Romania's competition body Consiliul Concurentei has launched an investigation into a possible infringement of the competition rules by Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited and its subsidiaries, Sony Interactive Entertainment Network Europe Limited and Sony Interactive Entertainment Direct Europe Limited – together referred to as Sony – in the PlayStation console video game distribution market.

As part of this investigation, Consiliul Concurentei carried out inspections at Sony's premises in Europe to gather information and evidence, Profit.ro reported.

The competition authority says it has indications that Sony may have abused its dominant position in the video game consoles market both by selling video games compatible with PlayStation consoles online, exclusively through the PlayStation Store platform and by prohibiting the marketing of activation codes for video games compatible with PlayStation consoles by competing distributors.

These practices would have reduced the options for purchasing PlayStation-compatible video games, which would have led to higher prices for video games for this type of console.

Another effect of these practices is the discouragement of Romanian studios from developing video games compatible with PlayStation.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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