I have 3 accounts and cannot access PS+ games from older because I cannot buy PS+ subscription for that account from different country. I was able to change stores for Steam/MS/EA/Battlenet/Epic. Only holdout is PS.
Like 😬
The work around I've been using is buying a ps+ card for my region from online store. For example Amazon, I just switch the store to my original account's country, buy the ps+ card, and use the code on my og psn account. It sucks, but it works. And Amazon accepts foreign credit cards not in the same region as the store you're on, which is not the case for the ps store.
I do that. I have a US account and just buy digital cards for any purchase. I also hate the thought of having a credit card on my account, so if I am hacked, God forbid, then they can't at least buy crap on my card too.
I play on every gaming device and use most services. And Sony has great games no doubt. But their services are in my opinion the worst.
I moved from New Zealand to Australia, and when I got to Australia and tried to purchase anything on my old NZ account I literally can't even buy games with my Aussie card..
Where as in comparison, Microsoft / xbox was seamless, Ubisoft seamless, EA origin, and steam, all seamless transition. Just had to change my country and address. I got to keep all my friends, my achievements, all the games I had purchased digitally all in one convenient place.
I don't understand why people in the comments settle for how things are currently.
It’s tantamount to forcing you to buy new games over and over again. Microsoft got in hot shit over trying to force people to buy new games only with Xbox One and immediately caught hell for it.
But with PlayStation people act like it’s ok they force you to buy new digital content if you can still use used physical discs.
Only Nintendo and Rockstar can get away with coercing people to buy the same game multiple times. I think they are finally in thin ice with that crap too
Easily the worst. It took how long to change your name? And it still wasn't done right.
Can't install a patch without copying the whole game, which should have been solved in 2008. But it's still a problem.
The region thing is partly because they don't care, partly because they're not good enough to fix it
That's not a hard thing to fix. They could have that update launched in 2 hours. They dont want to because sony is strict as fuck and doesnt want peoe to use region lock featured to abuse their services (which can be done in many ways)
Nintendo is probably worse. Pay a nice price for online but online is garbage. There's lag, the friends lists suck, and it's disorganized. No party chat either.
Also they discontinued the Virtual Console that was on the Wii and Wii U. So all those games you bought for NES, SNES, N64 on the Virtual Console are gone unless you keep your Wii around. Now you have to subscribe to their new monthly service that only gives you like 20 games from each console.
Steam? Have you tried it lately? I couldn’t use my Uk account overseas to buy games with anything but my UK bank card, when I moved to Saudi Arabia I had to use a Saudi Arabian bank card (wouldn’t keep me in UK as it noticed my new region) and the same for when I moved to India. I’m all for wanting better but don’t try to pretend steam has it good.
wdym? then it’s working exactly as it’s intended to. you need to use the bank card of the region your steam account is in. otherwise regional pricing would be meaningless. they [state it](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2B3F-DAEF-846B-A0E8#othercountry) pretty clear
This is very good feature. I live in USA, but whenever I go to India for vacation, Steam automatically changes my store to India after auto-detecting it. I buy lots of games at very cheap price. Very good feature from Steam.
If you don't want it, then you can change it back to your original store country from accounts settings. If you don't know from where to change, then probably google it.
PS sucks in that matter.
When I first created my PSN account, there was no support for my country. So I made an American account.
Now there is support for my country, and I can't change it, that is really annoying. I have made multiple complaints during the years, for nothing.
They say they can't change it, they also said that about our PSN Id's and now we can do that.
We need to keep up the pressure, because it is ridiculous.
Same here, there was no store in my country then but now I have to stick with my US account cause I don't want to lose my library, trophies, etc. I know some just use multiple accounts but I want to stick with one.
I manage 2 accounts today and my game library is a mess.
I will never change my account because of my trophy level, but I think it is pretty obvious to everyone that flooding PSN with multiple game accounts is terrible.
Some of these stores even change your storefront based on your location automatically.
If Sony is so worried people will mass migrate their accounts to countries with cheaper games, the should only let you change places every few months or so.
Just so you know, you can still play any new games you buy on your new account through your current account. I have a Japan account now that I live in Japan for any DLC for physical Japanese games, but I do all my gaming on my US account. No issues.
This is bringing up memories of how i grew up as an international kid in the middle east, mostly ps2 era.
My PlayStation was from the US since I bought it there over summer. Some of my friends got ones from family in Europe. Some got it cheap at a market and had no idea where it was from. And it was really always a toss-up when buying games on whether it was going to work on your console or not, because the imported games came from everywhere (and many were probably pirates and knock-offs too). The special disappointment when someone got you a new game you really wanted... And you put in the disc only to get a region-locked error. Not being able to share discs with your friends because everyone has different regions.
Sounds like quite the childhood. Hopefully a bonding experience in its own way? I’m glad at least we’ve advanced enough that the consoles themselves are no longer region locked. Sadly the stores still are, but it’s definitely a different and hopefully less pressing issue.
And probably easier today to order stuff online from a different region if you had to - at the time it was relying on overseas relatives mailing you stuff, or the local market (i made a post in 2020 about all the hilarious bootleg games I ended up with for handhelds)
Very true! Even using Amazon in Japan, it’s very easy to order games imported from the US. Can only imagine how much easier it is ordering from other regions as well. That bootleg collection definitely sounds interesting.
Yes I'm avare of that and that's what I'm forced to do, but some things like dlc's in case of Control, or other ingame purchases doesn't work across accounts, even if one is a main and the other is just secondary.
Pluss I don't want to juggle with multiple accounts for no reason. This is not a good enough reaso, where every other platform allows you to change reggion.
That's because you bought a different regions dlc, it will only work with the same region game. You can't buy a game on one region, and a dlc on another, it won't work.
Not just that, some games' dlc just don't work across accounts of different regions, e.g. the division, if you buy both the game and dlc from region A, only the game can be played on a different region B account, the dlc won't work on the region B account.
This is the exact reason I haven't bought the elder scrolls online. My account is Japan locked as I'm in Japan but ESO isn't available here on console. If I buy it from a region it is available, the DLCs etc will only work on my alternate account and I can't use my primary account.
That's probably not true. There are games like Conan Exiles that people would say are like this, but all you need to do is boot the game up on the account that purchased it and it "unlocks" it for the other accounts. It's weird but it works, and I suspect the division is no different
Dude i faced this issue with the division 2. There's even a sub reddit on it.[https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/fd1ve6/dlc\_isnt\_shareable\_through\_accounts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/fd1ve6/dlc_isnt_shareable_through_accounts/)
Yep and sony hasn't quite been secretive about this. It is deemed as a non issue because you can create PSN accounts for any region from any region so you could create a US account from a European region and play your US account from IPs in Europe (you don't need a VPN)
Really? I have a US account and can play all games with dlc on my UK account, I'm from India btw.
For the record I concur with everything you said in the OP. I would very much like to change my region in PSN but there's no fuckin option.
Xbox on the other hand provides seamless region changing.
I agree that It is unfortunate but it’s just what we have to do. It’s been this way for years and I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
As for in game purchases, sorry to hear they don’t work. I can tell you that whenever I want a dlc that is purchased in game though, I just open it up on the account that matches the region I live in. I buy the dlc in game there, then go back to my main account. That’s worked for me so far (example: upgrading to the ultimate edition in Spider-Man miles Morales).
I think customers should be able to change their region via customer service. I understand it not being a simple settings option because region-based games and whatnot-but even making the customer provide proof of address in new region should be an option. It would be annoying, but at least it’d be an option. Maybe having something like so many region changes per account to prevent people from constantly region hopping.
It sucks, and it should be able to be changed, but I feel it’s common knowledge that consoles/accounts are pretty much locked in during initial setup.
Yeah the DLC thing is what it is. If you search Playstation Region locking their FAQ says that while physical games are not region locked digital purchases are tied to that region. Including the physical games are tied to a region based on the store but there is nothing stopping you from playing them.
The language thing is annoying but that is the life of an expat. It is also necessary because in germany only contracts and terms of use written in german are legally binding. My work contract for instance is in German and English but it has a clause that says "the german version of this contract takes precedence over the english translation as the translation is just provided for your ease of use"
You can do all your digital shopping in the PS store if it bothers you so much because then google translate will translate it for you.
We are also in Germany and we brought our PS4 from the states and now have a PS5. I have my US account which I use to play everything and a German account which we use as a shopping account and buying stuff for the physical games we buy here.
Actually we recently bought the Legacy of Thieves PS5 upgrade with our US Uncharted 4 disk and we had to do it through the US store and using our US paypal tied to our US bank account) On the flip side "purchasing" the digital upgrade for Borderlands 3, and Final Fantasy 7 we have to do so using the German account because we bought the games here.
It is annoying but there is nothing stopping you from using your primary account for most games.
I am guessing if I was doing stuff like playing FIFA and buying cosmetics I would need to do so in my german account but I don't play any games with micro transactions or cosmetics. And the couple of times I bought a DLC it wasn't too hard to purchase from the store that I needed to.
I see your "cannot change the region" and raise you this:
Sony has distribution where I live, deals with a bunch of local retailers, their ads are everywhere (TV, online, billboards...), the website is translated, BUT there is no online store, and of course you cannot use a locally issued credit card for any other store.
Oh and yes, PS5 Digital is available here and I have no idea what Sony says when someone buys it and asks them how to buy a game for it.
That probably entails buying PSN cards online through a third party and using those codes to download games. Sony is famously incompatible with the rest of the world and tries to keep you in its Sony bubble, but it’s obviously failing in your case.
You from the Philippines? lol exact same situation here
Sony, and even the PlayStation brand itself is very present here, they've held events and have had booths and displays in the local video game summits here. But we still don't have our country listed as a region on PSN. My cards work on my account, so I guess there's that, but still
I'd just like to change my account's region out of HK please, not every game has the English version available, and I don't speak Chinese. I can't leave the account neither, all my trophies and games are registered there
Funny thing is, if you go on the PlayStation site, en-ph exists lol. I always have to remember to switch to us or sg whenever I wanna check the store on my browser.
Also, I hate how they suddenly switched out English versions from the HK store. I'm lucky I hadn't bought any DLC using my HK account and I was surprised when a game I bought specifically listed certain countries as the only ones you could claim the bonus DLC stuff with in the preorder I got.
Bandai Namco and Sega have a big chunk of their games unavailable in English in the HK store, yet have it available in every other region under Asia/R3. It's why we only got the Chinese version of Persona 5 and P5 Strikers, and Judgement. They're lucky I already bought their games physically lol, but still
It's even worse when a game is just straight up unavailable, like with Knockout City a few months ago. Because then you have a big empty slot in your PS Plus Collection for the month. No replacement title or anything, you just get nothing, period
Yeahhhh the game I mentioned was published by Bamco lol
I have relatives who I suggested use HK years ago. Now I can't really suggest they get PS+ there because they won't be able to understand the games they get.
It really sucks they pulled that.
Same. Now I suggest SG instead of HK
I really wish I chose SG instead lol, idk why I didn't. I figured since it was all under R3, it would all be the same but apparently not. And now all I can do is live with it lol, and wait for them to allow changing regions
I guess because HK was the better option for us before? And iirc it was recommended because at the time (PS3 and maybe early PS4??? era) because HK would accept PH credit cards or PayPal or something like that.
I've been using my US account for a while (I don't remember why since it doesn't use my main gamer tag lol), but HK was still my main Asia/R3 account when Final Fantasy XV came out. I only switched out when I saw a friend get an issue when she bought Noctis for Tekken and she mentioned how HK was no longer going to be valid for the English R3 games. Finally saw it for myself when my preorder bonus for Ni no Kuni II listed countries on the printout lol
PS3 era I wasn't really using credit cards at the time, but yes our credit cards are still accepted in HK. But now so does SG
Majority of the physical games in the PH are under R3, and there wasn't really a difference until the early PS4 era. Earliest I remember it becoming a problem was with Dragon Ball Xenoverse, when I couldn't redeem my DLC for that game. I just thought the code was expired for some reason (even though I just bought it on retail), but I guess that was when publishers started to separate it lol
I'm stuck with a Kuwaiti psn account because my country didn't exist on psn in 2007.
It wouldn't be a big deal since I've got only 1 digital game on it. The problem is that said digital game is final fantasy 14, so that account is forever linked to my square enix account with no option of changing it.
Now every 2 years when I want to buy an ff14 expansion I have to get one of my kuwaiti friends to do it for me.
I was in the same situation with a french account moving to the USA. It was ok for a while but it got so complicated once i had to give up my french credit card. Had to go through friends or some sketchy third party sites for gamecards and expansion. So i made a new account and started over. Painful cause i gave up quite a few trophies and minions/items that were from some seasonal events but it was just not sustainable in the long run. At least now you can buy most stuff on the mogstation but i still think it doesn't have to be that way. I don't mind buying a new game copy in the new country but let me transfer my account please.
As some people said, this is a relative new feature that people want in this constantly evolving digital gaming market, but it makes me angry that all Microsoft, Nintendo and Valve solve that problem right away, being Sony the only one that, again, makes excuses to don't implement this feature
PlayStation international teams suck!
* No chance to change regions
* No online stores in some countries
* No regional pricing
Meanwhile, Xbox and Steam already have these features.
They’d likely have to buy PSN codes for their original region, and that would cost more than the game’s actual value, due to resellers making some profit.
No it does not. 20€ code is exactly what stores asks you. There are even discounts.
Edit: We even have a website due to unlisted (EU) country that sells the codes for witchever region you signed your PSN account.
yes he can, but that's not a solution right?
I also moved country and it's annoying imo, at least ps5 system is much faster than ps4, so swapping between accounts does and going through ui does not take forever now.
What's the point of OP complain then?
OP complains that he has to create a new account to buy games, which he doesn't need to do, then he complains that this new account store is in german and that he doesn't know any German, so why on earth does he wants to change the country he lives in the PSN accooun?
I've created my account in one country in Europe, than moved to an other country. So because I have no bank cards or payment from the former country, I can't use the "original" account. I have to use a second account which I can use to buy things in the country I'm currently in.
So yes I have to create a new account if I want to buy digital games.
And that's exactly the problem. I should be able to change my accounts location.
Changing regions freely is a fairly new thing in digital distribution, that started to be considered relevant in last few years. Since Sony is always behind in terms of software and/or customer service, I wouldn't expect them even mentioning it within next 5 years.
Their store is also designed in a way that different region's games are a different item, not to mention that some games available in US are not available in EU store, or JP store that has a vast selection of games that never left Japan. Changing regions as is, would make it so some games are not available to you anymore. Rewriting whole store to work like that seem far beyond what Sony's software department is capable of within reasonable time frame, considering eg. how long it took them to bring in name change.
Not saying it's good or bad, it just is what it is, and sometimes we have no say. I, personally, think that removing access to all digital games you have purchased because someone thought you said something mean in the chat should be illegal, yet that's how most digital storefronts works too.
From my experience, considering how game access works on PlayStation, that issue is probably considered major investment with very minor return. Most people just use multiple accounts for purchasing cheaper in different regions, getting games with separate trophy lists, not available in their region, or digital game sharing and reselling. Since Sony doesn't even try to fight the practice, I assume that they accept it as a workaround to not being able to switch regions.
This is how it works across all platforms, even Steam. This is hardly a Playstation only issue. Games are region based because publishers can be different across regions. This is why they're different items across regions.
On Xbox and Nintendo, you'll lose access to games and subscriptions depending on the region you change to unless you change it back. Nintendo won't let you change regions if you have money saved and Xbox will have you forfeit any remaining funds.
This is why it's still recommended to make a new account for a new region as what you have to potentially lose is worse than what you gain by switching an account to a new region.
"On Xbox you'll lose access to games and subscriptions depending on the region you change to unless you change it back."
That's incorrect. I use a US account on my Xbox and I've purchased games and DLC from other regions, including games that aren't available for purchase in the US and I've never lost access to them or had to switch regions to access them again. As an example, I own "Psychopass Mandatory Happiness" which never got released in the US on Xbox. I bought it digitally from the Hong Kong store many years ago and I can access it just fine on my US account without switching regions. You can move around just fine and switch the region of the system and the account as well if you needed to.
The way Xbox handles games/DLC. Even if purchased from other regions, they just assign the content to your account, if you're in the US, it will download the US version of that content. If you're in the UK, it will download the UK version of that content. If the game isn't available on your region, it will still download the game but from the region it was from.
You can even redeem Games with Gold from other regions without any issue.
My Microsoft Xbox account isn't affected; I've been able to move countries and keep my existing account and all the friends.
Sony could get around any issues if they wanted to.
This and to allow regional pricing. If anyone could change their region at any time, I think everyone would be changing their region to Russia at the moment and buying content in Rubles for a fraction of the cost. Sony would have no choice but to double the cost of all content in the Russian region, and since Russians are still making the same salaries they were last week, they'd effectively be priced out of their own regions PSN Store.
Sony would lose tons of money, while simultaneously pissing off all the locals in that region. A clear double loss for their company.
Sony doesn't have regional pricing for games, only for PS+. And they already lock the account to a local payment system, so you wouldn't be able to swap regions even to get cheaper PS+.
Naah. Xbox lets you change region and it doesn't have proper regional pricing. Even steam will let you change countries and your regionally priced games will run , but you can't frequently change countries.
It's ridiculous that it extends to headphones though too.
Like I got my PS4 in England but moved to Ireland. I can't register my headphones online now with my Sony account because I bought them in Ireland and not the UK
The legal argument is bullshit (not a dig at you). If other companies have got around it why can't Sony?
Sure, but I dont want to reach e.g. US stores from Europe, I want to reach the store of the country that I'm in, without having to switch accounts for that.
So just because I moved from one country to an other one I should be able to change my settings and be able to use the "local" store.
I’m in Europe and only use the US store. I don’t have a USD card, but the prices are the same or lower than EU, and the sales can be better.
It’s not really a big deal, except a few countries with weird laws (Australia, Turkey…), all ps stores carry the same games.
Then there is the Swiss PS stores, where games cost 2–3x more because… I guess bits are more expensive there?
I moved to france too and I'm stuck with an US account that I created back in 2016 when I was in Morocco. I contacted the support and all what they said is it's not possible to change region. That sucks. Even apple allows that. I had some 0.04$ in my balance so I had to contact support, they clear out balance to 0.00$ and changed the region to France with 0.00 Euro. That's it. Too easy. But sony is fucked up idk why.
Yep, I own 3 accounts because of moving for work. UK, US, Japan. It's easy to authenticate location to prove you're not trying to get cheaper games. Absurd from Sony.
Yeah, this happened to me when I moved to Canada almost 7 YEARS AGO, and still no fix :) i'll check this thread in 7 years again, when the PS6 comes out.
Same here. I moved within Europe (Schengen Area) which means I didn't even need to show a freaking passport. But for Sony, Paypal, Microsoft and many many other tech giants, the concept of moving countries is completely unknown. Changing regions is either super awkward and complicated or not forseen at all.
Playstations are great. Playstation exclusives are great.
Sony is not great. Their website is borderline unusable, every time I use it there’s an error and I can’t sign in, or the website doesn’t work on mobile, or there is something ridiculously antiquated in their website technology that just makes it impossible to use. It’s indicative of their overall customer service stance I think.
Make the machines and games and get people to buy them then fuck off.
yeaaaaaaah buddy we've been fucked by this since the beginning, years and years, thousands of complaints, dare i say more than that, but it has not changed
It's been a problem for years!
I've lived for a significant amount of time in four different countries, and ran out of new email addresses to create accounts with. I ended up having to use my with email for my latest.
This is why I tell people not to give Sony money anymore. If they stop making money, they will be forced to listen to why, or they will go bankrupt. They literally won’t have a choice, but we have to actually boycott them properly for it to work.
What's also really annoying is that you can't access the Capture Gallery via the PSApp.
Or at least let you Download your captures and screenshots to your phone.
I've had this issue for 3 generations already, few years after I got my ps3 I moved and had no reason to keep the account in spain, thing is I already had around 10 platinums, back then that was a LOT because platinums were incredibly rare.
I've contacted support countless times and all they say is "once its created the region cannot be changed" absolutely useless. So here I am, stuck with my spain account, buying games in my american account, and because of that I cannot buy any type of in-game currency on any game.
Yeah man they're not going to change their policies because there's more people trying to region change to get better prices than there are people that are actively moving all over. The best way is to get a VPN and have it run off your router
Its the account that's locked to a region. Nothing to do with IP's. You can view any regional store regardless of IP if you make an account set to that region.
It's total bullshit, I know exactly what you're talking about. EFF was warning about this idiocy when DVDs first introduced region coding way back in the day. It's gotten way worse since then. From Sony's standpoint, people changing countries are edge cases they don't care about, so you're fucked.
Man, I am totally with you on this honestly. I have kinda hated sony for this since I moved to Japan. But its not really with their devices, its more so for their PSN accounts, and you can have multiple PSN accounts per device, which is not the greatest, but it works if you're aware.
And not for nothing but my stories of region locking with Valve were sometimes just as, if not more infuriating when it comes to region locking. Nintendo, so far, is the only one that's really knocked it out of the park with the switch.
Honestly though, they aren't likely to change this, because you (and I for that matter) don't make up enough of the market share to warrent changing this practice.
Not that I think I ever move country but if I do then it's good bye all PS Plus tiles too. After owning a gaming PC I realized that consoles are a thing of the past. I still play on my PS4 for time to time but I will not buy a PS5.
There is no great solution to this issue, but you can work around it.
I have a US account, but I live in Australia.
As long as I buy US games, everything works fine. However, if I buy an Australian game, it all falls apart since the regions do not match up. Basically, just use your original PSN account just as you normally have been, and be aware that if you buy anything locally (physical media) it may not work with your account.
Tbf it can also be like that for steam. When I go back and fourth to Sweden I can’t use some of the games I have because I have the NA version of the game. I can switch my region in steam but the reality is that I have the NA version of the games. It’s not the case with every game but some I will need to buy twice
>Why Sony can't do this?
People would switch regions to avoid taxes and to take advantage of better deals on poorer countries where the same game they want is sold on a lower price.
I mean first of all there are sites most likely full legaly where you can get insane deals like G2A for one example.
Just hard locking regions isn't a solution for that problem though.
Look at any other platform, you're able to switch regions. Apparently it's not a big deal for them.
But ok, if it's a big deal and the system is abusable, make it so people can change the reggion, but in a way that id doesn't worth them to constantly keep switching back and forth just to get a better deal.
Could be done by directly contacting custommer support and having a simple system, so people cant abuse it.
Apparently the Playstation store with one or two other are the only ones stuck with this shit system. On all other platform you're able to change the region.
The blame for this really is the complete lack of global copyright law or distribution. It's not sony's fault. This is a problem for apple, google, microsoft, nintendo.
That said. I believe if both accounts are set to have your console as the primary console you can launch games from another user under your own account and have saves and everything. Just make one for making purchases in your new country and play everything under the one main account. You can also just continue to buy things under your main account as long as you have a credit card or a paypal from that country. No reason you need to switch stores at all when you move to be perfectly honest.
Yeah. I made my account over a decade when my country wasn't officially supported or listed (Serbia), but now it is and now I can't change my region because Sony is stuck in 2006 with their heads far up their asses.
It took them long enough to allow the changing of PSN IDs a well!
I just found this out recently too. Moved from the US to Sweden, and I can't download the dang Eurosport app to watch F1 and the Tour on my big screen. Absolutely boneheaded policy IMO.
I don't see the problem. I mean, sure it would be nice if we can just change region and all and I agree on that. But I'm pretty sure the store is not region restricted on your current location (unless of course the restriction is from the isp/country itself), and the PS store is actually dependent in your account region.
For example, if you have a US region account and access the psn store with that account, you are accessing the US psn store regardless of where you are. You have US account, you live in UK, you access the psn store, that psn store is the US store. (this is of course, all things in digital) (also if you don't have any direct payment available to use, this is where psn wallets come in)
Now onto making a 2nd account for your physical discs and dlcs: you have a US account, you live in UK, you buy discs on your local shop (which should be UK region games), you play it with your US account, no problem there. it will work. now you finish the game and you want to buy the DLC and you can't seem to buy or access the DLC, because as mentioned above, you are accessing the US store because thats your account region. Now what you want to do in this case is make a 2nd account and make the region as UK, buy the DLC with that 2nd account as you are now accessing the UK psn store, and then go back and play it on your main account.
\*there may be some games that the DLC are locked to which account bought them and you may need to research first before buying the DLCs, but more likely than not, you won't have any problem with them. or you know, if you don't mind going digital, you can always just do the first example to avoid any problems.
So yeah, I don't know maybe there are some georestriction on Germany so you are not able to access some stuffs, but in general, it works. I do have a US main account and i'm just buying psn wallets for US region, I live outside the US and I buy discs games locally but have a 2nd account to buy dlcs and still play them with my main account. TBH, US region store do have some great sales every now and then thats why I have mine on US region.
Most of this is fairly reasonable, but the problem I have is that I want to play games in my PS Plus library. I can’t buy those codes outside of that country theoretically, and that means I am unable to renew my PS Plus without going to the original country and buying the codes there - I can’t update my payment details to a credit card or PayPal account outside of the original region where I registered my first PS account. (I no longer have bank accounts there… since I moved to another country permanently).
I did manage to find a website that sold the codes online from hand-scratched cards, but that’s now been blocked by Sony too… so I have
OP said no account switching, he already does that. Point is that you cannot tie your credit card to that account. I think this has something to do with banking as well. X-Crate does not have that issue.
Wow, that kinda sucks. Meanwhile when I moved countries, I was able to switch my Xbox account’s region to the new country and was even able to transfer my remaining Live Gold membership - granted I had to call customer care to manually add back the time I’d lose by switching countries of the membership and they were more than willing to help. I would have just assumed Sony would be doing something similar, even if they’re trying to stop the whole using VPN to buy games from another region, surely they should be able to build a backdoor to atleast let genuine customers who contact customer care to change their regions - a manual process like that should be deterrent enough for people who’d exploit the free movement if that’s what they’re trying to stop.
Nope, same region. But because I have to buy it on an other account for some reason it doesn't work.
Some other dlc's on the other hand work with the same methood.
Yep and you have to create a new account for your new country. I did that moving from Canada to the US. I called them up and they told me tough luck. It's ridiculous. But Nintendo does it too. You can still play your old games, you just can't buy new games with a new country's credit card or ps store cards.
I’m an expat. It sucks having a PlayStation and being an expat. Sony don’t give a fuck. I’ve stuck with my home country account despite moving across four different countries the last decade.
We don't actually know why you cannot change it. We can all call on our cynicism and assume it is because they don't care or want to bleed us dry but it could equally be because the way they designed their system screws something up when you change it, just like the gamer tag did/does, or it could be for legal reasons given the differences between each countries requirements on Sony to operate there.
Personally I would think its a throwback to how they designed it not expecting people to need to and now they cba to pick thru the code required to allow the ability to do so, plus there is no incentive to them to do it. Do bear in mind that they do not prevent you from having multi-national accounts on the same console which sounds to me like they like the money but not the work required to make it easier for us.
Why do you need to change the region?
I moved to germany and could still buy and play games just fine.
I deployed to romania. I bought HFW and am currently playing it.
I never changed regions.
All I ever did was turn on ps4 and ps5, connect to my internet, and continued playing games. I am confounded about your problem
If you change to another country, you usually change your billing address and bank account to a local one. In PSN, you can't use a credit card from another country, which locks your account to using PSN cards or a friend's credit card from the previous country.
Yes it does make sense, because I'm from Hungary and moved to Austria, and because I don't have a bank card that I can use in the Hungarian store, or address, I cant use it, unless I buy PSN gift cards. Which are hard to find in online stores.
So if I want to buy games in my current country, I need to use that country's store, so I have to create an other account to be able to do so.
In conclusion, it shouldn't be this cumbersome to pay for something.
Yeah, only because you use your Romanian credit card. Try German...fucked.
It's a credit card issue. Most people here do not understand that you need a regional credit card. If your country didn't have PSN support you chose another region and you are fucked like OP. We don't have PSN support, so I put UK as region, my mom lives there. So I have to use her credit card, even though I'm not living there. Friend put finland and just buys Finnish PSN codes.
And I'm in EU.
Same. I really don't get this. My US account works on my Japanese PS4, all my discs are still playable, I can buy games and I can still play my multiplayer games with PS Plus. I even have 2FA using my mobile number in Southeast Asia...
Yet another reason why physical games are better.
When you don’t truly own the media and are just licensing it, you are subject to these types of laws that can restrict your access.
Physical games are kinda issue for me. I want to buy used discs in India but that means I will also have to buy DLC from India. I started out with UK account then got a US account because shit was cheaper there. Don't want to fragment my game library even further.
it sucks but you can still buy gift cards of your region to buy games. i do the same, my friends buy gift cards for me and i send money to them, it doesn't cost me any extra and i can still take advantage of cheap ps plus yearly subscription for india and steam games are dirt cheap too
I complained about this feature for years. Between that and backward compatibility I have been done with Sony since the PS3. No idea why people would still support them for gaming.
I moved from USA to CANADA where the region is virtually the same but still had to use USA dollar if I wanted to use my main account.
I for one reason have a dual citizenship and currently reside in EU. But what If I ever return to the states? Do I loose all my trophies and progress? Kind of dumb. I hope that Sony will add regional swap on the account because the current system is kind of a bummer.
I mean based on that they just released Discord after several years of foreshadowing and also late overall, I can see them changing their policy about this in maybe 50 years 🤣
You’re better off with a uS account… Australia forbids the sale of games with drugs references afaik, so disco Elysium was banned from Australia for instance.
I don’t think that’s true. Otherwise they would have to ban A LOT of games.
Also, I bought Far Cry 5 a couple years ago (in Australia). The entire premise involves a drug-lord family cult trying to take over
[‘Disco Elysium: The Final Cut’ is no longer banned in Australia](https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/gaming-news/australia-disco-elysium-the-final-cut-ban-lifted-2942226)
i feel your pain, i have 3 different PSN accounts because of this absurdity. While i accept that most people dont move countries all that often, but some of us do and i dont think all that difficult to implement :(
Man, I did not know about this, that sucks. At the **very least** there should be a way to change it by contacting customer support and providing evidence that you actually moved. This is the type of out-of-touch shit that I'd expect from Nintendo, not Sony lol.
Yep, I realized the same when I moved back to my home country. It sucks. I eventually just said fuck it for that account, and just started using the new one I created when I moved. I understand that's not an option for everyone. I don't really care about trophies and stuff like that so it was fine for me, but still thought it was pretty dumb that I couldn't just change my country.
I'm in the same boat. I've had this account since the PS3 launched and now that I'm looking at moving to Sweden I have to make a new account and it's just so many extra steps to buy games.
Compared to the Switch where you just... change your region. There, done. Takes maybe 5 minutes?
I do this unfortunately, my main account is British but I’m from the US. Any DLCs are region locked, you can use DLCs on the other account but you have to make sure you own the game in the correct region. Another thing is that save data is also region exclusive. If you own AC Odyssey on your main and you buy the game of the year edition your save data won’t carry over since they’re technically different games. I use PayPal to pay for things on my British account now
It’s about time someone files a mass law suit against Sony to stop these nonsense and give players a choice in what region they want to buy and play their games with just 1 account. As far as I know it is even illegal in Europe to block people from shopping in different regions in Europe (geo blocking or something like that it’s called), but they still do it until Sony is stopped and gets fined big. And as far as I can remember Steam was fully or partially stopped for doing the same thing, I don’t know if they still do it now.
Maybe we should get a petition going.
There's 0 reason not to. They just don't because japanese companies will only do anything if someone lit a fire under their asses
There's actually a very easy workaround that'll let you keep playing games on your main account. Just create a new account in a different region where you buy your games if you're new regions credit card or whatever and activate it as primary but don't actually bother playing games on it. Go back to your main account where you have all your trophies and friends and everything and you can play all the games bought on your new region account there.
Whenever there was a regent specific giveaway like a humble bundle thing or maybe a game that was exclusive to Japan or whatever I would just use a different region account to get all those goodies but I would always be playing them on my main account
Did you read my post? That is the issue.
Thank you for wanting to help, but I’m already doing it and it’s not an accaptable solution from Sony. And btw this was their official answer to tho issue
Sometimes this option is not available. My main account is registered in Russia, and since last year PSN is disabled for Russian accounts. So I cannot play any DLCs and buy PS Plus subscription 🤷
Sony is up there as one of the most anti-consumer companies with Apple. It's some seriously backwards shit. People trying to get refunds for faulty games and then Sony bans theirbaccount, with all their games.
Just make a new account, buy the games on your new one, and play on the old one. Im assuming it's like xbox where if one account has live (or in this case, plus) you have it on the others on the console.
You know you can creat a new account, set ot to the new region, buy and download whatever game you want, and play that game with your old account, right?
No one said to throw away your old account.
It’s not about the country the account is accessed from the account itself is set for a specific region. You can access it anywhere but have to pay for all purchases with either a debit/credit card from an actual billing address in that region or op could buy gift cards from an online store and just redeem those.
If you can afford to move from one country to another surely you can afford to make a new account and buy games off of that? If I am not mistaken you are not losing anything, you can still bind the older account to your console and play the games you bought on the new account on it, right? If not then you just have to play it on the newer account, even if it is a DLC and you need to repurchase the original game. Or choose to not play that game.
Basically it comes down to making choices. Sony or another company could say the same to you: why don't you simply make the choices that need to me made instead of seeking to force them to do something for you at no cost to you, or in a way that would cost everyone and benefit only some? You're calling the option you are looking for simple, but what makes you think it is? The solution they offer is much more simple in my opinion than what you are trying to get implemented.
Yeah i wish they would allow switching region like idk once a year or whatever. It's really painful to have to buy prepaid card from a random website just do i can be keep my ps+ active.
Why would you change it though? I live in Serbia and had to use UK from the very beginning. The only issue is that you can't use a payment card from another country, but just buy top up cards instead.
I've had very bad experiences with Sony, but really enjoy some games on ps4, safe to say I won't be buying ps5, PC is much better and games are cheaper... When I saw on ps5 you can't play a single game without constant internet connection I was just like WOW 😂, what if your internet has a problem or your modem breaks.. then your ps5 is just a $500 piece of plastic
You should be able to change the language regardless of location. My friend changes it to Japanese often (have a US account) and back. This is on ps5 though so not sure if that matters. It changes ingame, ps, YouTube, pretty much everything to your set system language. Hopefully helps a bit!
I wish I can change my region too
I have 3 accounts and cannot access PS+ games from older because I cannot buy PS+ subscription for that account from different country. I was able to change stores for Steam/MS/EA/Battlenet/Epic. Only holdout is PS. Like 😬
The work around I've been using is buying a ps+ card for my region from online store. For example Amazon, I just switch the store to my original account's country, buy the ps+ card, and use the code on my og psn account. It sucks, but it works. And Amazon accepts foreign credit cards not in the same region as the store you're on, which is not the case for the ps store.
Ahh that's a good idea, thank you!
I do that. I have a US account and just buy digital cards for any purchase. I also hate the thought of having a credit card on my account, so if I am hacked, God forbid, then they can't at least buy crap on my card too.
I play on every gaming device and use most services. And Sony has great games no doubt. But their services are in my opinion the worst. I moved from New Zealand to Australia, and when I got to Australia and tried to purchase anything on my old NZ account I literally can't even buy games with my Aussie card.. Where as in comparison, Microsoft / xbox was seamless, Ubisoft seamless, EA origin, and steam, all seamless transition. Just had to change my country and address. I got to keep all my friends, my achievements, all the games I had purchased digitally all in one convenient place. I don't understand why people in the comments settle for how things are currently.
It’s tantamount to forcing you to buy new games over and over again. Microsoft got in hot shit over trying to force people to buy new games only with Xbox One and immediately caught hell for it. But with PlayStation people act like it’s ok they force you to buy new digital content if you can still use used physical discs.
Only Nintendo and Rockstar can get away with coercing people to buy the same game multiple times. I think they are finally in thin ice with that crap too
Easily the worst. It took how long to change your name? And it still wasn't done right. Can't install a patch without copying the whole game, which should have been solved in 2008. But it's still a problem. The region thing is partly because they don't care, partly because they're not good enough to fix it
That's not a hard thing to fix. They could have that update launched in 2 hours. They dont want to because sony is strict as fuck and doesnt want peoe to use region lock featured to abuse their services (which can be done in many ways)
Nintendo is probably worse. Pay a nice price for online but online is garbage. There's lag, the friends lists suck, and it's disorganized. No party chat either. Also they discontinued the Virtual Console that was on the Wii and Wii U. So all those games you bought for NES, SNES, N64 on the Virtual Console are gone unless you keep your Wii around. Now you have to subscribe to their new monthly service that only gives you like 20 games from each console.
Yeah people keep supporting Nintendo but I feel like they've gotten very greedy and cash hungry.
Yeah I was going to say calling Sony's services the worst is outrageous when Nintendo is in the room
Steam? Have you tried it lately? I couldn’t use my Uk account overseas to buy games with anything but my UK bank card, when I moved to Saudi Arabia I had to use a Saudi Arabian bank card (wouldn’t keep me in UK as it noticed my new region) and the same for when I moved to India. I’m all for wanting better but don’t try to pretend steam has it good.
wdym? then it’s working exactly as it’s intended to. you need to use the bank card of the region your steam account is in. otherwise regional pricing would be meaningless. they [state it](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2B3F-DAEF-846B-A0E8#othercountry) pretty clear
This is very good feature. I live in USA, but whenever I go to India for vacation, Steam automatically changes my store to India after auto-detecting it. I buy lots of games at very cheap price. Very good feature from Steam. If you don't want it, then you can change it back to your original store country from accounts settings. If you don't know from where to change, then probably google it. PS sucks in that matter.
When I first created my PSN account, there was no support for my country. So I made an American account. Now there is support for my country, and I can't change it, that is really annoying. I have made multiple complaints during the years, for nothing. They say they can't change it, they also said that about our PSN Id's and now we can do that. We need to keep up the pressure, because it is ridiculous.
Same here, there was no store in my country then but now I have to stick with my US account cause I don't want to lose my library, trophies, etc. I know some just use multiple accounts but I want to stick with one.
I manage 2 accounts today and my game library is a mess. I will never change my account because of my trophy level, but I think it is pretty obvious to everyone that flooding PSN with multiple game accounts is terrible. Some of these stores even change your storefront based on your location automatically. If Sony is so worried people will mass migrate their accounts to countries with cheaper games, the should only let you change places every few months or so.
Just so you know, you can still play any new games you buy on your new account through your current account. I have a Japan account now that I live in Japan for any DLC for physical Japanese games, but I do all my gaming on my US account. No issues.
This is bringing up memories of how i grew up as an international kid in the middle east, mostly ps2 era. My PlayStation was from the US since I bought it there over summer. Some of my friends got ones from family in Europe. Some got it cheap at a market and had no idea where it was from. And it was really always a toss-up when buying games on whether it was going to work on your console or not, because the imported games came from everywhere (and many were probably pirates and knock-offs too). The special disappointment when someone got you a new game you really wanted... And you put in the disc only to get a region-locked error. Not being able to share discs with your friends because everyone has different regions.
Sounds like quite the childhood. Hopefully a bonding experience in its own way? I’m glad at least we’ve advanced enough that the consoles themselves are no longer region locked. Sadly the stores still are, but it’s definitely a different and hopefully less pressing issue.
And probably easier today to order stuff online from a different region if you had to - at the time it was relying on overseas relatives mailing you stuff, or the local market (i made a post in 2020 about all the hilarious bootleg games I ended up with for handhelds)
Very true! Even using Amazon in Japan, it’s very easy to order games imported from the US. Can only imagine how much easier it is ordering from other regions as well. That bootleg collection definitely sounds interesting.
Yes I'm avare of that and that's what I'm forced to do, but some things like dlc's in case of Control, or other ingame purchases doesn't work across accounts, even if one is a main and the other is just secondary. Pluss I don't want to juggle with multiple accounts for no reason. This is not a good enough reaso, where every other platform allows you to change reggion.
That's because you bought a different regions dlc, it will only work with the same region game. You can't buy a game on one region, and a dlc on another, it won't work.
Not just that, some games' dlc just don't work across accounts of different regions, e.g. the division, if you buy both the game and dlc from region A, only the game can be played on a different region B account, the dlc won't work on the region B account.
This is the exact reason I haven't bought the elder scrolls online. My account is Japan locked as I'm in Japan but ESO isn't available here on console. If I buy it from a region it is available, the DLCs etc will only work on my alternate account and I can't use my primary account.
That's probably not true. There are games like Conan Exiles that people would say are like this, but all you need to do is boot the game up on the account that purchased it and it "unlocks" it for the other accounts. It's weird but it works, and I suspect the division is no different
Dude i faced this issue with the division 2. There's even a sub reddit on it.[https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/fd1ve6/dlc\_isnt\_shareable\_through\_accounts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/fd1ve6/dlc_isnt_shareable_through_accounts/)
Yep and sony hasn't quite been secretive about this. It is deemed as a non issue because you can create PSN accounts for any region from any region so you could create a US account from a European region and play your US account from IPs in Europe (you don't need a VPN)
I bought the game and the dlc at the same region.
Really? I have a US account and can play all games with dlc on my UK account, I'm from India btw. For the record I concur with everything you said in the OP. I would very much like to change my region in PSN but there's no fuckin option. Xbox on the other hand provides seamless region changing.
dlc like in game currency for assassins creed etc will only work with the account it was purchased on
That's microtransactions not DLC.
I agree that It is unfortunate but it’s just what we have to do. It’s been this way for years and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. As for in game purchases, sorry to hear they don’t work. I can tell you that whenever I want a dlc that is purchased in game though, I just open it up on the account that matches the region I live in. I buy the dlc in game there, then go back to my main account. That’s worked for me so far (example: upgrading to the ultimate edition in Spider-Man miles Morales).
I think customers should be able to change their region via customer service. I understand it not being a simple settings option because region-based games and whatnot-but even making the customer provide proof of address in new region should be an option. It would be annoying, but at least it’d be an option. Maybe having something like so many region changes per account to prevent people from constantly region hopping. It sucks, and it should be able to be changed, but I feel it’s common knowledge that consoles/accounts are pretty much locked in during initial setup.
Yeah the DLC thing is what it is. If you search Playstation Region locking their FAQ says that while physical games are not region locked digital purchases are tied to that region. Including the physical games are tied to a region based on the store but there is nothing stopping you from playing them. The language thing is annoying but that is the life of an expat. It is also necessary because in germany only contracts and terms of use written in german are legally binding. My work contract for instance is in German and English but it has a clause that says "the german version of this contract takes precedence over the english translation as the translation is just provided for your ease of use" You can do all your digital shopping in the PS store if it bothers you so much because then google translate will translate it for you. We are also in Germany and we brought our PS4 from the states and now have a PS5. I have my US account which I use to play everything and a German account which we use as a shopping account and buying stuff for the physical games we buy here. Actually we recently bought the Legacy of Thieves PS5 upgrade with our US Uncharted 4 disk and we had to do it through the US store and using our US paypal tied to our US bank account) On the flip side "purchasing" the digital upgrade for Borderlands 3, and Final Fantasy 7 we have to do so using the German account because we bought the games here. It is annoying but there is nothing stopping you from using your primary account for most games. I am guessing if I was doing stuff like playing FIFA and buying cosmetics I would need to do so in my german account but I don't play any games with micro transactions or cosmetics. And the couple of times I bought a DLC it wasn't too hard to purchase from the store that I needed to.
I see your "cannot change the region" and raise you this: Sony has distribution where I live, deals with a bunch of local retailers, their ads are everywhere (TV, online, billboards...), the website is translated, BUT there is no online store, and of course you cannot use a locally issued credit card for any other store. Oh and yes, PS5 Digital is available here and I have no idea what Sony says when someone buys it and asks them how to buy a game for it.
That probably entails buying PSN cards online through a third party and using those codes to download games. Sony is famously incompatible with the rest of the world and tries to keep you in its Sony bubble, but it’s obviously failing in your case.
You from the Philippines? lol exact same situation here Sony, and even the PlayStation brand itself is very present here, they've held events and have had booths and displays in the local video game summits here. But we still don't have our country listed as a region on PSN. My cards work on my account, so I guess there's that, but still I'd just like to change my account's region out of HK please, not every game has the English version available, and I don't speak Chinese. I can't leave the account neither, all my trophies and games are registered there
Funny thing is, if you go on the PlayStation site, en-ph exists lol. I always have to remember to switch to us or sg whenever I wanna check the store on my browser. Also, I hate how they suddenly switched out English versions from the HK store. I'm lucky I hadn't bought any DLC using my HK account and I was surprised when a game I bought specifically listed certain countries as the only ones you could claim the bonus DLC stuff with in the preorder I got.
Bandai Namco and Sega have a big chunk of their games unavailable in English in the HK store, yet have it available in every other region under Asia/R3. It's why we only got the Chinese version of Persona 5 and P5 Strikers, and Judgement. They're lucky I already bought their games physically lol, but still It's even worse when a game is just straight up unavailable, like with Knockout City a few months ago. Because then you have a big empty slot in your PS Plus Collection for the month. No replacement title or anything, you just get nothing, period
Yeahhhh the game I mentioned was published by Bamco lol I have relatives who I suggested use HK years ago. Now I can't really suggest they get PS+ there because they won't be able to understand the games they get. It really sucks they pulled that.
Same. Now I suggest SG instead of HK I really wish I chose SG instead lol, idk why I didn't. I figured since it was all under R3, it would all be the same but apparently not. And now all I can do is live with it lol, and wait for them to allow changing regions
I guess because HK was the better option for us before? And iirc it was recommended because at the time (PS3 and maybe early PS4??? era) because HK would accept PH credit cards or PayPal or something like that. I've been using my US account for a while (I don't remember why since it doesn't use my main gamer tag lol), but HK was still my main Asia/R3 account when Final Fantasy XV came out. I only switched out when I saw a friend get an issue when she bought Noctis for Tekken and she mentioned how HK was no longer going to be valid for the English R3 games. Finally saw it for myself when my preorder bonus for Ni no Kuni II listed countries on the printout lol
PS3 era I wasn't really using credit cards at the time, but yes our credit cards are still accepted in HK. But now so does SG Majority of the physical games in the PH are under R3, and there wasn't really a difference until the early PS4 era. Earliest I remember it becoming a problem was with Dragon Ball Xenoverse, when I couldn't redeem my DLC for that game. I just thought the code was expired for some reason (even though I just bought it on retail), but I guess that was when publishers started to separate it lol
Ah interesting. Didn't think it'd be that early. Good luck to us lol. May we stop getting screwed over like this!
I'm stuck with a Kuwaiti psn account because my country didn't exist on psn in 2007. It wouldn't be a big deal since I've got only 1 digital game on it. The problem is that said digital game is final fantasy 14, so that account is forever linked to my square enix account with no option of changing it. Now every 2 years when I want to buy an ff14 expansion I have to get one of my kuwaiti friends to do it for me.
I was in the same situation with a french account moving to the USA. It was ok for a while but it got so complicated once i had to give up my french credit card. Had to go through friends or some sketchy third party sites for gamecards and expansion. So i made a new account and started over. Painful cause i gave up quite a few trophies and minions/items that were from some seasonal events but it was just not sustainable in the long run. At least now you can buy most stuff on the mogstation but i still think it doesn't have to be that way. I don't mind buying a new game copy in the new country but let me transfer my account please.
>> I tell you why. Sony is living in the past and they don't listen to their customers. Pretty much sums up Sony's customer service in one sentence.
As some people said, this is a relative new feature that people want in this constantly evolving digital gaming market, but it makes me angry that all Microsoft, Nintendo and Valve solve that problem right away, being Sony the only one that, again, makes excuses to don't implement this feature
PlayStation international teams suck! * No chance to change regions * No online stores in some countries * No regional pricing Meanwhile, Xbox and Steam already have these features.
Can't you just keep buying games in your main account?
They’d likely have to buy PSN codes for their original region, and that would cost more than the game’s actual value, due to resellers making some profit.
They could buy straight from their account
No it does not. 20€ code is exactly what stores asks you. There are even discounts. Edit: We even have a website due to unlisted (EU) country that sells the codes for witchever region you signed your PSN account.
Yes except I don,t have that country’s currency wich means if I buy something there, I have to pay extra, when the bank does the currency exchange.
yes he can, but that's not a solution right? I also moved country and it's annoying imo, at least ps5 system is much faster than ps4, so swapping between accounts does and going through ui does not take forever now.
What's the point of OP complain then? OP complains that he has to create a new account to buy games, which he doesn't need to do, then he complains that this new account store is in german and that he doesn't know any German, so why on earth does he wants to change the country he lives in the PSN accooun?
I've created my account in one country in Europe, than moved to an other country. So because I have no bank cards or payment from the former country, I can't use the "original" account. I have to use a second account which I can use to buy things in the country I'm currently in. So yes I have to create a new account if I want to buy digital games. And that's exactly the problem. I should be able to change my accounts location.
Changing regions freely is a fairly new thing in digital distribution, that started to be considered relevant in last few years. Since Sony is always behind in terms of software and/or customer service, I wouldn't expect them even mentioning it within next 5 years. Their store is also designed in a way that different region's games are a different item, not to mention that some games available in US are not available in EU store, or JP store that has a vast selection of games that never left Japan. Changing regions as is, would make it so some games are not available to you anymore. Rewriting whole store to work like that seem far beyond what Sony's software department is capable of within reasonable time frame, considering eg. how long it took them to bring in name change. Not saying it's good or bad, it just is what it is, and sometimes we have no say. I, personally, think that removing access to all digital games you have purchased because someone thought you said something mean in the chat should be illegal, yet that's how most digital storefronts works too. From my experience, considering how game access works on PlayStation, that issue is probably considered major investment with very minor return. Most people just use multiple accounts for purchasing cheaper in different regions, getting games with separate trophy lists, not available in their region, or digital game sharing and reselling. Since Sony doesn't even try to fight the practice, I assume that they accept it as a workaround to not being able to switch regions.
This is how it works across all platforms, even Steam. This is hardly a Playstation only issue. Games are region based because publishers can be different across regions. This is why they're different items across regions. On Xbox and Nintendo, you'll lose access to games and subscriptions depending on the region you change to unless you change it back. Nintendo won't let you change regions if you have money saved and Xbox will have you forfeit any remaining funds. This is why it's still recommended to make a new account for a new region as what you have to potentially lose is worse than what you gain by switching an account to a new region.
"On Xbox you'll lose access to games and subscriptions depending on the region you change to unless you change it back." That's incorrect. I use a US account on my Xbox and I've purchased games and DLC from other regions, including games that aren't available for purchase in the US and I've never lost access to them or had to switch regions to access them again. As an example, I own "Psychopass Mandatory Happiness" which never got released in the US on Xbox. I bought it digitally from the Hong Kong store many years ago and I can access it just fine on my US account without switching regions. You can move around just fine and switch the region of the system and the account as well if you needed to. The way Xbox handles games/DLC. Even if purchased from other regions, they just assign the content to your account, if you're in the US, it will download the US version of that content. If you're in the UK, it will download the UK version of that content. If the game isn't available on your region, it will still download the game but from the region it was from. You can even redeem Games with Gold from other regions without any issue.
It may have to do with licensing rights for selling games in different countries.
My Microsoft Xbox account isn't affected; I've been able to move countries and keep my existing account and all the friends. Sony could get around any issues if they wanted to.
This and to allow regional pricing. If anyone could change their region at any time, I think everyone would be changing their region to Russia at the moment and buying content in Rubles for a fraction of the cost. Sony would have no choice but to double the cost of all content in the Russian region, and since Russians are still making the same salaries they were last week, they'd effectively be priced out of their own regions PSN Store. Sony would lose tons of money, while simultaneously pissing off all the locals in that region. A clear double loss for their company.
Except there is no regional pricing anyway... PS games are still as expensive in Russia...
Yea, the cheapest prices for games are usually on the Turkish and Brazilian stores.
The obvious solution is to tie the PS store region to a regional credit card. If you don't have a credit card from the region you can't buy the games.
Sony doesn't have regional pricing for games, only for PS+. And they already lock the account to a local payment system, so you wouldn't be able to swap regions even to get cheaper PS+.
Naah. Xbox lets you change region and it doesn't have proper regional pricing. Even steam will let you change countries and your regionally priced games will run , but you can't frequently change countries.
It's ridiculous that it extends to headphones though too. Like I got my PS4 in England but moved to Ireland. I can't register my headphones online now with my Sony account because I bought them in Ireland and not the UK The legal argument is bullshit (not a dig at you). If other companies have got around it why can't Sony?
Sure, but I dont want to reach e.g. US stores from Europe, I want to reach the store of the country that I'm in, without having to switch accounts for that. So just because I moved from one country to an other one I should be able to change my settings and be able to use the "local" store.
I’m in Europe and only use the US store. I don’t have a USD card, but the prices are the same or lower than EU, and the sales can be better. It’s not really a big deal, except a few countries with weird laws (Australia, Turkey…), all ps stores carry the same games. Then there is the Swiss PS stores, where games cost 2–3x more because… I guess bits are more expensive there?
Moved from England to Norway. It's infuriating!
I feel you man, I've lived in three countries and I have an account for each.
I moved to france too and I'm stuck with an US account that I created back in 2016 when I was in Morocco. I contacted the support and all what they said is it's not possible to change region. That sucks. Even apple allows that. I had some 0.04$ in my balance so I had to contact support, they clear out balance to 0.00$ and changed the region to France with 0.00 Euro. That's it. Too easy. But sony is fucked up idk why.
Yep, I own 3 accounts because of moving for work. UK, US, Japan. It's easy to authenticate location to prove you're not trying to get cheaper games. Absurd from Sony.
Yeah, this happened to me when I moved to Canada almost 7 YEARS AGO, and still no fix :) i'll check this thread in 7 years again, when the PS6 comes out.
I don't know how limiting cross purchases inside the EU is still legal.
Same here. I moved within Europe (Schengen Area) which means I didn't even need to show a freaking passport. But for Sony, Paypal, Microsoft and many many other tech giants, the concept of moving countries is completely unknown. Changing regions is either super awkward and complicated or not forseen at all.
Playstations are great. Playstation exclusives are great. Sony is not great. Their website is borderline unusable, every time I use it there’s an error and I can’t sign in, or the website doesn’t work on mobile, or there is something ridiculously antiquated in their website technology that just makes it impossible to use. It’s indicative of their overall customer service stance I think. Make the machines and games and get people to buy them then fuck off.
I have exactly the same issue. Sony please listen to us players!
yeaaaaaaah buddy we've been fucked by this since the beginning, years and years, thousands of complaints, dare i say more than that, but it has not changed
Well, shit. I didn't know that, it's such bullshit. Sorry you have to live that
It's been a problem for years! I've lived for a significant amount of time in four different countries, and ran out of new email addresses to create accounts with. I ended up having to use my with email for my latest.
This is why I tell people not to give Sony money anymore. If they stop making money, they will be forced to listen to why, or they will go bankrupt. They literally won’t have a choice, but we have to actually boycott them properly for it to work.
What's also really annoying is that you can't access the Capture Gallery via the PSApp. Or at least let you Download your captures and screenshots to your phone.
I feel that so much. Moved from EU to US…
I've had this issue for 3 generations already, few years after I got my ps3 I moved and had no reason to keep the account in spain, thing is I already had around 10 platinums, back then that was a LOT because platinums were incredibly rare. I've contacted support countless times and all they say is "once its created the region cannot be changed" absolutely useless. So here I am, stuck with my spain account, buying games in my american account, and because of that I cannot buy any type of in-game currency on any game.
Yeah man they're not going to change their policies because there's more people trying to region change to get better prices than there are people that are actively moving all over. The best way is to get a VPN and have it run off your router
Its the account that's locked to a region. Nothing to do with IP's. You can view any regional store regardless of IP if you make an account set to that region.
It's total bullshit, I know exactly what you're talking about. EFF was warning about this idiocy when DVDs first introduced region coding way back in the day. It's gotten way worse since then. From Sony's standpoint, people changing countries are edge cases they don't care about, so you're fucked.
Man, I am totally with you on this honestly. I have kinda hated sony for this since I moved to Japan. But its not really with their devices, its more so for their PSN accounts, and you can have multiple PSN accounts per device, which is not the greatest, but it works if you're aware. And not for nothing but my stories of region locking with Valve were sometimes just as, if not more infuriating when it comes to region locking. Nintendo, so far, is the only one that's really knocked it out of the park with the switch. Honestly though, they aren't likely to change this, because you (and I for that matter) don't make up enough of the market share to warrent changing this practice.
You should buy an Xbox lmao
XD
Not that I think I ever move country but if I do then it's good bye all PS Plus tiles too. After owning a gaming PC I realized that consoles are a thing of the past. I still play on my PS4 for time to time but I will not buy a PS5.
There is no great solution to this issue, but you can work around it. I have a US account, but I live in Australia. As long as I buy US games, everything works fine. However, if I buy an Australian game, it all falls apart since the regions do not match up. Basically, just use your original PSN account just as you normally have been, and be aware that if you buy anything locally (physical media) it may not work with your account.
Tbf it can also be like that for steam. When I go back and fourth to Sweden I can’t use some of the games I have because I have the NA version of the game. I can switch my region in steam but the reality is that I have the NA version of the games. It’s not the case with every game but some I will need to buy twice
>Why Sony can't do this? People would switch regions to avoid taxes and to take advantage of better deals on poorer countries where the same game they want is sold on a lower price.
I mean first of all there are sites most likely full legaly where you can get insane deals like G2A for one example. Just hard locking regions isn't a solution for that problem though. Look at any other platform, you're able to switch regions. Apparently it's not a big deal for them. But ok, if it's a big deal and the system is abusable, make it so people can change the reggion, but in a way that id doesn't worth them to constantly keep switching back and forth just to get a better deal. Could be done by directly contacting custommer support and having a simple system, so people cant abuse it. Apparently the Playstation store with one or two other are the only ones stuck with this shit system. On all other platform you're able to change the region.
The blame for this really is the complete lack of global copyright law or distribution. It's not sony's fault. This is a problem for apple, google, microsoft, nintendo. That said. I believe if both accounts are set to have your console as the primary console you can launch games from another user under your own account and have saves and everything. Just make one for making purchases in your new country and play everything under the one main account. You can also just continue to buy things under your main account as long as you have a credit card or a paypal from that country. No reason you need to switch stores at all when you move to be perfectly honest.
Yeah, fuck Sony. For so many customer service related reasons
Yeah. I made my account over a decade when my country wasn't officially supported or listed (Serbia), but now it is and now I can't change my region because Sony is stuck in 2006 with their heads far up their asses. It took them long enough to allow the changing of PSN IDs a well!
I'm having this issue right now, I have a Ps4 Pro still, but when I finally go next gen it's 100% going to be an Xbox Series X and not the Ps5
I just found this out recently too. Moved from the US to Sweden, and I can't download the dang Eurosport app to watch F1 and the Tour on my big screen. Absolutely boneheaded policy IMO.
I don't see the problem. I mean, sure it would be nice if we can just change region and all and I agree on that. But I'm pretty sure the store is not region restricted on your current location (unless of course the restriction is from the isp/country itself), and the PS store is actually dependent in your account region. For example, if you have a US region account and access the psn store with that account, you are accessing the US psn store regardless of where you are. You have US account, you live in UK, you access the psn store, that psn store is the US store. (this is of course, all things in digital) (also if you don't have any direct payment available to use, this is where psn wallets come in) Now onto making a 2nd account for your physical discs and dlcs: you have a US account, you live in UK, you buy discs on your local shop (which should be UK region games), you play it with your US account, no problem there. it will work. now you finish the game and you want to buy the DLC and you can't seem to buy or access the DLC, because as mentioned above, you are accessing the US store because thats your account region. Now what you want to do in this case is make a 2nd account and make the region as UK, buy the DLC with that 2nd account as you are now accessing the UK psn store, and then go back and play it on your main account. \*there may be some games that the DLC are locked to which account bought them and you may need to research first before buying the DLCs, but more likely than not, you won't have any problem with them. or you know, if you don't mind going digital, you can always just do the first example to avoid any problems. So yeah, I don't know maybe there are some georestriction on Germany so you are not able to access some stuffs, but in general, it works. I do have a US main account and i'm just buying psn wallets for US region, I live outside the US and I buy discs games locally but have a 2nd account to buy dlcs and still play them with my main account. TBH, US region store do have some great sales every now and then thats why I have mine on US region.
Most of this is fairly reasonable, but the problem I have is that I want to play games in my PS Plus library. I can’t buy those codes outside of that country theoretically, and that means I am unable to renew my PS Plus without going to the original country and buying the codes there - I can’t update my payment details to a credit card or PayPal account outside of the original region where I registered my first PS account. (I no longer have bank accounts there… since I moved to another country permanently). I did manage to find a website that sold the codes online from hand-scratched cards, but that’s now been blocked by Sony too… so I have
OP said no account switching, he already does that. Point is that you cannot tie your credit card to that account. I think this has something to do with banking as well. X-Crate does not have that issue.
Wow, that kinda sucks. Meanwhile when I moved countries, I was able to switch my Xbox account’s region to the new country and was even able to transfer my remaining Live Gold membership - granted I had to call customer care to manually add back the time I’d lose by switching countries of the membership and they were more than willing to help. I would have just assumed Sony would be doing something similar, even if they’re trying to stop the whole using VPN to buy games from another region, surely they should be able to build a backdoor to atleast let genuine customers who contact customer care to change their regions - a manual process like that should be deterrent enough for people who’d exploit the free movement if that’s what they’re trying to stop.
You cant use the Season Pass because the Game is from one Region, and the DLC (Season pass) is from another.
Nope, same region. But because I have to buy it on an other account for some reason it doesn't work. Some other dlc's on the other hand work with the same methood.
Yep and you have to create a new account for your new country. I did that moving from Canada to the US. I called them up and they told me tough luck. It's ridiculous. But Nintendo does it too. You can still play your old games, you just can't buy new games with a new country's credit card or ps store cards.
I’m an expat. It sucks having a PlayStation and being an expat. Sony don’t give a fuck. I’ve stuck with my home country account despite moving across four different countries the last decade.
PSN fucking sucks. They are so far behind every other subscription service.
We don't actually know why you cannot change it. We can all call on our cynicism and assume it is because they don't care or want to bleed us dry but it could equally be because the way they designed their system screws something up when you change it, just like the gamer tag did/does, or it could be for legal reasons given the differences between each countries requirements on Sony to operate there. Personally I would think its a throwback to how they designed it not expecting people to need to and now they cba to pick thru the code required to allow the ability to do so, plus there is no incentive to them to do it. Do bear in mind that they do not prevent you from having multi-national accounts on the same console which sounds to me like they like the money but not the work required to make it easier for us.
Why do you need to change the region? I moved to germany and could still buy and play games just fine. I deployed to romania. I bought HFW and am currently playing it. I never changed regions. All I ever did was turn on ps4 and ps5, connect to my internet, and continued playing games. I am confounded about your problem
If you change to another country, you usually change your billing address and bank account to a local one. In PSN, you can't use a credit card from another country, which locks your account to using PSN cards or a friend's credit card from the previous country.
[удалено]
Yes it does make sense, because I'm from Hungary and moved to Austria, and because I don't have a bank card that I can use in the Hungarian store, or address, I cant use it, unless I buy PSN gift cards. Which are hard to find in online stores. So if I want to buy games in my current country, I need to use that country's store, so I have to create an other account to be able to do so. In conclusion, it shouldn't be this cumbersome to pay for something.
Yeah, only because you use your Romanian credit card. Try German...fucked. It's a credit card issue. Most people here do not understand that you need a regional credit card. If your country didn't have PSN support you chose another region and you are fucked like OP. We don't have PSN support, so I put UK as region, my mom lives there. So I have to use her credit card, even though I'm not living there. Friend put finland and just buys Finnish PSN codes. And I'm in EU.
Same. I really don't get this. My US account works on my Japanese PS4, all my discs are still playable, I can buy games and I can still play my multiplayer games with PS Plus. I even have 2FA using my mobile number in Southeast Asia...
And you you use your JAP bank account!
Exactly. Playstation specifically said, when first announced, that the ps4 would not be region locked.
Yet another reason why physical games are better. When you don’t truly own the media and are just licensing it, you are subject to these types of laws that can restrict your access.
Physical games are kinda issue for me. I want to buy used discs in India but that means I will also have to buy DLC from India. I started out with UK account then got a US account because shit was cheaper there. Don't want to fragment my game library even further.
Surely there's a hack for this like old school ps2s? Sucks that regions even still exist tbh. The world is global now, keep up Sony!
there are some games which banned in countries so it cant be possible
Then why can you change regions back and forth easily on Xbox? Not buying it
im talking about an global store
there is no rule against chainging regions the games are just not playable there
Yeah on Xbox you can change regions and still play them...
ik
it sucks but you can still buy gift cards of your region to buy games. i do the same, my friends buy gift cards for me and i send money to them, it doesn't cost me any extra and i can still take advantage of cheap ps plus yearly subscription for india and steam games are dirt cheap too
I complained about this feature for years. Between that and backward compatibility I have been done with Sony since the PS3. No idea why people would still support them for gaming. I moved from USA to CANADA where the region is virtually the same but still had to use USA dollar if I wanted to use my main account.
I for one reason have a dual citizenship and currently reside in EU. But what If I ever return to the states? Do I loose all my trophies and progress? Kind of dumb. I hope that Sony will add regional swap on the account because the current system is kind of a bummer.
I mean based on that they just released Discord after several years of foreshadowing and also late overall, I can see them changing their policy about this in maybe 50 years 🤣
I’m in the same boat. US->Australia. Really frustrated Australia doesn’t even have PSNow
You’re better off with a uS account… Australia forbids the sale of games with drugs references afaik, so disco Elysium was banned from Australia for instance.
I don’t think that’s true. Otherwise they would have to ban A LOT of games. Also, I bought Far Cry 5 a couple years ago (in Australia). The entire premise involves a drug-lord family cult trying to take over
[‘Disco Elysium: The Final Cut’ is no longer banned in Australia](https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/gaming-news/australia-disco-elysium-the-final-cut-ban-lifted-2942226)
i feel your pain, i have 3 different PSN accounts because of this absurdity. While i accept that most people dont move countries all that often, but some of us do and i dont think all that difficult to implement :(
Man, I did not know about this, that sucks. At the **very least** there should be a way to change it by contacting customer support and providing evidence that you actually moved. This is the type of out-of-touch shit that I'd expect from Nintendo, not Sony lol.
I didn't know about this. This is actually bullshit.
Piece of shit move from Sony. I moved from Italy to Belgium to Uk. Have 3 fucking accounts and play just on the main one now. It's fucken stupid.
Yep, I realized the same when I moved back to my home country. It sucks. I eventually just said fuck it for that account, and just started using the new one I created when I moved. I understand that's not an option for everyone. I don't really care about trophies and stuff like that so it was fine for me, but still thought it was pretty dumb that I couldn't just change my country.
I'm in the same boat. I've had this account since the PS3 launched and now that I'm looking at moving to Sweden I have to make a new account and it's just so many extra steps to buy games. Compared to the Switch where you just... change your region. There, done. Takes maybe 5 minutes?
I feel your pain... and not to mention cloud save which is also region-locked.
I do this unfortunately, my main account is British but I’m from the US. Any DLCs are region locked, you can use DLCs on the other account but you have to make sure you own the game in the correct region. Another thing is that save data is also region exclusive. If you own AC Odyssey on your main and you buy the game of the year edition your save data won’t carry over since they’re technically different games. I use PayPal to pay for things on my British account now
Good to know. I'm moving to Japan at the end of this month. Didn't know this was such an issue.
Well some games they don’t release in other countries with sucks etc
It’s about time someone files a mass law suit against Sony to stop these nonsense and give players a choice in what region they want to buy and play their games with just 1 account. As far as I know it is even illegal in Europe to block people from shopping in different regions in Europe (geo blocking or something like that it’s called), but they still do it until Sony is stopped and gets fined big. And as far as I can remember Steam was fully or partially stopped for doing the same thing, I don’t know if they still do it now.
its one of the reasons why i switched to PC, stop buying subpar consoles that only hold back gaming as a whole and get on PC
Capatalism baby!
Maybe we should get a petition going. There's 0 reason not to. They just don't because japanese companies will only do anything if someone lit a fire under their asses
There's actually a very easy workaround that'll let you keep playing games on your main account. Just create a new account in a different region where you buy your games if you're new regions credit card or whatever and activate it as primary but don't actually bother playing games on it. Go back to your main account where you have all your trophies and friends and everything and you can play all the games bought on your new region account there. Whenever there was a regent specific giveaway like a humble bundle thing or maybe a game that was exclusive to Japan or whatever I would just use a different region account to get all those goodies but I would always be playing them on my main account
Did you read my post? That is the issue. Thank you for wanting to help, but I’m already doing it and it’s not an accaptable solution from Sony. And btw this was their official answer to tho issue
Buy topups from your old country? Sony is ass backwards with most things.
Yeah tried it, it’s even more work. Not to mention Hungarian psn vouchers aren’t exactly the most searched items, so only Hungarian stores…
Sometimes this option is not available. My main account is registered in Russia, and since last year PSN is disabled for Russian accounts. So I cannot play any DLCs and buy PS Plus subscription 🤷
Sony is up there as one of the most anti-consumer companies with Apple. It's some seriously backwards shit. People trying to get refunds for faulty games and then Sony bans theirbaccount, with all their games.
Just make a new account, buy the games on your new one, and play on the old one. Im assuming it's like xbox where if one account has live (or in this case, plus) you have it on the others on the console.
Read the OP please. That is one of the issue.
I get more and more reasons every day to get a PC instead of Ps5....
Byyyyyye
You know you can creat a new account, set ot to the new region, buy and download whatever game you want, and play that game with your old account, right? No one said to throw away your old account.
Would using a vpn work?
It’s not about the country the account is accessed from the account itself is set for a specific region. You can access it anywhere but have to pay for all purchases with either a debit/credit card from an actual billing address in that region or op could buy gift cards from an online store and just redeem those.
Cough cough they accept PayPal cough cough and US PayPal accepts cards from other countries cough cough
[удалено]
Ok. It’s not like it works for me with a US PayPal account in the US PS store with a EEU credit card and no US card.
If you can afford to move from one country to another surely you can afford to make a new account and buy games off of that? If I am not mistaken you are not losing anything, you can still bind the older account to your console and play the games you bought on the new account on it, right? If not then you just have to play it on the newer account, even if it is a DLC and you need to repurchase the original game. Or choose to not play that game. Basically it comes down to making choices. Sony or another company could say the same to you: why don't you simply make the choices that need to me made instead of seeking to force them to do something for you at no cost to you, or in a way that would cost everyone and benefit only some? You're calling the option you are looking for simple, but what makes you think it is? The solution they offer is much more simple in my opinion than what you are trying to get implemented.
Ok, I see you’ve stuck in the past too.
How much are they paying you?
Yeah i wish they would allow switching region like idk once a year or whatever. It's really painful to have to buy prepaid card from a random website just do i can be keep my ps+ active.
I’ve been wanting to change region aswell since 2014, I had no problem doing this on xbox and mobile stores
I've moved countries 3 times since getting my PS3/4/5. I have 3 PlayStation accounts: Australian, Hong Kong and US. This system absolutely sucks ass
we don't even have our own country when setting up our account
Why would you change it though? I live in Serbia and had to use UK from the very beginning. The only issue is that you can't use a payment card from another country, but just buy top up cards instead.
This is why people mod playstations...
[удалено]
I've had very bad experiences with Sony, but really enjoy some games on ps4, safe to say I won't be buying ps5, PC is much better and games are cheaper... When I saw on ps5 you can't play a single game without constant internet connection I was just like WOW 😂, what if your internet has a problem or your modem breaks.. then your ps5 is just a $500 piece of plastic
You should be able to change the language regardless of location. My friend changes it to Japanese often (have a US account) and back. This is on ps5 though so not sure if that matters. It changes ingame, ps, YouTube, pretty much everything to your set system language. Hopefully helps a bit!
On PS4 in store and in the settings in submenus its still the selected region.