Sony Kills Lik-Sang

A few months ago, the Sony PSP was delayed in Europe. Consumers turned to importers to get their Sony fix. Sony decided to sue all of the import stores selling PSPs to Europe. In particular, they sued Lik-Sang.

After months of litigation, a judge ruled in Sony’s favor. Today, Lik-Sang let customers know that they were going out of business, broken by Sony’s lawsuit.

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.

While I’m a loyal Play-Asia customer, this is still a crushing blow to the consumer market. Instead of turning to piracy, these customers legally bought a console and games. This still results in money in Sony’s pockets. Why kill the small import market? What’s to prevent Sony from going after other import stores?

This is truly a sad day for gamers everywhere who like to try games from other territories.

Submitter: Lunker