What was your reason for an alt region account?

[Lagoon Aris]

Basically the question stated in the title.

I can kinda understand some reasons why people have different accounts for different regions. I myself have an EU account as main one since I live in the EU. But I also have an US account because of one deal I made on Humble Bundle which was US only. I downloaded the games and never really thought about it again. Now I see the Holiday Sale on the US store and it makes me wonder again.
 

What exactly made you make an alt region account?
How do you keep track of your games between different accounts?
 

Right now I am a bit of a "everything bought on one account" person, so there's a bit of a line I don't dare to cross. That's why I'm mostly interested in your arguments/reasons why one should spend money on more than one PS account.

Also on a side note: As far as I know, some games are account restricted, at least on PS4, so that you can't play a game with another than the account that bought it. How do you handle this problem?

[dermarx]

I have also EU as my main account, since I live in Germany.

And I also have a canadian account, because there was Root Letter very cheap in a sale one, 

I have a Hong Kong account because there were free Hyperdimension Neptunia Themes for PS3

I have a Austrian Account because of Dying Light (FU Germany for not having this in the store)

I have an american account, but I forgot the login, so I can't use it basically.

I have a japanese Account because.... I don't remember why I made this one.

 

You could say that escalated a little bit, but it would be so much easier if all the stores have all content. So yeah, I have like 6 accounts all over the planet

 

And you can use your stuff on every account. So Dying Light for example is on my german account, even when I bought it in austrian PSN.

 

Edited December 14, 2017 by dermarx

[German_Atheist]

When I started playing on PS3 back in 2008, many games released in Germany were heavily censored in terms of violence. Buying games from Austria was the only solution. However, DLC for uncut games usually had to be from the same region as the game. Playing DLC for the PEGI version of Fallout 3 required buying them via an Austrian account. That'S it. A ton of other regions followed, mostly for shits and giggles. Today, I exclusively buy my stuff via my German account.

20 minutes ago, Lagoon Aris said:

As far as I know, some games are account restricted, at least on PS4, so that you can't play a game with another than the account that bought it. How do you handle this problem?

Buy shit on disc. Like smart people do.

[BeastySoldier]

I live in the EU but have an US account and only play on that account by now as well. Why? Because the US store has a lot more uncensored games and avatars and themes the German store doesn't have and because the prices are great. On the one hand they have loads more sales and on the other even without sales it's cheaper (due to the exchange rate). New game at release costs roundabout €70 in Germany. When I buy the same game at release in the US store it's about €55. That's about $20 saved with new releases and on special sales like Blackfriday or now the holiday themed one it can be even more.

[EternalChaos72]

UK this is my main account. My JP and US accounts are for deals on their PS stores. 

Edited December 14, 2017 by EternalChaos72

[DarkSoleride]

i have my UK account which is my main one, then a US account (made this because of My Name is Mayo now i juse use it for other region exclusives recently bought Macho Tales in their Holiday Sale) 

Japanese account was for a Persona 5 Theme since it was free.

Hong Kong account because i really wanted to play ICEY

[NetEntity]

I have two alts: a UK account to bypass the idiotic EU region-lock-within-region-lock, and a JP account for them glorious weeb games [with robots] and themes.

[Elvick_]

Free themes/avatars not on our store, and demos early [and now so it doesn't clog my download list/library]. I have one for Europe and Japan.

I also import some games from both places, so I guess I could get DLC but that's never come up.

[bezdomnekoty]

I have EU / NA / HK / JP / GB made them for stacks and better game deals.

Edited December 14, 2017 by bezdomnekoty

[Tosmasta00]

HK, JP and US mainly for games (that didn't make it to EU) and free stuff.

[damage_6-9]

HK, US and Germany - mainly for games not available in the AU store but also for stacks.... haven't got around to doing a JP account yet

[CaptainAskHole]

Back in 2009, from what i remember Brazil wasnt on the list for the PSN account creation. im not sure of it, though.

[temp-910724]

2 hours ago, Lagoon Aris said:

Also on a side note: As far as I know, some games are account restricted, at least on PS4, so that you can't play a game with another than the account that bought it. How do you handle this problem?

Link for this? I buy 50-60% of my games from other regions and never had this problem.

 

US because some games are cheaper than Canada and some games are only released in US. Usually the really awful games. 

 

Japan because Japan.

 

Canada because as far as I'm aware, it is the cheapest PSN store. I use this about as much as my main

 

Austalian for Knack 2 which I will eventually use for Saints Row stack

 

China for Warframe stack 

 

German for Wolfenstein stacks, though the PS+ free trial there requires ID and I did not know that so it is now an account with 20 euros sat on it

 

Malaysia for 3on3 Freestyle stack 

 

Hong Kong for 3on3 Freestyle stack

 

I then have multiple JP accounts I used to get 14 day free trials for PS Plus when that was a thing so I could get their free games too.

 

I think that is it, I hope to add Korea at some point but creating an account there is a lot of hassle 

[Lagoon Aris]

2 minutes ago, midgetstrawdog said:

Link for this? I buy 50-60% of my games from other regions and never had this problem.

I don't exactly have a link. It's more personal experience. My roommate and I used to share a PS4. I had PS+ quite a while before she got hers. Since the PS4 was my primary and I had PS+ she was able to play all my games. But since she didn't have PS+ most of her games, e.g. Bloodborne, Dragon Age Inquisition and Telltale Games were locked. I wasn't able to play them on my account because I didn't buy them. Once she had PS+ herself, I could access the games.
But since I don't have the money to have two accounts with PS+ to access all games on one single account, that is my main concern for even buying digitals from another region acc.

And since it came up in this thread as well, unfortunately buying physical is not really something I'm able to. I would have to order most stuff by mail to get it cheaper and I have the problem that 50% of the time my mail orders don't reach me because of reasons, so that would be a lot of luck and hassle I don't want to have.

[BattleFeverC]

I was born in the United States but I have lived in Colombia for most of my life. When I created my PSN account back in 2008, there wasn't an option for my region so I chose US. PSN became available in Colombia in 2014 however, the prices are more expensive than the US PS Store so I decided to continue using my US account.

 

Also, I created a Japanese account to get a free Final Fantasy XIV theme and an Hong Kong/Asia account to see if I could use a certain piece of DLC on my US version of Assassin's Creed Unity but it didn't work because it was region specific.

 

[Kapika96]

UK, because it was my original.

Japan, wanted to get Japanese games digitally, wanted to start a fresh new account and was also moving to Japan.

USA, humble bundle that needed an American account to redeem codes.

Hong Kong, for cheaper games, specifically FIFA.

Australia, for free Knack 2

[Leenewbe]

those sweet stacks and for games that dont get released here.
currently have my main uk acc, a hong kong acc, 2 us accs and a german acc for wolfenstein and to share play with a friend on mother russia bleeds, because germany..

[Kapika96]

14 minutes ago, Lagoon Aris said:

I don't exactly have a link. It's more personal experience. My roommate and I used to share a PS4. I had PS+ quite a while before she got hers. Since the PS4 was my primary and I had PS+ she was able to play all my games. But since she didn't have PS+ most of her games, e.g. Bloodborne, Dragon Age Inquisition and Telltale Games were locked. I wasn't able to play them on my account because I didn't buy them. Once she had PS+ herself, I could access the games.
But since I don't have the money to have two accounts with PS+ to access all games on one single account, that is my main concern for even buying digitals from another region acc.

And since it came up in this thread as well, unfortunately buying physical is not really something I'm able to. I would have to order most stuff by mail to get it cheaper and I have the problem that 50% of the time my mail orders don't reach me because of reasons, so that would be a lot of luck and hassle I don't want to have.

Perhaps that issue was because she didn't have your PS4 set as primary? I've had no issues myself with any digital games from different regions except on my 2nd PS4 which obviously isn't set as the primary one.

[I need more BIOSHOCK]

I'm UK with an EU main account and have several other region accounts. 

 

Main reason - Easy slutty platinums

 

Lots of other nice perks though when deals are on and freebies

[Lagoon Aris]

Just now, Kapika96 said:

Perhaps that issue was because she didn't have your PS4 set as primary? I've had no issues myself with any digital games from different regions except on my 2nd PS4 which obviously isn't set as the primary one.

That's the joke. Since it was our only PS4, it was her primary as well. Now, I'm really starting to wonder why we had/have that problem. (For a while now we own two PS4 systems, one for each of us. But the one I use mainly is set as her primary, and hers is set as my primary so that we can play the games of each other. A bit of a complicated workaround but yeah...)

[KamakuraHero]

My main account is EU since i'm from Greece, second one a US for all the delicious deals, third one is a Braziian cause they had Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault and Ratchet: Deadlocked free (you can't say no to freebies). I'm also about to make a HK one for getting Sleeping Dogs for the forth time? and also a JP one for games i can't find anywhere else.

[rwd1997]

I created my USA account because the games usually are cheaper than in my country and when I created my account the Brazilian did not have the psn store so I could not have some games and dlcs. I wanted to change to my real country now because the psplus is 29 dollars but I would lost all my progress and I would lost a lot of games, especially the vita ones 

[bezdomnekoty]

And if someone is interested in KNACK or RATCHET & CLANK go create a Hong Kong account and turn on the 2 day free trial PS+. All trophies within these 2 days will stay on you'r main account. Make the HK primary account also.

[temp-910724]

33 minutes ago, Lagoon Aris said:

That's the joke. Since it was our only PS4, it was her primary as well. Now, I'm really starting to wonder why we had/have that problem. (For a while now we own two PS4 systems, one for each of us. But the one I use mainly is set as her primary, and hers is set as my primary so that we can play the games of each other. A bit of a complicated workaround but yeah...)

So you are no longer having problems? 

[Lagoon Aris]

1 minute ago, midgetstrawdog said:

So you are no longer having problems? 

Since we both now have PS+, no. But we needed PS+ to overcome this obstacle and exactly that is my worry when purchasing something from another (US) region. Will I need PS+ on the US account as well to play the games on my EU account or not?