Sony accused of leading price-fix cartel

to stop cheap deals on web


According to The Scotsman, Sony UK’s being accused of fixing prices to halt internet bargains and spike online prices. The company demands higher prices from online retailers than shop retailers in a “dual pricing” system. If internet sellers aren’t able to get the Office of Fair Trading to stop Sony, it could mean an even higher price for the PS3 and other gaming hardware/software.

more in the actual article:
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=2241992005

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Don't buy sony then.

Don't buy sony then

Wise words, it'll only break after a month anyway...

I never buy Sony....that is afer I bought Sony stuff a few times. Overpriced, over-hyped - though for the life of me I cannot see why!

I have a few Sony goods and the build quality seems to be good, but I think they are over-priced.

my ps1 broke
my 2nd ps1 broke 2 years later
my sony walkmen always stopped spinning CD's
a sony Vaio laptop i have here wont boot off a hard drive.
my Dell laptop with a Sony battery- has failed a battery test.

Sony pony.

you should have seen the PS2 dev kits and test kits at work. Test kit = modded PS2 that costs $1000.

Of the 6 we had only 2 of them had reliable DVD drives, you had to turn the things sideways, upside down, and in one case the drive wouldn't spin up without unplugging it first.

With more recent games I've not had any problem, but with older games on blue discs (most annoyingly, this includes Rez) I have to turn my PS2 sideways for them to work, and even then it's hit or miss.

I have already stopped buying Sony products because of their active development of digital rights management technology. I sincerely hope the company goes down the pan, I am happy living in a capitalist system - but if it meant all companies acting like Sony i'd be waving a red flag in no time.

yeah, same can be said for governments too. I'm amazed at some of the big brother legislation being passed by the UK government in regards to driving laws amongst other things. People need to speak out more against certain trends otherwise were going to keep being taken advantage of :(

My mum and dad have a small sony portable b&w TV which still works great after what must be getting on for 2 decades.

Sadly though I think this is the same with all manufacturers who used to make things to last, but now only make them the to last 12 months and a day if you are lucky.

Basically people wanted things cheaper and that's what we have got these days.

Mind you having said that, who wants a portable PSP which is going to last 20 years when it is going to be superceded next year by something twice as fast anyway?

Price fixing...look at ipods, now there's price fixing if ever I saw it.

Yeah, I can remember when Sony was a byword for 'quality'. Not anymore. I guess Sony just had to start cutting corners in order to compete. People want stuff that's cheap! cheap! cheap! - so, that's what we get. :)

Except Sony is anything but cheap! I always found panasonic to be the bees knees myself...wait - somebody is going to tell me that Panasonic is owned by Sony now or some other such bubble-bursting "did you know?" nugget of info.

I had a Sony TV from the 80's that finaly died recently, but about 10 years after we bought it the remote power switch died. Sony fixed it free of charge way after warranty because there was a slight fire risk, and the issue had come up in earlier models years previously whilst in warranty.

Was really impressed back then and had a lot of respect for sony. These days their consumer electonics seem to have been overpriced, and lacking the quality they built a reputation on. Often going for form over function.

This seems to be noiticeable in the last couple of years in particular where many of their products have become cheaper and uglier too.

I've always been a fan of Panasonic myself, since I had those tiny tape playing walkmans in the early 90's and the best video recorders. Don't know what their stuff is like today though.

I am really unimpressed with any electronics manufacturer... when they did their OWN IN HOUSE design and build it was a different story. NOW the subcontract out the work to the cheapest bidder and that bidder cuts corners wherever he can.

My company repairs a lot of computers / servers / copiers... HP copiers especially. HP used to make their own but has sourced it out and we have to repair copiers with parts in them that are not in the HP catalog. When we use the correct part it never works...

There is no quality anymore unless you make it yourself. Then YOU control the quality.

Remember when there was an epidemic of BAD GAMES on the market. Games rushed to market when they were not ready??? STARFIGHTER??? and all the patches and bugfixes that had to be released???

Fast Food restraunts... you think that is GRADE A beef in your hamburger???

My point is... cut corners and make a buck... every industry does not care.

you sound like its a thing of the past, while I get the impression that it happens more and more with every year that pass..

however, reading your entire post tells me that we agree on everything.

I used to work with repairing Toshiba Copiers, and it was really common in the industry for one company to make the whole internal machinery, and for another to just put on their own plastic covers and logos. So in theory you'd have many companies with different copier brands, but the internals are exactly the same.

Yep. "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" seems to be most companies' business model, these days. It's obviously the most profitable, else they wouldn't do it, I suppose.