PlayStation 5 sales banned in Russia as Sony cuts off support
Sony says it is joining ‘the global community in calling for peace in Ukraine’
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Sony is ending shipments of software and hardware to Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine.
“Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) joins the global community in calling for peace in Ukraine,” Sony said in a statement.
“We have suspended all software and hardware shipments, the launch of Gran Turismo 7, and operations of the PlayStation Store in Russia.”
The announcement comes after Microsoft announced last week that it would “suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia.”
Nintendo also said it is suspending all exports to Russia “for the foreseeable future,” citing “volatility surrounding the logistics of shipping and distributing physical goods”, as reported by Aljazeera.
Ukraine’s digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov had called for the companies to block all Russian and Belorussian accounts from their services. “If you support human values, you should live [sic] the Russian market”, he tweeted.
In the UK, it’s expected that PS5 will not improve until mid or even late 2022. In November, it was reported that Sony was revising down its production of consoles from 16 million to 15 million between April 2021 and March 2022.
As well as Sony, many other technology giants have blocked access to Russia. RT, Sputnik and other channels have disappeared from YouTube, and from TikTok, while Netflix has pulled out of the country.
Apple Pay and other services such as Apple Maps have also been limited by the smartphone giant, and Google has taken a similar approach. Live tracking on mapping applications could potentially be used by the Russian military to identify targets in Ukraine.
As well as sanctions from technology companies, numerous economic sanctions on Russia has had a devastating effect on the country’s economy.
However, some calls have been made by Ukraine that would harm Russian citizens more than the Russian government, such as asking for the country to be disconnected from the global internet entirely.
Russia has already been testing another ‘splinternet’ in the face of further cyberattack, and could even legalise online piracy in order to allow Russians to access software and watch Hollywood films banned in the country.
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