shouldn't have any problem lasting 2 years, warranty or not. But as we all know from the PS1 and PS2 launch units, Sony has trouble making systems that last that long. (The 360 also suffered from poor launch units) I honestly would not buy a Sony game system without some form of extended warranty because they honestly never go well, especially their lasers. Funny thing is that Nintendo doesn't have an issue with people importing, and for good reason, their systems don't die within the first year.

Also, if Sony doesn't like importing, shouldn't they have curtailed that by using the infamous region coding, which is oddly missing from their new systems. Why? Because they like touting it as a feature, they just don't want/expect you to actually use that feature.

zoot2boot 27th October 2006, 08:20

[QUOTE=] I want to be full of piss and vinegar. I want to rail against Sony and all of its pseudo-monopolistic might. I want to rant, to scream, and to weep for Lik-Sang like a dead sibling.
[/QUOTE]

you say this but then spend the entire article appologising for the actions of the people who send you products to review. seems like there's some back scratching going on here. staggered product launches for movies and games etc. allow corporations to maximise profits. that's what they're there for. imports annoy national distributors because it's profit they're missing out on, when you import a psp from lik sang the european sony distributor misses out on a sale. they complain to sony, sony stamps it out. that's what's going on here.

Shuriken 27th October 2006, 09:54

I thought it was a good article, it explained why buyers should be wary of imports and why companies do staggered launches, but I don't feel at all convinced that sony were justified in squishing Lik-Sang.
Sony still make all their profit on launch day, and don't have to deal with any extra DOA units than they would have, due to Lik-sangs 10 day warranty policy.
I truly believe with Lik-Sang out of business the launch of the PS3 will be exactly the same as if they were still trading.

Matt

Oclocker 27th October 2006, 10:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuriken
I thought it was a good article, it explained why buyers should be wary of imports and why companies do staggered launches, but I don't feel at all convinced that sony were justified in squishing Lik-Sang.
Sony still make all their profit on launch day, and don't have to deal with any extra DOA units than they would have, due to Lik-sangs 10 day warranty policy.
I truly believe with Lik-Sang out of business the launch of the PS3 will be exactly the same as if they were still trading.

Matt

Yes well written article - but maybe more apt for conglomerates-r-us forums than a users forums??

Nezuji 31st October 2006, 06:01

A couple of people here have mentioned that Lik-Sang were a major reseller of mod-chips. I'd just like to point out that -- at least technically -- this is not true. Lik-Sang went through a massive upheaval several years ago due to a joint lawsuit issued on the behalf of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo against Lik-Sang for selling mod-chips.

The directors of Lik-Sang removed all such items from the company's sales listings, changed their entire management team and even relocated their primary distribution warehouse to another country in order to allow the company to continue trading without incident while the lawsuit proceeded.

That being said, Lik-Sang did continue to sell other items (such as boot disks) that allowed import software to work, but they have not sold actual chips for a long time.

Nezuji :)

specofdust 31st October 2006, 10:36

Even if they had sold chips, the way to fight fairly is to take the issue up in one court in one country. From what I understand, Sony sued Lik-Sang in every european country they could think of, and the legal costs would've taken Lik-Sang down in hardly anytime, if they'd chosen to try and fight on all the fronts sony had opened up. Sony basicly used their financial might to close down the company.

peteer01 1st November 2006, 00:05

Here's another take on Sony's recent actions, including those against Lik-Sang: link

A porting shot

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