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Topic: I miss PSN Store and Plus

Posts 1 to 10 of 10

Nostromo1974

Europe is made from many countries, some big some small, some of these countries have access to the PSN Store, many others do not. I live in Malta, one of the countries who are not allowed on the store. When I created my account with the PS3, all EU countries were listed to choose from, Malta included, but once I try to get to the store I get the infamous "sorry this service is not available in your country or region".

This is what I can do:

1. Get system and game updates
2. Play online

What I cannot do:

1. Buy PSN Store only games
2. Buy DLC games or addons
3. Make use of DLC that come with physical games I buy, including the online pass in games such as FIFA
4. Subscribe to Plus
5. Use Home

What I could do is create a fake UK account and pay with PSN cards but if something wrong happens there would be no way to get it fixed as anything I would have bought I would have done it illegitimately. What makes this really frustrating is that other companies did not find any problem to include Malta for the store, for example I can access Apple's App Store, Google's Play and Steam on PC without any issues.

I have been hoping that one day we will be included since 2006 but now that hope is fading. The future of PS4 is bound more than ever to the PSN so if once again Sony decide to only include the 'big countries' I will have to consider other console solutions. In fact, I bought a PS Vita on day one but ended up selling it as that console really needs PSN Store access to be appreciated.

Sorry for the long rant (and considering it is my first post!), but I have no other trees to bark up to. In the past I have emailed Sony about this but they always reply with the usual copy and paste answer.

Please, Sony, fix it.

Edited on by Nostromo1974

Nostromo1974

Twitter:

Brotagonist

That really sucks,is there any reason why your country wouldn't be included?

No one touches my precious Nanako!
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Currently Playing: The Last of Us, Pokemon X

Nostromo1974

Good question. I was going to say that Malta, with a population of half a million people is small. May be to small for Sony to bother. But then you look at the list of countries who DO have access to PSN, and you see Luxembourg, which is way smaller than Malta, so it doesn't make sense.

It may be bound to an official Sony presence in the country, for example in Malta Sony do not exist, although there is an agent here that represents them, in fact when you look at the page with a list of help line phone numbers in a PS3 game manual, you will see this agent's number.

One excuse that usually crops up is the problem with distribution rights. For example, if a local cable TV company buys rights for say, "Desperate Housewives", Sony would not be able to sell "Desperate Housewives" via PSN, using for example Netflix.

Apple have went around this by only making music and apps/games available to Malta when we use the store, anything else is protected by IP checks. Interestingly, while I can make a (fake) UK PSN account and buy games, if I try to access anything related with movies/video, such as the BBC Player or Netflix, the system does an IP check and it doesn't let me access it at all. So such check is already there.

If they don't make a store specific to my country, but do one for 'other countries' not included in the main list, that would be enough. But as I have already said, we've been waiting for 7 years now and patience is running thin. Maybe PushSquare can look into it

Edited on by Nostromo1974

Nostromo1974

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NathanUC

Just an educated guess; I think it has to do with licensing. I don't understand the laws and hoops that devs have to jump through in order to publish a game on the PSN, but I know it's far more complicated than it would seem. The reason you likely don't see this with Apple or Google is the App store licensing works differently and has much less quality control. Not anyone can put a game up on the PSN, but anyone can publish a game via the App Store or Google Play.

It's likely not many games go through the licensing process in order to sell in Malta so they just decide to keep the PSN feature disabled. It's unfortunately really. This is also reasons why we see games have earlier/later launch dates in Europe compared to North America (language features are also to blame).

Thankfully though, you are correct and Sony doesn't block your access to the PSN based on IP. I have a Japanese account as well as a European account. It's a slight hassle getting PSN cards sometimes, but it's always an option.

To save our Mother Earth from any alien attack
From vicious giant insects who have once again come back
We'll unleash all our forces we won't cut them any slack
The EDF deploys!!

Nostromo1974

Well, let's compare it with Steam, after all Steam decides what goes Steam - I don't see any problems with it as regards licencing, so I assume that PSN would be no different.

As for the last bit... I had bought some Singstar Songs using that specific method. After a few months my old PS3 died and bought another. Guess what, I couldn't re-download the songs on the new PS3 as these were bound to the serial number of my old system. To get around this I would have to phone Sony UK with the serial number of both my old and new systems to get the licence transferred. Obviously you cannot phone if you are not a UK resident.

Lesson learned.

Edited on by Nostromo1974

Nostromo1974

Twitter:

NathanUC
Nostromo1974

Well, let's compare it with Steam, after all Steam decides what goes Steam - I don't see any problems with it as regards licencing, so I assume that PSN would be no different.

As for the last bit... I had bought some Singstar Songs using that specific method. After a few months my old PS3 died and bought another. Guess what, I couldn't re-download the songs on the new PS3 as these were bound to the serial number of my old system. To get around this I would have to phone Sony UK with the serial number of both my old and new systems to get the licence transferred. Obviously you cannot phone if you are not a UK resident.

Lesson learned.

The download content methods Singstar uses is atrocious. It's the worst in the industry by far. Even if you were in the UK and you got a new PS3, very unlikely you'd be able to get that content again. I was told to call Sony when this happened to me, but they weren't able to do anything about it.

Steam licensing and PSN licensing would still be different. From what I remember, Steam doesn't vary by region. It has a single 'office' that manages all of the release so it works in a similar way to you logging in to the UK PSN. The major difference is that Steam accepts most international currency. There are occasions where games will be on Steam for only certain regions (checks via IP), but it's fairly rare. All in all, Steam is Steam where Sony has many branches.

To save our Mother Earth from any alien attack
From vicious giant insects who have once again come back
We'll unleash all our forces we won't cut them any slack
The EDF deploys!!

Nostromo1974

'Glad' (so to speak) that Singstar is not just a problem for me then. Certainly I cannot go into the technical aspects of PSN licensing because I know nothing about it - All I know that as an end user, I find this situation very frustrating, after all I am paying for stuff I cannot use! (Online passes, and DLC codes included with physical games). Thanks for your input!

Nostromo1974

Twitter:

Squiggle55

I would just make a UK account. I know a lot of people do that right? Probably lots of people in your situation, as well as people who want to subscribe to the European PS+.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. -Albert Einstein

Nostromo1974

Yeah I do have one... but I use it to download demos (yes I cannot even download demos without a PSN Store!). I don't buy stuff from the store as if something goes wrong, I would nowhere to turn to, and I would have no rights.

Nostromo1974

Twitter:

NathanUC
Strofan7

I have no idea if this would work or not, but I know you can backup your PS3 files/saves/etc on a hard drive or flash drive. Is there a way he could do this then reclaim his downloads if something were to happen to his PS3 again?

As long as he could fit the full backup on that storage, yeah. It works as a system image so he'd lose anything he downloaded/saved since running the backup.

Really though, as long as you can log into the PSN, you'd be able to re-download the games straight from the store anyways. I think what he's worried about is losing access to his account or something. He wouldn't be in a good position to ask Sony for help re-gaining access to his account since the support isn't even in his country.

Personally, it's not something that worries me all that much. Just make very certain that when you make the UK account, you set the password recovery options as up-to-date and use a strong password. As long as you can do that, you should be fine! Also, even if you did have a problem getting into the account, I don't think they'd bother to check where an email came from

To save our Mother Earth from any alien attack
From vicious giant insects who have once again come back
We'll unleash all our forces we won't cut them any slack
The EDF deploys!!

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