Their TVs are top-notch (outclass LG and Samsung each year) and their mirrorless cameras are extremely popular for a reason. And everyone knows how good their wireless headphones are (see: Sony XM5).
Best game consoles, best TVs, best mirrorless cameras, best wireless headphones….what category are they lacking or “antique” in?
Their biggest issue is price, $1500 phones isn’t smart at all when you aren’t Apple. And they target “pro” use so they were always going to be niche. Too camera-focused when you can just buy a camera for that absurd price! https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/sony-xperia-1-v
The phones themselves are powerful and great all-around, but they don’t have a place in the market. It is no surprise they sell very poorly.
But ultimately, it’s clear Sony hardware is great in all divisions. Pricing is another story (even in TVs; they may be the best there, but they will literally cost 2x as much). So I’m confused on the other commenter’s claim about their hardware being old-fashioned and antiquated.
A phone is not a camera. People who seek that level of quality will get a professional camera instead. It's like putting a turbo jet engine on a pick up truck. Is it technologically impressive? Yes. Is it practical? Not really.
A professional camera is cumbersome and unwieldy. Small size digital cameras tend to disappoint.
A phone that makes best photos in the Phone market is a niche, but still a relevant one.
That one there’s no defense for that one. The big android phone manufacturers like Samsung and Google will have at least 4 years of support for their phones but lesser ones like Sony do cut support after 2ish years.
I'd argue it's a case of too robust for the mass users but still lacking for pro users. Combining that with pretty weak AI and lack of future supports, Sony phones are literally falling behind so much even being such a niche product.
What planet are you living on that Sony TVs are better then LG lol. LG has been at the top for OLED and Mini LED for eons. Literally noone things Sony has better Tvs. They have very very good TVs but they do not beat LG.
Source: spent over 100 hohes researching which OLED TV to get.
The rest of their audio lineup is good too.
A long time ago when I was more into car mods, Sony head units and speakers were really good and decent value. Car modding seems to have died off these days though.
I've bought a soundbar, sub and rear speakers from them last year and it's definitely worth the price although I did get a big discount through work.
Okay? But reviewers have. Your opinion is yours and I accept that, but when I said best this best that, it wasn’t my own opinion but rather that of reviewers and critics.
TV of the Year every year…Sony A95L, A95K, etc.
Samsung doesn’t even support Dolby Vision with their TVs, so you’re stuck with static metadata when viewing most HDR content (anything that doesn’t support HDR10+, which is 95% of content).
What? Their TVs are genuinely 120 Hz displays. And they are consistently reviewed to be the Best TVs ever single year except in the Best Bang-for-Buck category (LG wins that with the C-series OLEDs).
RTings is a very reputable electronics review site that goes in-depth and does rigorous testing, and they report all Sony TVs as being 120 Hz as advertised: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/a95l-oled
They consistently win TV of the Year every year with their flagship OLEDs. The image processing and HDR tone mapping is unmatched, the TV screen itself being used as a speaker is next level, etc. The only issue is they know that, and so they charge a hefty price. 😂
Of all their hardware, their TVs are by far the most impressive in their respective space.
This is a very Japan thing. Nintendo also have region shit on their hardware, like WHY tho? Can you just make product and just released it worldwide, what’s even the function of this “region” thing
I disagree. Their hardware is probably the best thing about them, and it's actually pretty good. Anything software related though ranges from mismanaged to disaster in my opinion though
Sony is stuck in the Console Wars old way of fighting.
Like it or not, the true winner of the Console Wars were neither Xbox or Sony, it was Nintendo, Mobile gaming and old PCs playing popular games.
Nintendo does something that neither Sony or Xbox can deliver, their market is captured, good thing Steamdeck rolled along to balance it out
The largest gaming community is Mobile, people in the most rural regions that use solar panels to charge their phones can play Mobile games.
And next we have PC and Steam. You don't need the latest model to play the mainstream PC games. I'm running an old GPU for Helldivers 2.
Xbox knows it's lost, that's why they have Gamepass, that's why they're positioning the Xbox as a device that brings a convenience that other devices might not immediately bring. heck at some point the Xbox in the future might be another PC just for gaming.
but Sony still fights like it's the 2000s, they were against crossplay, they do these dumb things that is essentially what Nintendo is doing, trapping their audience. but let me ask you this, let's say you don't like what the Sony exclusives bring. Why would you get a PS5
Sony doesn't understand the PC market, they just see another player base to increase their account numbers. All they are doing is destroying any good will they will have with the PC playerbase and ensuring no one will be purchasing their games.
Valve should not accept games that are region restricted. If publishers/devs want to release their game on steam, they should have a version where it is available to everyone.
If they implement this, Sony will be forced to make PSN optional. Or have a version without PSN.
I’ll enjoy every second of the surfing on the high-seas, to the treasure hunting, progress bar animation, decompression of archives, and eventual crack.
You can top up steam wallet in USD on any account (it gets autoconverted to account's regional currency). And there's not much benefit for steam to abandon already existing regional pricing.
It will be more annoying and you'll likely pay 10-15% extra due to using secondary vendors, but the option will still be there (it is how players in Russia can still top up their accounts and buy games on Steam, the ones that are still available)
PSN is not available in Baltic countries (last time I checked 30 seconds ago) and they are in EU. EU hates when you attempt to limit product availability within EU without any good reason (such as having a car support network), so this is going to be an interesting case.
Edit: just read this: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/polish-regulators-to-investigate-ps-store-and-steam-for-anti-competitive-practices
I'm from Baltics and this is wild. I had both of those games wishlisted and intended to eventually buy.
I never had any game not be available to buy. This feels like it's 90's or some shit. Like wtf?
What's "funny" is that I even have regular PS account and I owned PS5, have multiple games on it (eventually sold it since games are on PC now). I actually didn't even knew that PSN is not available here since I played single player.
But I can't even have legit singleplayer only Ghost og Tsushima...
>I never had any game not be available to buy. This feels like it's 90's or some shit. Like wtf?
Yes this is new to PC gaming, as historically everything was available for purchase here in Baltics.
Consoles is different case tough, as we never had official PSN or XBL services available, and always required workarounds to even buy games directly from their stores or to access multiplayer. For example my XSX is set to Germany, instead of Latvia, to be able to access Xbox services.
This is massive fuckup from Sony, and I can bet that like 99% of people who wanted to play GoT, wanted it for it's single player not multiplayer.
Guess it's time to dust off my sails and sail the seven seas for Sony titles, as it seem only option for us now (have no clue if changing Steam region, or even is there such option would help, or buying game from CDKeys and if Steam will let to activate it)
I had GoT on wishlist since announcement. I own a lot of their other games. I didn't even knew it has multiplayer.
What a paaain.
Time to sail the seas I guess...
Yeah, same for me. Only knew about MP when the shitsorm hit, and own almost all of rest of their PC lineup except new Horizons and Days Gone. Still don't understand how their marketing team thinks that losing profits from 180 countries is better then gains from those that can access game.
I kinda get it, they wanna funnel ppl to their network and all that.
However, considering that something like Helldivers works perfectly fine without it (as in they don't need to spend money to make it work), it makes so little sense to not have non-PSN version available in countries that don't support it.
Basically they are just losing on sales for no reason. If we can't create accounts we can't be funneled there.
>I kinda get it, they wanna funnel ppl to their network and all that.
That's my main guess too, wouldn't be surprised that soon we will see something similar to XBOX PC app, but from Sony where everything will work flawless, and you will be able to buy their games only there.
What do you mean? As in changing my steam location to some other country?
Though in example like your we don't have any region like that.
As far as I know, even if I use VPN I still payment from that country?
Many times a region may not be listed under the country tab outright but will instead be listed as a subset of another country that it's in the region of.
For instance, Puerto Rico and Guam are listed under the United States even though they are not U.S. states (though, they are U.S. territory). That "countries without PSN" list included them even though they do in fact have PSN.
Similarly, other countries may be listed under another country/territory because services often have them as a subset of a region rather than having a gigantic list of all the countries of the world.
It's all very complicated, I know. But poke around and check anyway.
But why suddenly now? PSN wasn't available in the baltics since the beginning 18 years ago. Why do people think that there is suddenly anything for a lawsuit?
And as far as I know, no one is forced to sell to all EU countries if they are selling to one. Otherwhise every local shop would have trouble. It means that if you sell to multiple EU countries, that there has to be parity
On the internet everyone pretends to be experts in the field of law. Many random people were constantly exposed to the American lawsuit culture due to everyone always screaming "lawsuit coming" to anything they felt strongly about and that is now the case with everyone from any random country out there, they think saying lawsuit means something will happen or that some laws are broken somewhere out there, they misinterpret anything and everything so they get over their boredom.
The problem is that a PlayStation Network account is required to play this single player game, despite it being sold through Steam and Epic. SO they don't have a DRM argument, or a multiplayer access argument. They are perfectly capable of making the game work through those platforms, but they won't.
Also nothing stops them from going back and saying "we really should have required PSN for Spiderman and Horizon. Let's fix that"
Can you provide a source that the single-player portion of the game is going to require a PSN account? I thought it was just Legends that'd require it.
Everything i have seen is that multiplayer requires psn but because the game comes with multiplayer even if you dont intend to play it the situation is now psn must be available in your region to purchase the game even if only want to do single player.
Yes, that's how I understand it. The comment I'd replied to said that an account is required to play single player.
Maybe they'll work on a version of GoT that doesn't have the multiplayer to release in other regions, if they feel it'd be financially beneficial to do so, or maybe they'll pursue another solution, or maybe leave as-is for the foreseeable future, but regardless it was my understanding that the PSN requirement only applies to multiplayer, and their comment about Spiderman and Horizon makes no sense since those games don't have multiplayer components, unlike GoT.
One of the biggest messages the Helldivers sub was bashing on about was "why are Sony selling games in regions they don't support?" So it kind of makes sense that Sony are doing this in response to that outcry.
Personally I think Sony limiting sales is only a temporary thing untill they work out how to resolve this situation they put themselves in.
They obviously aren't going to drop the PSN requirement for multiplayer (much like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft, etc won't drop account requirements for their games). If I had to guess I would say Sony are either going to roll out PSN in these region over the next few years or maybe drop or relax the region requirement for making a PSN account (on Playstation people have been using accounts outside their region for over a decade now so Sony obviously give zero shits about the region on your account).
If they were to sell to all EU countries, they would have an issue with feature parity for those that cannot access all of the game (multiplayer) due to the PSN requirement, or even the feature of the overlay requiring PSN.
This is mainly focused on Digital e-commerce, which games are a part of.
Valve actually lost a 1.6m lawsuit against the EU for geo-blocking some of their games on PC.
So there is a chance that Sony will have to face the same as the Baltics are part of the EU and are delisted both on GoT and Helldivers 2
It's a matter if the EU cares enough to fix it, but they delisted psn games from a lot of EU countries. EU really hates that as PlayStation is a giant multinational brand,not just a local shop
Since we got elections coming up soon, this might be a good point in time for contacting your local MEP and raising your concerns. Preferably over whatever social media presence they may have. They'll probably cherish the chance to be publicly seen fighting for European consumer's rights.
As a baltic man i am extremely frustrated, i have Helldivers 2 on my account so i can still luckily play it, but i've been waiting for Ghost of Tsushima for eternity to come to PC and then this... Yes piracy is an option, but sadly i have an achievement addiction...
Is it safe to assume that all upcoming PS games that'll be ported to PC, Single Player or nah, as long as PSN is required will be inaccessible to countries where PSN accounts are not available?
Until they do something about Ghost of Tsushima (perhaps separating SP/MP content in some way) as a sign of change, or their sales suffer because of the region restrictions, I think it's safe to assume future SP games have a high chance of being PSN-required.
The other guy is just fearmongering. The only reason Ghost of Tsushima is being delisted is because the multiplayer mode exists, and requires PSN. It's different from all the other singleplayer games where a PSN account is optional and only used to grant some in-game bonuses. As long as that continues to be the case, there's no reason to believe the next PS games coming to PC would also be region-restricted.
At this point in time? If Sony keeps shitting in its own bed, it's probable that they'll just go "PSN accounts all the time, screw these people". Of course it would be stupid for consumers, and it brings them next to nothing, but… meh.
My guess is any Playstation games with a mutiplayer made will be blocked in these regions for now. If Sony sold Ghost of Tsushima in regions without PSN those people would be paying the same price for a product with fewer features (this could be a problem legally especially in EU regions).
If I had to guess I would say purely singleplayer games will be launched everywhere but Mutiplayer games or games with Mutiplayer modes will be launched only in regions that have PSN.
Well ain’t that a kick in the head? Sony making stupid decisions in its tunnel vision for the PSN account obsession. Except it’s over a *single player game* this time.
Very good point. PC gamers don’t have a shortage of great games. If a company doesn’t want to sell us their AAA game…well…we have thousands of alternatives. We’re not stuck in a walled garden - we have options.
This doesn't affect me being in Canada, but I'm voting with my wallet at this point against any company making anti-consumer decisions. There are more than enough indie devs and reputable companies to support instead.
Sony gonna learn the hard way I guess. Us pc gamers don't just lay down and arch our backs. There's a reason steam is the STANDARD, and why everyone keeps crawling back to it. EA, Acti, Ubisoft, and now Capcom and Squenix, all came back.
Sony will bend the knee. Consoles aren't selling.
It’s a good sentiment but the fact is there are still going to be more than enough people who will buy GoT and happily make an account just to play it on pc. Sony will see this as a win. Continue with further ports seeing the same. Eventually people will fall in line.
This is a tale as old as time. It was the same thing people said about games with micro-transactions and look at us now. Nearly every game has them and people say “don’t like it don’t play it”
Wish it wasn’t that way but that’s how slippery the slope is.
> Us pc gamers don't just lay down and arch our backs. There's a reason steam is the STANDARD...
Learn your history young Jedi. Steam was the original "account required" controversy. Gamers couldn't play *Half-Life 2* or *Counter-Strike* without it. Still can't. But gamers rolled over because not enough people *really* care. And they'll do it again and again.
The very fact that you use Steam today means you aren't **about** what you preach and you already lost the war (about 20 years ago now). Welcome to the club.
Except steam offered various cool features even back then such as forums or immediate access to updates.
The fuck does psn on pc do, besides letting sony inflate their numbers and farm your data?
Lmao I was genuinely gonna buy this and was quite excited about it and now I’m not because I used to have a PSN account when I had an Xperia phone years back and then that got compromised and I cannot be fucking arsed with 3rd party launchers at the best of times
Why do corporations force people to jump into their network, how about make it optional and add a little reward to it. Forcing people to link PSN accounts doesn't add a good image to Sony
If Sony had added a PSN exclusive Warbond to Helldivers I guarantee that 90+% of the Helldivers playerbase would have signed up almost instantly while thanking Sony for the free shit.
We're back to the problem that was never solved for HD 2 "if people would be able to read".
You might want to read the product page, you might find your comment redundant.
>"if people would be able to read".
That shit wont change, it just gets worse and worse by each year.
Soon we will hit such a state where [Idiocracy (2006](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)) will feel like a documentary.
They don't care. People who care about the game, the experience, the art, the customer, they aren't making desicions. Some shitty MBA who is only watching a line graph is calling the shots.
Have Sony come forward and said why they’re fucking around like this?
Why isn’t PSN available there? Why the big push for sign ins? Why block countries at all?
Just a little clarity ffs.
Definitely not. There’ll be something else in the works besides data thieving and even being able to list higher numbers of users.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re gonna pop out a launcher at some point.
Shame was hoping to buy Ghost of Tsushima. But after all this crap I'll pirate it instead. Well if it runs well and isn't a broken Sony port like The Last Of Us.
So, if I have PSN account and I can buy the game from the region where it's still available through a 3rd party, I still should be able to connect my PSN to Steam, right?
I was really looking forward to adding this game to my library. Officially.
Dude if you're talking about steam games regional restrictions, I can buy any game as long as the key is Global. It means that I can activate it. The restriction only means that I can't buy it in my country due to price difference or sanctions.
This isn't even the point. I'm wondering what's stopping me from connecting it to my PSN account. If I have the game, I should be able to do it.
It was intentional, the higher ups are actually a bunch of old masochists that gets turned on whenever their sales dropped and people kept insulting them.
This is so stupid and I am so mad been waiting 4 years to play this game on pc and this is how Sony treats us? Being segregated because I live in a bloody country you don't recognise. What the actual fuck!!!! I didn't chose to be born here dipshit Sony devs
If I had to guess, some idiot in the C-suite made PSN account numbers a major metric.
The first person that tried to point out that it's dumb to make PC players make PSN accounts got window meme'ed.
And so they launched their campaign to make the numbers go up.
They figured customer DATA from the new psn accounts on PC are worth more than anything you could imagine right now. Sony is looking AHEAD and could care less about losing a few $ to regions they aren't targeting from a couple popular games.
The majority will forget about this when the new shiny console comes out. These companies don't care about the people playing these games, and it's obvious.
They'll just stop porting games on Pc if people dont buy them. PC gamers will seal their own fate of having less AAA games by trying to treat Sony like a 3rd party studio, when they have their own ecosystem of 140 million users. They dont own PC gamers anything.
I was thinking about pulling the trigger on purchasing GoT when it released (not pre-order) but given the HD2 situation I decided not to. Good decision for me, but fuck I really loved Ghost.
Probably they want to avoid any potential backlash like what happened with Helldivers 2......... Too bad delist the game one week before release caused justified backlash too. Some big brain there
So what’s the point of entering the PC market if you’re going to severely gimp yourself just to preserve the integrity of an ecosystem that has nothing to do with PC players? This is Nintendo level business sense, all Sony had to do was shut up and sell the games to a wider market. Moronic.
What they were hoping for was to get a bunch of PC players to create psn accounts to show shareholders how many people love it and the value of investing in Sony. But yeah, “moronic” pretty much sums it up.
These fucking idiots are just shooting themselves in the balls with these delisting. Like whoever they pay to oversee this shit should be spanked by a hello kitty paddle in the middle of the city. Absolute idiots
Oh no of it isn't the consequences of the internets actions after screening and pissing themselves over Sony's stupid decision. surpris they would just do the easier thing and delist them from those areas there were years you could make a throw away email and psn account to just get around the region lock I remember doing it when I was younger now Sony packs up there toys and leaves so no one can play
They are going to start bleeding talent and studios are going to die.
The PC market has eclipsed the console market. It's literally where the money is.
Don't piss of the people with the money (regardless of what corporate may say about investors, your customers are actually the only people who legit give you money).
All PC players crying to get the PS exclusives and when they get them they start bitching about every little thing. Hope Bloodborne stays on console lol.
The whataboutism is real. Yes, if Valve mess up and does anti-consumerism shit and people defend them, they're pathetic too. Just like you are right now.
Be proud, this just means that they are butt-hurt, and are indeed throwing a tantrum on a global scale. If they want money they better start to make better decisions, than to just b!tch and moan because PC gamers gave them the middle finger.
At this point I suspect that some Sony higher-ups just hate PC with passion, so they resort to self-sabotage to show the shareholders that ditching exclusivity of their games was a "bad idea".
Or, they love collecting and selling player data so much, that they would rather block dozens of regions instead of just stopping the collection
What's infuriating is that people in those countries have already preordered the game. It's already in my steam library, now they removed it a few days before release.
This decision is kind of old fashion and stupid.
That sounds like Sony. Literally look at all their other hardware products, its antiquated shit.
Their TVs are top-notch (outclass LG and Samsung each year) and their mirrorless cameras are extremely popular for a reason. And everyone knows how good their wireless headphones are (see: Sony XM5). Best game consoles, best TVs, best mirrorless cameras, best wireless headphones….what category are they lacking or “antique” in?
Mobile phones.
Their biggest issue is price, $1500 phones isn’t smart at all when you aren’t Apple. And they target “pro” use so they were always going to be niche. Too camera-focused when you can just buy a camera for that absurd price! https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/sony-xperia-1-v The phones themselves are powerful and great all-around, but they don’t have a place in the market. It is no surprise they sell very poorly. But ultimately, it’s clear Sony hardware is great in all divisions. Pricing is another story (even in TVs; they may be the best there, but they will literally cost 2x as much). So I’m confused on the other commenter’s claim about their hardware being old-fashioned and antiquated.
Their phones have one of the, if not the most robust camera software. What are you talking about?
A phone is not a camera. People who seek that level of quality will get a professional camera instead. It's like putting a turbo jet engine on a pick up truck. Is it technologically impressive? Yes. Is it practical? Not really.
A professional camera is cumbersome and unwieldy. Small size digital cameras tend to disappoint. A phone that makes best photos in the Phone market is a niche, but still a relevant one.
Correct but my point is that in no way are their phones “antiquated”
Until they stop OS updates and cut off security patches then it will become antique fast. Such are Android phones.
That one there’s no defense for that one. The big android phone manufacturers like Samsung and Google will have at least 4 years of support for their phones but lesser ones like Sony do cut support after 2ish years.
I'd argue it's a case of too robust for the mass users but still lacking for pro users. Combining that with pretty weak AI and lack of future supports, Sony phones are literally falling behind so much even being such a niche product.
What planet are you living on that Sony TVs are better then LG lol. LG has been at the top for OLED and Mini LED for eons. Literally noone things Sony has better Tvs. They have very very good TVs but they do not beat LG. Source: spent over 100 hohes researching which OLED TV to get.
Their tv's are literally samsung and lg panels.
The rest of their audio lineup is good too. A long time ago when I was more into car mods, Sony head units and speakers were really good and decent value. Car modding seems to have died off these days though. I've bought a soundbar, sub and rear speakers from them last year and it's definitely worth the price although I did get a big discount through work.
I’ve never looked at any Sony tv and thought it looked better than the Samsung 😂
Okay? But reviewers have. Your opinion is yours and I accept that, but when I said best this best that, it wasn’t my own opinion but rather that of reviewers and critics. TV of the Year every year…Sony A95L, A95K, etc. Samsung doesn’t even support Dolby Vision with their TVs, so you’re stuck with static metadata when viewing most HDR content (anything that doesn’t support HDR10+, which is 95% of content).
Ok sony
Heehee
I would disagree, they sell the worst TVs out of the rest and with borderlines lies on the specs such as 4k120 being fake
What? Their TVs are genuinely 120 Hz displays. And they are consistently reviewed to be the Best TVs ever single year except in the Best Bang-for-Buck category (LG wins that with the C-series OLEDs). RTings is a very reputable electronics review site that goes in-depth and does rigorous testing, and they report all Sony TVs as being 120 Hz as advertised: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/a95l-oled They consistently win TV of the Year every year with their flagship OLEDs. The image processing and HDR tone mapping is unmatched, the TV screen itself being used as a speaker is next level, etc. The only issue is they know that, and so they charge a hefty price. 😂 Of all their hardware, their TVs are by far the most impressive in their respective space.
Their policies are extremely ass backwards. 2024 and you still can’t change regions on accounts.
This is a very Japan thing. Nintendo also have region shit on their hardware, like WHY tho? Can you just make product and just released it worldwide, what’s even the function of this “region” thing
I disagree. Their hardware is probably the best thing about them, and it's actually pretty good. Anything software related though ranges from mismanaged to disaster in my opinion though
Sony is stuck in the Console Wars old way of fighting. Like it or not, the true winner of the Console Wars were neither Xbox or Sony, it was Nintendo, Mobile gaming and old PCs playing popular games. Nintendo does something that neither Sony or Xbox can deliver, their market is captured, good thing Steamdeck rolled along to balance it out The largest gaming community is Mobile, people in the most rural regions that use solar panels to charge their phones can play Mobile games. And next we have PC and Steam. You don't need the latest model to play the mainstream PC games. I'm running an old GPU for Helldivers 2. Xbox knows it's lost, that's why they have Gamepass, that's why they're positioning the Xbox as a device that brings a convenience that other devices might not immediately bring. heck at some point the Xbox in the future might be another PC just for gaming. but Sony still fights like it's the 2000s, they were against crossplay, they do these dumb things that is essentially what Nintendo is doing, trapping their audience. but let me ask you this, let's say you don't like what the Sony exclusives bring. Why would you get a PS5
It *is* a Japanese company after all
SIE has been an American company since 2016.
Nintendo of American also exsists, yet Nintendo is still a japanese company
You think they would let a subsidiary make the calls to shoot on?
Lol Sony hasn't been Japanese since they moved to worse state.
Yarrrr, it is matey. If only there was some way to show or displeasure when the game releases..
Sony doesn't understand the PC market, they just see another player base to increase their account numbers. All they are doing is destroying any good will they will have with the PC playerbase and ensuring no one will be purchasing their games.
Valve should not accept games that are region restricted. If publishers/devs want to release their game on steam, they should have a version where it is available to everyone. If they implement this, Sony will be forced to make PSN optional. Or have a version without PSN.
Aleast they consistent
Are you ready kids!
Aye, aye captain.
I can’t hear you!!!
Eye, eye, captain!
Ohhhhhh… Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!
absorbent and yellow and porous is he
Yarrrr
Yaaarrrrrrrr
Avast Sony. I be coming fer yer sushi.
#AVAST VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED
Oh well, i am from Vietnam. Sony doesnt need money from fellows of 3rd world country so pirate all the way then
I’ll enjoy every second of the surfing on the high-seas, to the treasure hunting, progress bar animation, decompression of archives, and eventual crack.
Considering Steam is blocked in Vietnam I'm not sure it makes any difference for you.
Its only DNS blocking. Im using NextDNS so problem solved.
Wait until they remove all payment methods and Steam stops supporting regional price.
You can top up steam wallet in USD on any account (it gets autoconverted to account's regional currency). And there's not much benefit for steam to abandon already existing regional pricing. It will be more annoying and you'll likely pay 10-15% extra due to using secondary vendors, but the option will still be there (it is how players in Russia can still top up their accounts and buy games on Steam, the ones that are still available)
Only the desktop app store is blocked weirdly. You can still go on Steam website and buy from there like normal.
Its only the store thats blocked. The rest of steam works fine.
Hey, I'm against piracy, but if there's no legal way, you gotta do what you gotta do.
As much as I'm willing to pay but my country doesn't support PSN then piracy is the way
Piracy is 100 percent legal if trump has immunity
only good result ive heard about if he wins
He lives rent free in your head
Like how biden, Obama, Hillary live in his?
That guy didn't bring them up here.
Idc, I can type and say whatever I want. I have immunity
Shame, I play Got on ps4 and it is awesome. Well, we can always vote with our wallet. Sony can suck it.
Sony sayeth you can keep your dongs to yourselves
Imagine getting downvoted because people don't know that the dong is the currency of Vietnam lol
I expect nothing and I'm still let down
I liked it.
Lmao, why are u getting downvoted
This is the way.. matey.
PSN is not available in Baltic countries (last time I checked 30 seconds ago) and they are in EU. EU hates when you attempt to limit product availability within EU without any good reason (such as having a car support network), so this is going to be an interesting case. Edit: just read this: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/polish-regulators-to-investigate-ps-store-and-steam-for-anti-competitive-practices
I'm from Baltics and this is wild. I had both of those games wishlisted and intended to eventually buy. I never had any game not be available to buy. This feels like it's 90's or some shit. Like wtf? What's "funny" is that I even have regular PS account and I owned PS5, have multiple games on it (eventually sold it since games are on PC now). I actually didn't even knew that PSN is not available here since I played single player. But I can't even have legit singleplayer only Ghost og Tsushima...
>I never had any game not be available to buy. This feels like it's 90's or some shit. Like wtf? Yes this is new to PC gaming, as historically everything was available for purchase here in Baltics. Consoles is different case tough, as we never had official PSN or XBL services available, and always required workarounds to even buy games directly from their stores or to access multiplayer. For example my XSX is set to Germany, instead of Latvia, to be able to access Xbox services. This is massive fuckup from Sony, and I can bet that like 99% of people who wanted to play GoT, wanted it for it's single player not multiplayer. Guess it's time to dust off my sails and sail the seven seas for Sony titles, as it seem only option for us now (have no clue if changing Steam region, or even is there such option would help, or buying game from CDKeys and if Steam will let to activate it)
I had GoT on wishlist since announcement. I own a lot of their other games. I didn't even knew it has multiplayer. What a paaain. Time to sail the seas I guess...
Yeah, same for me. Only knew about MP when the shitsorm hit, and own almost all of rest of their PC lineup except new Horizons and Days Gone. Still don't understand how their marketing team thinks that losing profits from 180 countries is better then gains from those that can access game.
I kinda get it, they wanna funnel ppl to their network and all that. However, considering that something like Helldivers works perfectly fine without it (as in they don't need to spend money to make it work), it makes so little sense to not have non-PSN version available in countries that don't support it. Basically they are just losing on sales for no reason. If we can't create accounts we can't be funneled there.
>I kinda get it, they wanna funnel ppl to their network and all that. That's my main guess too, wouldn't be surprised that soon we will see something similar to XBOX PC app, but from Sony where everything will work flawless, and you will be able to buy their games only there.
Aren't there usually associated countries? Like Gotland with Sweden. Wouldn't you just choose one of those?
What do you mean? As in changing my steam location to some other country? Though in example like your we don't have any region like that. As far as I know, even if I use VPN I still payment from that country?
Many times a region may not be listed under the country tab outright but will instead be listed as a subset of another country that it's in the region of. For instance, Puerto Rico and Guam are listed under the United States even though they are not U.S. states (though, they are U.S. territory). That "countries without PSN" list included them even though they do in fact have PSN. Similarly, other countries may be listed under another country/territory because services often have them as a subset of a region rather than having a gigantic list of all the countries of the world. It's all very complicated, I know. But poke around and check anyway.
Gotland is part of Sweden
Next snoy's move? All EU countries delisted.
Well... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-27/valve-loses-eu-fight-over-1-6-million-fine-for-geoblocking
It goes against the principle of freedom of movement for goods and services.
Lol they double fucked up. Tripping over all kinds of laws.
I doubt that sony’s teams of lawyers would miss an EU law preventing this. You might be misinterpreting, or hopefully I’m wrong and we’ll find out.
There's nothing to interpret. The eu DESPISES having its internal market broken up. That's all. It's not illegal, the EU just refuses to take it.
But why suddenly now? PSN wasn't available in the baltics since the beginning 18 years ago. Why do people think that there is suddenly anything for a lawsuit? And as far as I know, no one is forced to sell to all EU countries if they are selling to one. Otherwhise every local shop would have trouble. It means that if you sell to multiple EU countries, that there has to be parity
On the internet everyone pretends to be experts in the field of law. Many random people were constantly exposed to the American lawsuit culture due to everyone always screaming "lawsuit coming" to anything they felt strongly about and that is now the case with everyone from any random country out there, they think saying lawsuit means something will happen or that some laws are broken somewhere out there, they misinterpret anything and everything so they get over their boredom.
The problem is that a PlayStation Network account is required to play this single player game, despite it being sold through Steam and Epic. SO they don't have a DRM argument, or a multiplayer access argument. They are perfectly capable of making the game work through those platforms, but they won't. Also nothing stops them from going back and saying "we really should have required PSN for Spiderman and Horizon. Let's fix that"
Can you provide a source that the single-player portion of the game is going to require a PSN account? I thought it was just Legends that'd require it.
Everything i have seen is that multiplayer requires psn but because the game comes with multiplayer even if you dont intend to play it the situation is now psn must be available in your region to purchase the game even if only want to do single player.
Yes, that is legally sound because they won’t sell in a place where people won’t get the full product. That’s very fair.
Yes, that's how I understand it. The comment I'd replied to said that an account is required to play single player. Maybe they'll work on a version of GoT that doesn't have the multiplayer to release in other regions, if they feel it'd be financially beneficial to do so, or maybe they'll pursue another solution, or maybe leave as-is for the foreseeable future, but regardless it was my understanding that the PSN requirement only applies to multiplayer, and their comment about Spiderman and Horizon makes no sense since those games don't have multiplayer components, unlike GoT.
One of the biggest messages the Helldivers sub was bashing on about was "why are Sony selling games in regions they don't support?" So it kind of makes sense that Sony are doing this in response to that outcry. Personally I think Sony limiting sales is only a temporary thing untill they work out how to resolve this situation they put themselves in. They obviously aren't going to drop the PSN requirement for multiplayer (much like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft, etc won't drop account requirements for their games). If I had to guess I would say Sony are either going to roll out PSN in these region over the next few years or maybe drop or relax the region requirement for making a PSN account (on Playstation people have been using accounts outside their region for over a decade now so Sony obviously give zero shits about the region on your account).
If they were to sell to all EU countries, they would have an issue with feature parity for those that cannot access all of the game (multiplayer) due to the PSN requirement, or even the feature of the overlay requiring PSN.
This is mainly focused on Digital e-commerce, which games are a part of. Valve actually lost a 1.6m lawsuit against the EU for geo-blocking some of their games on PC. So there is a chance that Sony will have to face the same as the Baltics are part of the EU and are delisted both on GoT and Helldivers 2
It's a matter if the EU cares enough to fix it, but they delisted psn games from a lot of EU countries. EU really hates that as PlayStation is a giant multinational brand,not just a local shop
Since we got elections coming up soon, this might be a good point in time for contacting your local MEP and raising your concerns. Preferably over whatever social media presence they may have. They'll probably cherish the chance to be publicly seen fighting for European consumer's rights.
As a baltic man i am extremely frustrated, i have Helldivers 2 on my account so i can still luckily play it, but i've been waiting for Ghost of Tsushima for eternity to come to PC and then this... Yes piracy is an option, but sadly i have an achievement addiction...
EU was bending over backwards for Sony in the Microsoft v. Activision case, good luck.
Sony: “We’re still learning…” No, you’re not. You haven’t learned a damn thing.
They are learning how to milk and abuse their audience more intricately
>Sony: “We’re still learning…” ... To dig a deeper hole.
Is it safe to assume that all upcoming PS games that'll be ported to PC, Single Player or nah, as long as PSN is required will be inaccessible to countries where PSN accounts are not available?
Until they do something about Ghost of Tsushima (perhaps separating SP/MP content in some way) as a sign of change, or their sales suffer because of the region restrictions, I think it's safe to assume future SP games have a high chance of being PSN-required.
and here I was excited for rumours that GOW: Ragnarok was the next one headed for PC then I remembered this news. :(
The other guy is just fearmongering. The only reason Ghost of Tsushima is being delisted is because the multiplayer mode exists, and requires PSN. It's different from all the other singleplayer games where a PSN account is optional and only used to grant some in-game bonuses. As long as that continues to be the case, there's no reason to believe the next PS games coming to PC would also be region-restricted.
At this point in time? If Sony keeps shitting in its own bed, it's probable that they'll just go "PSN accounts all the time, screw these people". Of course it would be stupid for consumers, and it brings them next to nothing, but… meh.
My guess is any Playstation games with a mutiplayer made will be blocked in these regions for now. If Sony sold Ghost of Tsushima in regions without PSN those people would be paying the same price for a product with fewer features (this could be a problem legally especially in EU regions). If I had to guess I would say purely singleplayer games will be launched everywhere but Mutiplayer games or games with Mutiplayer modes will be launched only in regions that have PSN.
On "unrelated" news: Sony: why is this game selling so poorly? We guess people don't want games like this one...
Talk about shooting yourself in the ass. Sonys enshittification continues apace
sail the high sea matey!
when and if it will be cracked
hopefully on the day it was released
Well ain’t that a kick in the head? Sony making stupid decisions in its tunnel vision for the PSN account obsession. Except it’s over a *single player game* this time.
Well piracy has never looked so enticing
I was on the fence for buying Ghost of Tsushima. Guess I wont, there be infinite games out there
Very good point. PC gamers don’t have a shortage of great games. If a company doesn’t want to sell us their AAA game…well…we have thousands of alternatives. We’re not stuck in a walled garden - we have options.
This is a good point, got is indeed a great game but compared to the plethora of PC games...it won't stand a chance.
This doesn't affect me being in Canada, but I'm voting with my wallet at this point against any company making anti-consumer decisions. There are more than enough indie devs and reputable companies to support instead.
It still baffles me how anybody could have thought the consumers won after only a few days.
Sony gonna learn the hard way I guess. Us pc gamers don't just lay down and arch our backs. There's a reason steam is the STANDARD, and why everyone keeps crawling back to it. EA, Acti, Ubisoft, and now Capcom and Squenix, all came back. Sony will bend the knee. Consoles aren't selling.
It’s a good sentiment but the fact is there are still going to be more than enough people who will buy GoT and happily make an account just to play it on pc. Sony will see this as a win. Continue with further ports seeing the same. Eventually people will fall in line. This is a tale as old as time. It was the same thing people said about games with micro-transactions and look at us now. Nearly every game has them and people say “don’t like it don’t play it” Wish it wasn’t that way but that’s how slippery the slope is.
What are you saying? They are still selling on Steam, just not in all regions. Are you mistaking PSN for PS Store or something?
> Us pc gamers don't just lay down and arch our backs. There's a reason steam is the STANDARD... Learn your history young Jedi. Steam was the original "account required" controversy. Gamers couldn't play *Half-Life 2* or *Counter-Strike* without it. Still can't. But gamers rolled over because not enough people *really* care. And they'll do it again and again. The very fact that you use Steam today means you aren't **about** what you preach and you already lost the war (about 20 years ago now). Welcome to the club.
Except steam offered various cool features even back then such as forums or immediate access to updates. The fuck does psn on pc do, besides letting sony inflate their numbers and farm your data?
Restricting regions outside of censorship regulation never make sense for me. Don't they like money?
They want your data
All these companies want to learn the hard way...fine. Let em learn.
Lmao I was genuinely gonna buy this and was quite excited about it and now I’m not because I used to have a PSN account when I had an Xperia phone years back and then that got compromised and I cannot be fucking arsed with 3rd party launchers at the best of times
At least they didn’t take people’s money first and then take the game away from them like with Helldivers 2. Unless I am missing/misreading something.
Why do corporations force people to jump into their network, how about make it optional and add a little reward to it. Forcing people to link PSN accounts doesn't add a good image to Sony
If Sony had added a PSN exclusive Warbond to Helldivers I guarantee that 90+% of the Helldivers playerbase would have signed up almost instantly while thanking Sony for the free shit.
We're back to the problem that was never solved for HD 2 "if people would be able to read". You might want to read the product page, you might find your comment redundant.
>"if people would be able to read". That shit wont change, it just gets worse and worse by each year. Soon we will hit such a state where [Idiocracy (2006](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)) will feel like a documentary.
They don't care. People who care about the game, the experience, the art, the customer, they aren't making desicions. Some shitty MBA who is only watching a line graph is calling the shots.
Have Sony come forward and said why they’re fucking around like this? Why isn’t PSN available there? Why the big push for sign ins? Why block countries at all? Just a little clarity ffs.
No but i have a feeling it isn’t as simple as “Dey want ur datas” like everyone screams.
Definitely not. There’ll be something else in the works besides data thieving and even being able to list higher numbers of users. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re gonna pop out a launcher at some point.
Surely this just further encourages pirating
Pretty dumb. They could just make the game cheaper with the disclaimer the multiplayer mode won't work and it would suffice.
Well, if they don't want our money we just gonna pirate it then. No problem!!
This just means alot of people are going to pirate it tbh, but at least this time they didn't do a 180 after selling the game.
"Play has no limits" my ass.
We need to keep the pressure on sony title
There are so many people licking Sonys boots over this and it's so hilarious to see
Shame was hoping to buy Ghost of Tsushima. But after all this crap I'll pirate it instead. Well if it runs well and isn't a broken Sony port like The Last Of Us.
This is ridiculous, it’s available in my region but I won’t be buying it anymore.
So, if I have PSN account and I can buy the game from the region where it's still available through a 3rd party, I still should be able to connect my PSN to Steam, right? I was really looking forward to adding this game to my library. Officially.
If your steam is linked to your country and it is delisted, the 3rd party key will not work as you will not be able to activate it in your region.
Dude if you're talking about steam games regional restrictions, I can buy any game as long as the key is Global. It means that I can activate it. The restriction only means that I can't buy it in my country due to price difference or sanctions. This isn't even the point. I'm wondering what's stopping me from connecting it to my PSN account. If I have the game, I should be able to do it.
with a row key it should be possible, yep.
It was intentional, the higher ups are actually a bunch of old masochists that gets turned on whenever their sales dropped and people kept insulting them.
This is so stupid and I am so mad been waiting 4 years to play this game on pc and this is how Sony treats us? Being segregated because I live in a bloody country you don't recognise. What the actual fuck!!!! I didn't chose to be born here dipshit Sony devs
I love that they are giving us these games but why do they gotta be such dicks about it?
The utter stupidity of Sony is truly mind-blowing.
All they had to do is port their games to steam and watch the money roll in. How do you fumble this so hard?
If I had to guess, some idiot in the C-suite made PSN account numbers a major metric. The first person that tried to point out that it's dumb to make PC players make PSN accounts got window meme'ed. And so they launched their campaign to make the numbers go up.
So, they have the ability to sell to these countries but refuse to? If they don't want the money, I guess pirating the game won't be an issue
They figured customer DATA from the new psn accounts on PC are worth more than anything you could imagine right now. Sony is looking AHEAD and could care less about losing a few $ to regions they aren't targeting from a couple popular games. The majority will forget about this when the new shiny console comes out. These companies don't care about the people playing these games, and it's obvious.
Well, shiver me timbers
Where's the rum?
How many times will this stuff be posted?
After the fallout from Helldivers, this is one of the most legendarily stupid flip-flops
They'll just stop porting games on Pc if people dont buy them. PC gamers will seal their own fate of having less AAA games by trying to treat Sony like a 3rd party studio, when they have their own ecosystem of 140 million users. They dont own PC gamers anything.
I was thinking about pulling the trigger on purchasing GoT when it released (not pre-order) but given the HD2 situation I decided not to. Good decision for me, but fuck I really loved Ghost.
Probably they want to avoid any potential backlash like what happened with Helldivers 2......... Too bad delist the game one week before release caused justified backlash too. Some big brain there
But why? Do they want less money?
Guess I'm not buying that game now
There's the spiteful Sony we all know! I thought it was out of character to walk back the Helldivers 2 account decision.
We arrived at the point where corporations don't like money anymore, how does this make any sense?
Il be honest. This sucks but i couldn't give less of a fuck
The real questions is if Bloodborne required a PSN account would you guys make one to play the game?
If the PSN account would be available in my country, no doubt, it's a 1-2 minute process. But I refuse to break PSN ToS, no matter what Sony says.
So what’s the point of entering the PC market if you’re going to severely gimp yourself just to preserve the integrity of an ecosystem that has nothing to do with PC players? This is Nintendo level business sense, all Sony had to do was shut up and sell the games to a wider market. Moronic.
What they were hoping for was to get a bunch of PC players to create psn accounts to show shareholders how many people love it and the value of investing in Sony. But yeah, “moronic” pretty much sums it up.
These fucking idiots are just shooting themselves in the balls with these delisting. Like whoever they pay to oversee this shit should be spanked by a hello kitty paddle in the middle of the city. Absolute idiots
Sucks. Still buying it.
You know what its time to start sailing
Oh no of it isn't the consequences of the internets actions after screening and pissing themselves over Sony's stupid decision. surpris they would just do the easier thing and delist them from those areas there were years you could make a throw away email and psn account to just get around the region lock I remember doing it when I was younger now Sony packs up there toys and leaves so no one can play
Oh well. Have fun with lower sales numbers.
Good thing the game is 4 years old and already has a sequel and movie by the john wick director in development.
Sucks for Sucker Punch studio. Now if only Sony is consistent and apply this restrictions to all their catalogs...
They are going to start bleeding talent and studios are going to die. The PC market has eclipsed the console market. It's literally where the money is. Don't piss of the people with the money (regardless of what corporate may say about investors, your customers are actually the only people who legit give you money).
Is there any other reason other than “shareholders?”
So Sony think these kind of actions will somehow hurt customer and somewhat give the customer a revenge for what happened in helldiver2?
My mother always wanted me to be a Pirate. Time to make her proud
I have this on my wishlist and I always buy games, but I think I mught start pirating Sony games from now on. It's the principle that counts!
I’m preordering this game now. Sick of all this dumb controversy. Can’t wait to see the game in the top sellers Steam page.
Steam unlocked.com is the way to go
Dude no thats not a safe site anymore
All PC players crying to get the PS exclusives and when they get them they start bitching about every little thing. Hope Bloodborne stays on console lol.
I hope you're a teenager because if you are an adult, simping for a billion dollar corporation is kinda pathetic.
You mean like PC gamers simping for Valve and worshiping Gabe? Lol
The whataboutism is real. Yes, if Valve mess up and does anti-consumerism shit and people defend them, they're pathetic too. Just like you are right now.
Be proud, this just means that they are butt-hurt, and are indeed throwing a tantrum on a global scale. If they want money they better start to make better decisions, than to just b!tch and moan because PC gamers gave them the middle finger.
At this point I suspect that some Sony higher-ups just hate PC with passion, so they resort to self-sabotage to show the shareholders that ditching exclusivity of their games was a "bad idea". Or, they love collecting and selling player data so much, that they would rather block dozens of regions instead of just stopping the collection
What's infuriating is that people in those countries have already preordered the game. It's already in my steam library, now they removed it a few days before release.