Ahahaha (lik-sang's CLOSED)
 

Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits

Good job Sony.

This sucks. Sony can bite me. Lik-Sang were one of the most usefull retailers in the world, for any serious gamer. Anyone with the slightest interest in import gaming, or in useful accessories for their console, or in modding for any reason, of any kind, should be pissed off.

Sony is one giant idiot. I mean I didn't import alot, but I have used Lik-Sang a couple of times. Sad news indeed.

...wow. That just sucks. I had this ginourmous order I was going to place with them, and now I can't.

I guess there will always be other places to buy imports and accessories from, but it's not hard to imagine this move by Sony being the start of a trend. I wonder just how long before video game importing/modding is impossible, because you simply can't buy the stuff anywhere online?

That sucks. Lik-Sang was great. Just ordered SFC USB adapters from them.

And Sony, fuck you. The only reason you won the mid-90s consoles battle is because you created cheapass easily programmable/hackable hardware. 10 years after and you're still releasing shitty hackable systems.

Rentability has a cost nowadays, and it's piracy. Sup' Nintendo ~

Well, unless they manage to bribe ebay into removing certain auctions from being listed, importing won't come to a complete hault. Meanwhile I'll use play-asia and continue to use play-asia, since I haven't found anywhere else that does a better jobo f getting games to me.

Just a side note, I've ordered over 50 things from play-asia and they're all arrived exactly 5 days later. Except for ONE and we had a public holiday here, I dunno. Pretty good service there.

I didn't have anything against lik-sang but yeah, this sucks.

That fucking blows. I loved Lik-sang. I had ordered hardware from them in past years, and as of last year, started importing many DS games from them. It's a shame. Dammit, Sony. I'm gonna eat you.

Now I need another store. I think I saw one that was linked to in one of my Gmail ads. Gotta go through that, unless you guys can recommend some other stores... :/

I suppose you are right, but it is still possible for Sony to make life more difficult for the import gamer. I prefer Play-Asia myself, for actual games, but are they immune somehow, to Sony lawsuits? Who knows.

No, play-asia don't ship PSP stuff to europe.

I'll be honest. I don't really understand what makes the shipment of PSPs to Europe unlawful. What sort of law is this? What's the basis of Sony's argument, etc and so forth. It's all very confusing.

Interestingly enough, yeah. I enjoy play-asia more, but now I don't really have a choice, I guess. Lik-sang also did have some stuff that was pretty touch to find elsewhere.

This fucking sucks... I loved Lik-Sang. They we're probably the cheapest shop for importing stuff, bundled with great customer support. Thanks Sony, now please DIE.

Bah... are there any good alternatives besides Play-Asia?

National Console Support isn't bad. Expensive, but not bad.

Ow, trully a kick in the groin, that's what it is!
I bought my PSP and lots of game from lik-sang and never had any problem, was a great shop, guess it's over :(

There's always yesasia or the ebay shops, but I can't recommend yesasia.

I'll just stick with play-asia for now. But I don't think anywhere in the world sells imports with free shipping aside from lik-sang.

Aw fuck, where the hell will I get a component cable in time for the Wii now?
Will Sony never stop untill they've ruined gaming for everyone?

This and that fucked up comparison chart they've recently released, has just made the gap between me and getting the PS3 large as hell. And I was planning on getting all three this time around, having only had a GCN this last gen ;__;


EDIT: Thanks for letting me know about Play-Asia ;_____;

lol. I like how there's some new black spot on Sony's track record showing up almost every day. What the fuck are they doing?

I liked lik-sang. I hadn't actually ordered anything from them, but there were price differences that I'd notice between them and play-asia. I was comfortable knowing I had two options, both highly recommended by friends and anonymous folk on the Interwebs. It's shit like this that kind of pisses me off, since it really doesn't make any sense and certainly isn't helping Sony's image.

At the same time, the casual gamer probably doesn't even know what play-asia and lik-sang.com are. Most of the 'shit' Sony's been doing for the past half year are going to go by unnoticed and they'll probably come out as the console industry lead again.

HEARD SONY WAS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HOLOCAUST DIE SONY :boxing:

Seriously it's just a retailer. It's not like there aren't other ones out there and i'm sure the folks behind Lik-sang will have something new before too long.

Man, this pissed me off when I first heard. Lik-Sang was a great site and I got some good service out of them. Damnit, Sony!

I don't even think people realize what import taxes really are for or the fact that Lik-Sang somehow completely bypasses this aspect of importing.

Now with that in mind, consider the PS3. Sony dropped the price of the PS3 $100 in Japan to better fit that market and it also means they will be making $100 less on each console sold in Japan. Now there are laws in place for global trading which helps protect companies which allows them to do this. One major method of this is import taxing where most of that money eventually ends up in the hands of the originating company. This means that even though Sony sold a $400 Playstation to someone in Europe, import taxes should make up the difference in domestic and foreign prices.

Lik-Sang bypasses this entire process. This means Sony has the potential to lose a TON of money because not only will they be selling a bunch of Playstations for $400 to the Japanese market, but they will also be selling them at $400 to a potentially huge import market.

This is the basis of what is known as arbitrage and the abuse of arbitrage is something that many countries are now making illegal.

TL: DR : Sony has every right to do what they did. I'm sure the other companies in the market are secretly thanking Sony for stepping up to do this.

As a gamer, yeah it sucks. I've used Lik-Sang more than once myself. But from a business perspective it can't be ignored that companies like Lik-Sang are exploiting many new problems that have come up as global trading grows.

"the empire wins again", ¿free market? i dont think so.

I'm no economist but companies have to keep in mind from day one that we are in a global economy. Trying to forcefully isolate markets rather than coming up with bottom-line uniform and regionally adjusted offers that, for the most part, boil down to having the same amount of value from anywhere seems very backwards and low.

What, is Sony gonna go on a vendetta against the import scene now and hunt down every site and store that offers it? =/

Question: What's going to happen to Lik-Sang's remaining stock?

Sony is losing millions of money for their laptop batteries sold to Toshiba and some more. They are losing money anyway, and as we know Sony, they don't care if they get humiliated or hated, they will always be consumers ready to buy their stuffs because it's a big name.

Thanks a lot :). I'm curious about Yesasia though, what's wrong with them?

Last time I ordered from them for only regular DVDs, it took almost a month to get them. It took almost the same amouht of time to get my Biohazard Complete Box Best Selection (yeasia was the only remaining store that was still taking preorders on that box). And the box was a little scratched on the top.

I purchased Sega Ages 2500 Vol 25: Gunstar Treasure Box and Last Blade 2 from them both at once. After asking them if they've had any other people purchase items from their store who lived in New Zealand, I waited. So I sent them another email 5 days later, and I waited.

2 weeks later they contacted me, didn't answer my question, and said "Gunstar Treasure Box is out of stock, do you still want Last Blade 2?" so I cancelled. It's a disappointment because I still don't have these games, but I couldn't be bothered since I didn't know how long they'd take to reach me, after already waiting 2 weeks for an email response.

I can vouch that Yesasia isn't all that bad. I ordered Ouendan from them and the only real holdup in shipping was that I ordered it after Christmas, so they couldn't ship it until sometime after January 1st or so.

But I'm gonna be honest, I only went with Yesasia because they had the cheapest price on Ouendan. Otherwise I'd just go with Play-asia.

HEARD SONY WAS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11 (NEVAR FORGET) DIE SONY :boxing:

Europe is Sony Land, and Sony Land can have all sorts of Sony Land Sony Laws! The big one being every resident of Sony Land having to bend over when purchasing a new Sony gaming system.

Jesus christ, fuck Sony.

I got my GP2X from Lik-Sang and was looking at getting a VGA converter for my Dreamcast ('sup progressive-scan) too.

I was already sold on a Wii, but I might buy an Xbox 360 too just to spite those monopolistic cocksuckers.

Oh, wait, the 360 is also made by monopolistic cocksuckers. Why do I hate my life.

Huh, check this out!

I wonder if some sort of a savelik-sang.com site was created by gamers, it'd make any difference. I imagine it'd require A LOT of donations, but hey, this effects hardcore gamers globaly so who knows.

MOST unfortunate, especially since Lik-Sang is one of the few sites I look up import stuff from too. There's one less site that I can reliably find stuff like Gitaroo Man Live and Taiko no Tatsujin Portable from at prices that weren't overkill. Time to resort to yes-asia.

Clearly Sony has some upcoming massive underhanded deal goign on with Play-Asia. Motherfuckers.

Wow, that'd just be rubbing salt into the wound. It'd be absolutely hilarious watching the reactions here if something like that happened.

Lik-Sang's gone, it's a shame, but there are alternatives. No need to let the hyperbole monster run wild.

Yeah, so we've got Play-Asia, but what the hell keeps them safe from suffering Lik-Sang's fate?

If Sony didn't know about them, they sure as hell ought to by now.

Well, from the gist of it, wasn't the reason Lik-Sang closed mainly due to the lawsuits brought by Sony over their importing PSPs to Europe?

If they do the same thing as Lik, then they might get the same book thrown at them. Though I doubt this when unnoticed by them, and they'll likely avoid doing it.

Like I have already said, play-asia are allowed to sell PSPs because they've signed a deal with Sony agreeing that they won't ship them to europe.

Why is Sony so anal about Europe again? Is it so they can anal rape people there specifically with higher prices or something? What's the deal?

If you find out, please let me know. It might not make me feel any better to know why video games companies treat me as an afterthought, but it would be good to know.

In short, lik-sang started selling PSPs internationally in November '04, and it wasn't released into europe until many months later. Lik-sang received a lot of business due to people from europe importing the handhelds, and because of the release date, Sony suffered.

So this "not compatible with PS3" concept is basically rubbish. They're just trying to get back at lik-sang for their loss during 04-05.

So, uh, because Sony had enough PSPs to go around from Japan and USA that could also be sold in Europe and Sony somehow couldn't get PSPs to Europe even though there obviously was some sort of supply if Lik-Sang could get ahold of such a significant amount to upset Sony, this is Lik-Sang's fault how? It's not Lik-Sang's fault that Sony is such a tard at business in Europe.

Acer, it isn't lik-sang's fault at all.

Sony felt as if lik-sang were undermining the company by allowing people to import PSPs (american and japanese models) to europe. Lik-sang must've made a lot of profit selling PSPs into europe because this isn't the first time Sony have tried to get lik-sang closed down.

In 2002, lik-sang was sued for selling modchips internationally. Their site went offline temporarily and they came back, minus the modchips.

They're really fucking up hard. Shortly after this happened, they recalled a quarter of a million batteries from Sony laptops.

and they knew about it lol

From bad marketing to bad PR, what will Sony think of next?

I'm going to have to highly disagree with this. Sony sent Lik Sang multiple cease and desist letters demanding they stop selling PSP hardware which Sony has the right to do under trademark law. Lik Sang ignored all of these and as a result Sony took legal action against them.

Lik Sang also has a terrible history of shutting down to avoid having to pay out lawsuit fines only to reappear later on. I think Sony is far from a model corporation, but I also hold no respect for Lik Sang as a company either.

Me thinks Sony should have been busier sending out PSPs to Europe instead of C&Ds to Lik-Sang. Less money wasted I'd say. I mean Sony is getting money through those PSPs Lik-Sang sold somehow. It's not like Lik-Sang stole them in bulk.

Well the issues of parallel importing are a lot more complex than that. I'd rather not go over all of them though since you could construct half a college business course on the subject.

Let's just say trademarks give the right of distribution to the trademark holder for a good reason.

Except lik-sang weren't doing anything wrong in the first place. Are you meaning to say that if I had of been in japan at the time of the release of the PSP, purchased one, came back to europe and sold it, I could be sued because the product isn't released in that country? That's bullshit.

I'm pretty sure lik-sang isn't the only online store that ships or has shipped PSP handhelds to europe.

As far as I know they've only done this once, which was what I already said. They shut down and came back later minus their modchips and continued to sell their products. I'd hardly call this a "terrible history" but actually a really smart move.

They stopped selling modchips, and that's fine. But modchips are questionable, unlike chargers and PSP consoles. The PSP is region free, so does that mean we shouldn't import PSP games from other countries just because they have a different ESRB rating, or because they aren't currently out in your location?

That means that any game which isn't going to be released here/is in a single country, will remain in that company meaning developers and publishers will lose money because of this. Like the lik-sang article said, Sony could do this for anything, including their games, in america or anywhere around the world.

Sony are trying to pull the strings here. At first they want people to support Sony products by buying from retailers, but on the other hand they are preventing people from doing so internationally, meaning that they're going to lose even more profit just by shutting lik-sang down.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

What the hell? That sounds like cutting in on drug deal territory. Sony gunna cap ur ass if you sell another psp in Eurotown. Did Sony even try to cut any deals with Lik-Sang instead of the "we gonna sue ya!" bit?

They don't negotiate with terrorists, naturally.


It's because even though Europe is one single neglected game market, those geniuses still insist on splitting us into smaller parts and passing the blame onward.

It's because people buy PSPs from Turkey and then expect they can exchange them in the UK for money when they notice two pixels are off. Nordic countries handle their PSPs when it comes to warranty, while they can't handle others, UK handles its own, Spain, etc.

It's because Australia gets kicked in the groin with nearly every matter related to entertainment media.

It's also why you often see "Not to be sold in the UK" on a lot of PAL games, because UK somehow gets a different print, even when the games work everywhere.


How this gives it a proper legal reason to SUE a company for selling PSPs "elsewhere", I've no idea. You could hold it against them if Lik-Sang then didn't take responsibility for dodgy machines, but even then it's not as if Sony should care. Unless there is more to it ::chinstroking::

I think a lot of you need to first read the basics of parallel importing, what is it, and where it is illegal and why:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_import

Secondly, the generalizations need to stop. First, Sony sued Lik-Sang for importing PSPs specially to the UK not to the entire world. Second, the suit does not cover the concept of games. Importing games that cannot be obtained in your region is not illegal and no legal action has ever been taken by Sony or anyone else in attempts to prevent this.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDGE RAAAAAAAAAACERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Oh wait.

Sad to see that Lik-Sang is gone. I imported a couple of things from them before and everything went well. I wouldn't hestiate from ordering from them again.

I also like to order from Yesasia. I've made over 10 orders from them in the past and never had a problem. But just make sure the item you are ordering takes only 24 hour or 1-2 day to dispatch otherwise you'll need to wait for weeks even if it says it takes 7 days. Their free shipping is also very slow. It usually takes 2 weeks to get my items from them.

Playasia is good too. Though at one time I tried to order Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 from them and the dispatch time was stated to be 5 days. I waited a week and the order status was still pending so I emailed them and they said they ran out of stock. Otherwise they were all good. Shipping is quite fast too. A $3.10 airmail only takes 1 week to reach here in New Zealand as opposed to 2 weeks from Yesasia.

Another shop for importing games I have tried was Himeya Shop. Their shipping fee is high since they only use EMS. But they're very fast. I ordered a game on Monday afternoon and the game arrived to my door on Thursday morning from Japan in the same week. I have never seen shipping as fast as this out of the 150 purchases I have made online from oversea companies and ebay.

Ok, I checked out the link and I have a better concept of this whole mess. Even though what Sony did is technically, and legally, right, I still feel like it was a shitty thing to do. They fucked over a market with a good chunk of demand for what seems like no particular reason. Lik-sang saw the opportunity and took advantage of it. (even though it came at a price). Like Acer mentioned, if lik-sang had no trouble providing PSPs to Europe then there was obviously enough of them to go around so what the hell Sony? What could have caused this delay then? I doubt marketing campaigns take 12 months to create. It seems like they just preformed in clumsy manner when it came to Europe and that's a pretty shitty reason to have to go through a delay.

Cetra--thanks for that link, because it clearly states that there's a lot of ambiguity regarding parallel importing, and it's not a clear-cut thing at all.

The weirdest part about this whole debacle to me is the fact that all those Sony Europe bigwigs imported PSPs from Lik-Sang. I mean, what kind of signal are you sending? "Don't sell these things anymore, okay? In the meantime, I'll have one." I'm guessing that Lik-Sang saw this as a sign that they wouldn't go so far as to sue to the point where they had to shut down.

On the other hand, perhaps Sony thought that they would just comply with the C&D, and when they didn't, they felt like they had to sue in order for their integrity to remain intact.

Regardless of their intentions, the result of their actions has further amplified the already hostile atmosphere among all but the most hardened of Sony fans. It just doesn't seem like good business, and I really don't see Sony doing all that well this upcoming generation. The writings were already on the wall (supposed "exclusive PS3" titles are suddenly appearing for 360 also, delays in Europe, lack of buzz in Japan), and I know several people are not getting a PS3 because of this, as unreasonable as that is.

I wasn't going to get a PS3 or a PSP anyway, but then again, I hate Sony.

I'm going to need a clarification on this, as the wiki link doesn't explain it.

Legally, what's the difference between hardware and software export? Why are games ok and untouchable, but the hardware itself is not?

I fail at legal stuff

Parallel Importing shouldn't be illegal...believe it or not that's what a lot of big businesses do in the USA...but I guess that's the key word here...."big" businesses. Oh well.... :(

If the PSP is region free Sony cocked up originally by not planning to release the PSP worldwide all at the same time. It's so easy these days to buy internationally they should have realized exactly what would happen! Why would anybody who has the money and wants one wait for it to be released in their country?

I was in the UK last month and checked the prices of the PSP as I was thinking of buying one. For just the basic PSP, no extras - GBP180, HK$1100 or NZ$350. I can only convert them into NZ$ but the approx values are $540, $220 & $350 - that's a huge price difference in anybody's language! Why on earth would I buy one in the UK when I can get it for less than half the cost in Hong Kong? If prices were standardised world-wide there would be no need for illegal importing. And you can't blame local production costs as I would think they're all made at the same place.

The same thing applies to games - I buy most of my games from the US as they are never released in NZ, even if they are released on PAL in Europe only the most popular reach us (same for Australia I would imagine). I was given figures once - for every 30 rpg games released in Japan (all consoles) only 10 make it to the US, and of those an average of 4 make it to PAL. I don't know if this is true or not but it would explain why most of my games are NTSC US! I also had to void my warranty by getting a modchip so I could play these games which I wasn't very happy about.

I'm definitely not a huge fan of Sony anymore!

Ever so slightly off topic, but I was just thinking: one year ago today, I really, REALLY wanted a PS3. I was craving it, needing it, like some kind of junkie.

Sony have all but completely KILLED any desire I ever had to own their console after XCP, their price announcements, Lik-Sang, and otherwise generally acting like dicks to their customers.

Even SMT4 and Silent Hill 5 are seeming less and less able to sell me on a (even used) console.

Thanks for the info Cetra. You seem to be the only one here with an opinion AS WELL AS KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK IS REALLY GOING ON. Jesus it annoys me when people generalize shit into "OMG <3 lik-sang I HATE SONY"

Proof please?

Different release dates?

Anyway, as for my own opinion I could care less about lik-sang. Never ordered from them, I'm not much into imports (read: I've never imported). It's clear Sony won the case, so I don't see this as bad mark for them. However, cheaply ripping off the concept of the Wii controller is a different story.

So basically you're admitting that you're willing to defend Sony even though you don't use and don't care for the counterparty.

Wow that's not biased at all.

All I am wondering about now is what will happen to their SmartJoy USB hookups for controllers. That was pretty much the only products I ordered from them.

Anyway, Sony had a legal right to sue Lik-sang. However, they are ripping off buyers with their prices in some countries. Pretty stupid how much their products cost in some places cpmpared to others.

Some other site will probably pop up eventually. It's pretty obvious that if someone sees an opportunity to get a product in perfect condition for less, they will.

So you're saying I need to personally use and care for the counterparty in order to be unbaised? MMMMKAY. I'm glad you're not involved with the justice system.

Judge: Hmmm..... raise your hand if you've used Lik-Sang and enjoy the company and it's service. OK, you're all on the jury!

I defend Sony because the court defends Sony.

FailDragon, you realize that half of the time (if not all, I can't recall) lik-sang didn't show up?

From my understanding there was very little communication between lik-sang and Sony, and basically Sony were jealous of lik-sang's profit making from their products. It's stupid to think lik-sang were at fault when you have a region free handheld released everywhere but europe, and then Sony cries crocodile tears.

If you lived in a country where you had the ability to import a device, which would be able to play your own countries format, yet you wouldn't be getting it through a retailer, would you do it? I know I would, simply for the fact that there's no other alternative available. And that's what happened.

People are forgetting that this isn't about selling PSPs, but Sony complaining about AC adaptors. It's funny how Sony have managed to bring down lik-sang due to AC adaptors, when it's pretty clear that they've wanted to do that right from 2004.

Sorry for such the late reply. I hate to bring this topic up again, but I don't want to leave this question unanswered.

It's not that games are untouchable, its just that with games we are dealing with a lot of different parties. The publisher of each game are the ones who hold distribution rights. That means it is up to them to claim distribution rights in each region. A lot of these publishers simple don't care or feel the market is being effected by their games being imported or the amount of work/money required to enforce their distribution rights isn't worth the gain of exclusive distribution. A second reason is the game actually has to be available in a region for a company to claim exclusive rights. I'm not sure about 100% European law, but there is also a stature of limitations on this claim which I believe is six months.

Just for example, say Square releases Final Fantasy XII to the US. Square can make an announcement they are planning on releasing Final Fantasy XII to the European market and claim distribution rights on it. At this point the importation of Final Fantasy XII is in fact illegal. However, there is also a six month stature of limitation, meaning if Square fails to make the product available within six months of the claim, they lose their distribution claims and importing of the product from other regions is allowed. I also think Square would have to wait another 3 months before they can reclaim distribution rights in Europe if such a situation happened.

So the same rules apply to games, but the game market is just a lot more complex than the video game hardware market. Distribution of software in Europe is also a bit more lax compared to the distribution of hardware since the language barrier tends to create a natural boundary in the software market.