Sony's PS5 profits jumped 37% thanks to US tariff refunds and currency gains, not game sales, as hardware shipments fell 36% year-on-year.
  • tired_n_bored@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9 hours

    Tariffs: paid by the citizens

    Refunds: paid by the government (with the citizens’ money)

    Make it make sense

    • Signtist@bookwyr.meEnglish
      37 minutes

      Rich and powerful people used their power to make themselves richer. What, you thought they would use their power to benefit us? How do you think they got it in the first place? The only reason powerful people ever did anything for our benefit is because we used to burn down the houses and other possessions of the powerful people that didn’t.

    • athatet@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6 hours

      It was and always has been about transferring wealth up the chain.

  • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12 minutes

    Since they passed that cost to the consumer, they should be legally required to pay it back to the consumer. A refund on a tariff that the consumer had to pay should not be legally pocketable by the business, that should be legally considered theft or robbery.

    It is not the fault of the business, but if they incur more operating costs refunding the money they overcharged on the consumer, then they need to sue the government to be reimbursed for that.

    • Mister_Feeny@fedia.io
      12 hours

      They’ll just follow suit with Nintendo, who are already being sued for this, with their defense being, “the customers got what they paid for.”

    • blackbeans@lemmy.zipEnglish
      11 hours

      Let me play the devil’s advocate.

      The question is, how do you legally know that they passed all that cost on to the customers? After all, customers did not pay the import fees directly. It will be a hard case to make.

      Also, a majority of Americans voted to introduce tariffs. It was a big part of Trump’s campaign from the start. The reason Sony received this money in the first place was because of errors made by the American government, making the tariffs illegal. It was the US government that is responsible for this money, not Sony.

      • Bazoogle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        29 minutes

        Also, a majority of Americans voted to introduce tariffs.

        There was not a vote on tariffs, there was a vote on the president. Trump got more votes than Kamala Harris, but that does not mean most people wanted tariffs. Trump also ran on a campaign of “No new wars” and yet here we are.

        The reason Sony received this money in the first place was because of errors made by the American government, making the tariffs illegal.

        What errors? Trump making an executive order to put tariffs in place? That wasn’t an error, it was completely intentional. It was just illegal.

      • raze2012@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3 hours

        how do you legally know that they passed all that cost on to the customers?

        Audit and compare prices of goods to the tariffs

        a majority of Americans voted to introduce tariffs.

        Yeah, totally don’t regret that one, huh?

        errors made by the American government, making the tariffs illegal.

        Errors is putting it very lightly. Tariff power have always lied with Congress (outside of a very narrow band of exception) and Congress did fuck all. The courts work very slow so this error is going cost trillions in the global economy from this year of “error”.

        It was the US government that is responsible for this money, not Sony.

        And where’d they get the money from?

      • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zipEnglish
        11 hours

        All the prices went up.

        Also, 77m voted for Trump which is 32% of the voting age population.

        As a percentage of the overall population it is ~23%.

        That’s not a majority.

        • blackbeans@lemmy.zipEnglish
          7 hours

          The prices went up, and customers accepted that price. Bargaining after the deal is made generally doesn’t give you a strong position.

          The American definition of a voting majority is not relevant here. What matters is that Americans put Trump in place, knowing he would impose tariffs, making foreign products more expensive. Just because millions didn’t vote for him, doesn’t exclude them from the consequences.

          • raze2012@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2 hours

            The prices went up, and customers accepted that price.

            No, we really didn’t. It was forced on us, credit card and car debt is at record highs, homelessness increased, spending power at the average household is down. And part of the reason companies are getting refunds is over potential lost sales. I. E. Because some customers did in fact refuse to accept the price.

            Americans put Trump in place

            Yup. Once again, no regrer there, huh?

            • blackbeans@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1 hour

              I understand that Americans suffer under this and that many people are actually against tariffs. We don’t have to disagree there.

              However this article is just about the Sony PlayStation. No one forces people to buy a PlayStation. And Sony, a Japanese company, is also not affiliated with the US government.

              • Bazoogle@lemmy.worldEnglish
                27 minutes

                Sony also accepted the tariffs by selling them at a higher price. Sony didn’t have to keep selling in the US, no one forces them.

        • mycodesucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10 hours

          People who can vote and do not could just as easily have been lazy Trump voters as anything else. They’re political dark matter. They don’t absolve a populace.

          “Of the people who didn’t bother to make a choice at all, maybe most of those didn’t want this” is not a compelling argument.

          • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zipEnglish
            10 hours

            The person above me said a majority voted for it and I corrected them. I’m not sure what relevance your comment has to our exchange.

            “Of the people who didn’t bother to make a choice at all, maybe most of those didn’t want this” is not a compelling argument.

            It’s just as well I didn’t make that argument then. I don’t appreciate being strawmanned.

        • thevoidzero@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8 hours

          Please stop using that logic. The people that voted is a representative sample of the population, done. Is you’d forced every one of voting she to vote then it probably would have been similar result. Because people that didn’t want to go both will have their vote split randomly to candidates.

          Honestly given these two choices, not voting means you’re ok with either.

          • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
            8 hours

            This completely ignores both jerrymandering and voter suppression, both things real and impactful in US voting outcomes.

            • Miaou@jlai.luEnglish
              3 hours

              It ignores it because that’s a different point that’s being made a.k.a moving the goal post. The people saying “oNlY 20ish % of thE poPuLaTiOn” would still claim this shit even if there were no gerrymandering at all.

              Not that I’m not denying the publicly admitted election fraud, but in most western democracies AFAIK non voters are the majority. That doesn’t mean none of them have legitimate leaders

              • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
                2 hours

                There’s no moved goalpost here, my comment directly addresses the parent.

                Claim: the voting populace is a direct representation of the total populace.

                Rebuttal: the outcome of voting is manipulated by policy, such as jerrymandering and vote manipulation. Both of these manipulate the outcome of a vote by means outside of simple talleys. Therefore, one can not assume that any outcome is representative of popularity.

            • thevoidzero@lemmy.worldEnglish
              6 hours

              Sure, but even accounting for all that, what do you think would be the votes? 55% and 45% instead of 49 & 51?

              Even if it was 60/40, the fact that 40% of people are actively supporting all this means it’s too much.

              Yes those problems are real, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the big big problem of a significant part of population that wanted/wants this even now.

              • raze2012@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2 hours

                the fact that 40% of people are actively supporting all this means it’s too much.

                Yet they would have most crawled back into their caves if Trump lost. It is too much they only get empowered by “their guy” in office, and not by what he does.

  • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8 hours

    Sony can’t get a cut if it’s a used physical disc., which is why they’re moving to digital only.

  • GoatSynagogue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12 hours

    PS5 lifetime shipments reached approximately 95.3 million units on a sell-in basis — meaning shipped to retailers, not necessarily activated in consumers’ living rooms. That’s genuinely impressive territory, approaching Nintendo Switch numbers.

    If by approaching Nintendo switch numbers you mean 60 million units behind the switch lol

  • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8 hours

    This is a tricky one, though, isn’t it?

    The end price of the console is ultimately set by the retailer. The retailer will typically make that price higher than they got it from the manufacturer. Some of that cost was paid by the retailer as tariffs, maybe some extra manufacturing costs were higher because of tariffs.

    Who is getting the refund? A Japanese company? Or the Americans who had to pay tariffs? Either way, Sony don’t sell directly to the consumer, so the retailers would have to be gifted a refund by Sony, and then choose to trace and refund their customers.

    I’m I completely wrong about this? How should this work?