All entries for October 2006

Gyahgh! Lik Sang, Sony, Unexpressable Rage

Hong Kong, October 24th of 2006 – Lik-Sang.com, the popular gaming retailer from Hong Kong, has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Sony claimed that Lik-Sang infringed its trade marks, copyright and registered design rights by selling Sony PSP consoles from Asia to European customers, and have recently obtained a judgment in the High Court of London (England) rendering Lik-Sang’s sales of PSP consoles unlawful.

As of today, Lik-Sang.com will not be in the position to accept any new orders and will cancel and refund all existing orders that have already been placed. Furthermore, Lik-Sang is working closely with banks and PayPal to refund any store credits held by the company, and the customer support department is taking care of any open transactions such as pending RMAs or repairs and shipping related matters. The staff of Lik-Sang will make sure that nobody will get hurt in the crossfire of this ordeal.

Lik Sang were an Hong Kong based retailer of video games, consoles and accessories. They were great as you could import foriegn games and consoles, often for less than you’d pay here. Of course, this didn’t fit with Sony’s need to micromange every single market, and made it harder to rip off EU consumers by providing them with games at a 50% mark up and 6 months later than the US release. It gets better:

A Sony spokesperson declined to comment directly on the lawsuit against Lik-Sang, but recently went on to tell Gamesindustry.biz that “ultimately, we’re trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera”

Well I’m glad the EU will be getting safe consoles, because everyone knows the ones in the US and Japan often blow up without warning and are highly dangerous.

What’s uttery bizzare about this case is that Lik Sang are selling Sony products, and to do that they have to buy stock off Sony, hence Sony profit off of all these sales. They’re not selling modchips or pirated games that could impact on the sale of legitimate products, they’re selling the real thing, just from a different place. It’s crazyness.

Dean Love : 25 Oct 2006 16:20 |  Tags: Sony |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Giggage

Writing about web page http://www.myspace.com/therecklessmoment

I’ll be gigging at The Reckless Moment at Robbin’s Well in Leam this coming monday so if you’re around the area, do drop by. There’s other proper comics on too (!)

Dean Love : 18 Oct 2006 16:16 |  Tags: Comedy |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem