The PlayStation 4 Slim will be officially announced on the 7th September at Sony's PlayStation Meeting - that much is guaranteed at this point - but where did all of these leaked consoles actually come from? If you haven't been keeping up to date on this story, Slims, in all of their real, physical glory, have been found in the wild over the last couple of weeks right here in the UK - and Sony has yet to acknowledge that the system even exists.
According to a report by MCV, the leaked Slims originated in the United Arab Emirates, where they were due to go on sale following the revamped console's reveal at the PlayStation Meeting. Somehow, a batch of Slims were then illegitimately brought over to the UK, where they were sold on through sites like eBay and second hand electronics stores.
Obviously, we'd love to see a big budget movie adaptation of this whole saga, complete with an enraged Andy House slamming his fists down onto a table during a crisis meeting at Sony HQ.
An unnamed retail representative told MCV: "You have to feel sorry for PlayStation, because it's all descended into an absolute farce." That's one way to put it, we suppose.
[source mcvuk.com]
Comments 22
Any laws been broken here, are the units stolen?
We send them an army and they send us the PlayStation slim. I'm not complaining.
@LieutenantFatman actually it's is illegal, it's a breach of the licensing agreement (i work in retail) and Sony can sue anyone or any chain that sells it that they have an agreement with, even if it is second hand
@FullbringIchigo That's interesting. So they could sue CEX for putting second hand units on sale even though they haven't agreed to anything?
@LieutenantFatman yes because they are selling something that hasn't been officially released yet and even though it hasn't been released it's still Sony Intellectual Property, so they are still selling it without their permission
after it's official release would be a different story but as it stands right now, it is illegal
Playstation Neo,playstation Morpheus desert of the Real. Makes sense now. The machines are manufacturing playstation.
So not stolen and sold to CEX as suggested previously...
I'm shocked.
@FullbringIchigo Thanks for the reply, when you put it like that, it definitely makes sense!
The UAE have instruction manuals and box art in English? Nobody else finds that weird? Nobody?
If i was sony at this point, I would accept it as free press and move on. It would be one thing if it was a bad slim (it is god awful ugly) but it seems as though people are happy with it. Consider it a final beta.
Any press is good press, but if the Neo is as unattractive as the Slim...
The rumoured triple-layer Neo would most likely be ridiculed, when did Sony products start to resemble badly made baked goods?
@LieutenantFatman @FullbringIchigo they're specifically a second hand goods retailer and can tradr whatever the hell they like. Anyone can try and bring cex to court for perhaps swapping cex credit or bitcoin for generic consumer products which may or may not be named as 'PS4 Console Slim'. Good luck in proving that they actually physically sold a specific item which may or may not have been mislabelled. Cex won't hold any agreements with any company's. They're basically a car boot sale kiosk registered at companies house.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Yes, can't see Sony spending the time & money chasing them unless they're desperate to make a statement.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Actually..... im with you, thats a fair trade.
It came from...SONY I just got a feeling SONY saw the Xbox ONE S doing well in the USA Amazon charts and thought let's leak the PS4 Slim to damage the Xbox ONE S Sales. Hmm, maybe I am to suspicious about EVERYTHING
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi hey i'm not saying Sony will do anything, they are more than likely to go after the people that actually first leaked them out of the UAE
but the thing is IN law even for a second hand shop registared with company house, it is still illegal to sell an Intellectual Property that has not officially been released but it's not illegal for them to buy it but officially they can't sell the PS4 Slim yet
@FullbringIchigo I doubt that a second hand shop have a legal obligation to check that thousands upon thousands of items sitting on shelves can all legally be sold even as generic consumer electronics. I'm sure that after the fact Sony or whoever can make legal proceedings to prevent sales but local councils have more important things to be concerned with. It's absolutely impossible to track sales of specific items at second hand stores without physical proof or visual observation of said sale by a legal witness. Sony being able to mount any kind of vaguely viable legal action is so far fetched that it may as well be legal.
actually I don't think it's that much of a big deal.. It's a repackage & not brand new product anyway..
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi oh to be sure, nothing will be done because the whole used market is a grey area, technically it's illegal to resell any console or game as you don't actually own any of the data stored on them (read the T&C's, all we do is lease them), all you own is the physical device/disc but they let it slide because it would severely damage the gaming market if they tried to stop them (hence why they come out with other means in order to entice you to bye new such as pre-order DLC, and Online Passes)
It's not a big deal, cos everybody knew a PS4 Slim would arrive at some point anyway. I'm liking the look of this new model, if it's cooler and quieter than the original PS4 I'll buy one for the kittens.
@FullbringIchigo aye, it's all nonesene, nobody bothers to pursue region locked hardware and software, I think if you're buying digitally that region specific rubbish should be circumvented by the publishers to put two fingers up to daft local laws
@rjejr
I imagine they use the same power sockets as the UK and most people who can afford a PS can speak English, so why localise the packaging for the amouont of sales?
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