For the PlayStation Plus, “Sony has agreed to take steps to protect customers who have not used their subscriptions for a long time but are still paying,” the CMA said. “Sony will contact these customers to remind them how to discontinue payments and, if they continue not to use their subscriptions, Sony will eventually stop receiving further payments.” We contacted Sony to ask if these changes will only apply in the UK or extend to other countries. The CMA “also partnered with Nintendo, which changed its business practices during the investigation so that the Nintendo Switch online service would no longer be sold with automatic renewal as the default option,” the regulator said. “This means that people will not automatically contract renewals, addressing some of the CMA ‘s concerns about human confinement.” The change applies to the “Nintendo eShop and the Nintendo website in all countries and regions managed by Nintendo Europe,” the company said in a statement to The Verge. Microsoft also pledged to make changes in January in response to the CMA’s concerns, including contacting customers who were still paying for subscriptions they had not used in a long time. At the time, Microsoft told The Verge that it would initially release its changes in the UK and make them available worldwide soon. The CMA announced for the first time that it was investigating the auto renewal practices of the three companies in 2019. This investigation is now closed, the CMA said on Wednesday.
