At it Sony and Bleem go again…
In a press release today released by Bleem, Inc., Bleem! has filed a motion to the US District Court for the Northern District of California blaming Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) for interfering with the marketing and sales of Bleem’s new product, “Bleem! For Dreamcast”. The motion filed accused SCEA of unlawfully using its market power to strong-arm retailers via threats of legal action and harm to their business dealings with the company. The motion claims that as a result of Sony?s coercion, Babbages stopped distribution of Bleemcast to its stores and asked to return nearly all of its 7,000-unit initial order. “Sony has already asked the judge to pull bleem! from the market in three separate motions, and each time, they?ve lost,” stated David Herpolsheimer, president and CEO of Bleem. “This is nothing more than an end-run around the justice system ? Sony is using its huge market power to force retailers into giving them what the courts won?t.”
Released on May 2 of this year, Bleem claims that when Electronics Boutique initially carried bleem! for Dreamcast, it sold out of its 11,000 units in barely a week. It quickly became the number-one best-selling product across all gaming platforms on the ebgames.com website, outselling even the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 3 title and the PlayStation 2 console. However, Bleem claims that pressure from Sony halted reorders and Bleemcast! was temporarily removed from the site. We have yet to get a comment from SCEA, though hopefully we’ll be able to speak with someone at SCEA about Bleem’s claims later on this week. Stay tuned for more.
And next, on Springer, game companies that’ll never stop fighting…
Credit: DCIGN