Sony’s $7.85M Settlement Could Mean PSN Payouts for Millions – Push Square

Millions of you in the United States could be eligible for compensatory PSN credit, and it’s all because of a $7.85 million class action lawsuit which Sony has agreed to settle.

This is one of many similar legal battles the Japanese giant is currently fighting, and it all pertains to the manufacturer’s decision to stop selling digital game vouchers via retail.

While you can still snag denominations of PSN credit from most major third-party stores, the platform holder famously ceased selling game-specific vouchers in April 2019, which entitled you to purchase digital games from a variety of different shops.

This, it’s alleged, is an example of Sony monopolising the market, because it eliminates the competition which naturally occurs between various different retailers, thus forcing consumers to overpay for downloadable software.

Therefore, you may receive compensation if you meet the following criteria and you’re from the United States:

• You bought a digital game on the PS Store
  • Between 1st April, 2019 and 31st December, 2023
• That game previously had a voucher sold at retail
• That voucher was sold at scale
  • At least 200 units were purchased before April 2019
• The game’s price increased after vouchers disappeared
  • Specifically, the average price consumers paid for the game was at least $0.50 higher after April 2019 compared to before April 2019

You can find a full list of the eligible games through here, which includes major first-party releases like The Last of Us Remastered, inFAMOUS: First Light, and God of War 3 Remastered.

A fairness hearing on this case is scheduled to take place on 15th October, 2026, and the settlement will only be provided once that’s fully approved.

Should it go through, however, anyone who’s eligible will be credited with a share of the $7.85 million settlement as compensation directly to their PSN wallet.

Don’t expect too much out of this, however: once lawyer fees are accounted for and the money has been divided between all those entitled, you’re probably looking at somewhere in the region of $1-$3 per purchase which matches the criteria outlined above.

The cold, hard reality here is that Sony’s likely made much more than $7.85 million by eliminating game-specific vouchers and forcing people to buy their games on the PS Store, and so it’ll look upon this settlement as merely the cost of doing business.

But this is unlikely to be the last lawsuit of its kind, with many other similar legal cases currently underway across Europe and the UK.