Portable Gaming Revolution

…and it is with heartfelt sympathy and sadness that we say good-bye to our recently dear departed retailer, Lik-Sang…

I posted a news article a couple of days ago, reporting on the court case of Sony vs. Lik-Sang. It has been confirmed that due to the aftermath and rapidly escalating costs of the legal system, Lik-Sang has been forced to shut down.

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.

I find the truly ironic part of it all to be the fact that many of the upper-level Sony execs in Europe actually used Lik-Sang to bring in their own PSP’s before they were released there. This was one of the facts that Sony failed to reveal to London’s High Court, along with the fact that gamers in more than 100 countries around the world have been relying on Lik-Sang for their gaming needs.

Pascal Clarysse, formerly known as the Marketing Manager at Lik-Sang, had the following strong words to say about the whole fiasco:

Today is Sony Europe’s victory about PSP, tomorrow is Sony Europe’s ongoing pressure about PlayStation 3. With this precedent set, next week could already be the stage for complaints from Sony America about the same thing, or from other console manufacturers about other consoles to other regions, or even from any publisher about any specific software title to any country they don’t see fit. It’s the beginning of the end… of the World as we know it.

Blame it on Sony. That’s the latest dark spot in their shameful track record as gaming industry leader. The Empire finally ‘won’, few dominating retailers from the UK probably will rejoice the news, but everybody else in the gaming world lost something today.

The truly sad part here is that Sony is actually hurting their customers by shutting down the online retailer. Lik-Sang provided an awesome service and it’s a shame that Sony felt they were actually getting hurt profit-wise by them. Having used Lik-Sang’s services multiple times myself, I am highly disappointed in this turn of events. Shame on you Sony!!