Sony has for several weeks now been lauding the PS3 as a computer in order to emphasize its superiority over the competition. While this is a promising strategy, Sony has actually used this approach before in the UK, but instead with the PS2. This week, the UK High Court has presented a verdict which states that the PS2 is not a computer, as Sony has maintained, but a game console.The reason for the official ruling has to do with a statute in 2000 which placed a tax upon all game consoles that were imported into Europe. The tariffs amounted to 1.7 percent for each unit entering the UK and other European countries from the years 2000-2003. Sony, in an effort to avoid the fee, tried to sneak under the radar by claiming the PS2 was a computer. Now, six years later, the UK has deemed that the PS2 is a game machine, and rejected Sony,s claim that it,s PS2 fell into the classification of a computer. The ruling by the High Court makes Sony liable for the back fees owed and amounts to approximately 50 million Euros ($63 million).Strangely enough, the import duties that were active between 200 and 2003 became obsolete after 2003, when the tariffs were lifted for game machines. Regardless, the court,s decision against Sony still requires the company to pay the fees accrued during the time of the violations.
Sony said in a official statement that, “At present, SCEE [Sony Computer Entertainment Europe] is considering the implications of the judgment in detail and will decide what further action to take in due course.”
