Finance

Quick Answer: Sony agreed to a $7.85 million settlement over claims it blocked retailers from selling PlayStation Store game vouchers, inflating digital game prices between 2019 and 2023. The claims site is live and most eligible PlayStation Store shoppers are automatically included with no claim form needed. Final court approval is expected October 15, 2026, with payments as PSN credit or cash for deactivated accounts.

Quick Answer: Sony raised PS5 prices from $500 to as high as $650 citing 2025 tariffs, then recovered $508 million in tariff refunds after a February 2026 Supreme Court ruling found the tariffs illegal — but kept the money rather than refunding buyers. A May 2026 class action (Walker v. Sony) seeks a share; Sony moved to dismiss it in September 2026, and Microsoft faces a nearly identical Xbox lawsuit with an added arbitration argument.

Quick Answer: Buy now, pay later loans are only partially integrated into the credit system in 2026. Affirm reports to Experian and TransUnion, but neither bureau currently factors that data into traditional scores. Klarna and Afterpay generally don’t report U.S. pay-in-4 data at all. FICO’s dedicated BNPL scores, announced in June 2025, still haven’t seen wide lender adoption, and the CFPB withdrew its 2024 rule that would have regulated BNPL like credit cards.