Question about "Primary PS4" sharing

[supertrunksman]

I stay at a friend's house every weekend, so managing my games on a different ps4 gets a little annoying.  I heard a solution as far as setting primary ps4's, and it sounds like my situation fits the intentions of this feature.

 

I have a question about the primary ps4 sharing feature.

Console A is set as Player B's primary PS4.  Player A uses this console.

Console B is set as Player A's primary PS4.  Player B uses this console.

 

As far as downloading games, would Player A be able to download players B's games on Console A without having to actually log in as player B?

 

I have someone telling me that the only person who can initiate the downloads to the console are the people who purchased the games, regardless of what console is set up as Primary.

Edited January 16, 2019 by supertrunksman

[Sir_Bee]

That someone would be correct.  This is the set-up that my wife and I use on our 2 systems.

 

Her system is set as my primary machine, my system is a secondary machine.  Every digital game we buy, we buy on my account, and she can play them on her system just fine (even online using my Plus account) but to start the download, she needs to temporarily sign in as me.  Once it is initiated, then she signs out of me, back in as her, and it will finish downloading with no issues.

[charlijaen]

You can launch the download on the PS Store website as well

[supertrunksman]

3 minutes ago, Sir_Bee said:

That someone would be correct.  This is the set-up that my wife and I use on our 2 systems.

 

Her system is set as my primary machine, my system is a secondary machine.  Every digital game we buy, we buy on my account, and she can play them on her system just fine (even online using my Plus account) but to start the download, she needs to temporarily sign in as me.  Once it is initiated, then she signs out of me, back in as her, and it will finish downloading with no issues.

Do you have any experience with Deluxe editions?

Anthem for example is coming out.  Would both players be eligible for the pre-order bonus content, the deluxe bonus content, and the season pass?

Also, another question that may be answered elsewhere...

How do multiplayer games like call of duty work?

Can both users play at the same time if only 1 person actually bought the game?

[Sir_Bee]

27 minutes ago, charlijaen said:

You can launch the download on the PS Store website as well

 

This would initiate the download on both systems. (pretty sure at least).  The reason I believe this is because it says "download to all your Systems" online.

 

26 minutes ago, supertrunksman said:

Do you have any experience with Deluxe editions?

Anthem for example is coming out.  Would both players be eligible for the pre-order bonus content, the deluxe bonus content, and the season pass?

 

While I do not have any personal experience with deluxe editions, the extra downloadable stuff is tied to an account, so I would imagine that it should work just fine.  The only issue that I could see is if there was a download limit on the number of times you could access the content, but I have not heard of something like that being implemented.

 

As for multiplayer, I can confirm that they can be played at the same time, together, online.  At least for Borderlands, Destiny, and Diablo ROS.  Only the primary account needs plus too.  We have yet to come across a game that gave use trouble playing together.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Sir_Bee

[Akrioz]

20 minutes ago, supertrunksman said:

 

Anthem for example is coming out.  Would both players be eligible for the pre-order bonus content, the deluxe bonus content, and the season pass?

Not always. For example my SFV season pass doesn't work for person i would try to share it to(Imagine having the game bought in a different region and not being able to use the pass on main account, yikes). Sometimes pre-order skins as well. I didn't receive a skin for Fury in DS3, for example. Another one example is DLCs in Helldivers. I bought my own, after trying to use a friends drone for farm. Usually anything that can be downloaded as an object in psn store - works. Like, I dunno, Spider-man DLCs. Each one of them is a separate purchase available to download.  For stuff like Bloodborne DLC, which works like some kind of a "pass", that you don't download from store, but just "own" - it is a hit or miss. For Bloodborne Old Hunters it is a hit, for SFV season pass it is a miss.

15 minutes ago, Sir_Bee said:

 

This would initiate the download on both systems. (pretty sure at least).

Only for the one, that is currently acts as "primary". Other person just downloads it from his library.

 

Edited January 16, 2019 by Akrioz

[Arielferrari19]

43 minutes ago, supertrunksman said:

Do you have any experience with Deluxe editions?

Anthem for example is coming out.  Would both players be eligible for the pre-order bonus content, the deluxe bonus content, and the season pass?

Also, another question that may be answered elsewhere...

How do multiplayer games like call of duty work?

Can both users play at the same time if only 1 person actually bought the game?

Hi there, from my experience season passes/expansions (or at least 99% of them) should work fine for both and also the themes from pre-order except Avatars (I Hate Sony for this)

meanwhile the bonus content in game (like cosmetics and in-game currency) well... it really depends on the game, for example in call of duty black ops 4, you can play in multiple accounts (even at the same time/in the same lobby) the season pass content like the mutiplayer maps and zombie maps, but you don't receive the Cod points on another account besides the one were the game was bought.

so mate, at the end you'll need to find for yourself reganding Anthem when it comes out, or maybe someone here has better info about it.

[Sir_Bee]

I would like to add one caveat to this that actually bugs me.  Automatic cloud save backup will not work if your system is not your primary system (which it cannot be for this set-up to work).  So that would be a feature you need to forgo if you want to make this work.

[Nitro]

Just to weigh in on the topic, as far as DLC and Season Passes go,  it will work 99% of the time. The things that won't work is things like Fifa, NBA, Fortnite, COD, NFS, NHL, Battlefield (the list goes on) microtransactions. And some other things like characters (like Dr. Monty that was unlocked for Blckout on Blops 4 for Season pass holders) aren't unlocked for the recipient of the share

Also if anyone tells you that this is against Sony's TOS, they are misinformed.

[assedabass]

I'm sharing my account with my friend for about 3 years. This is what I can say from my experience.

 

1 hour ago, supertrunksman said:

As far as downloading games, would Player A be able to download players B's games on Console A without having to actually log in as player B?

Try setting up downloads from PC: yes, you have to be logged in as a player, who bought the game, but it will be downloading to the console that is set as primary, as I remember. It worked about a year or two ago for me, but now we prefer to just log in to each others account for a second on console and download games from there, as it's much more convenient.

 

49 minutes ago, Nitro said:

Just to weigh in on the topic, as far as DLC and Season Passes go,  it will work 99% of the time. The things that won't work is things like Fifa, NBA, Fortnite, COD, NFS, NHL, Battlefield (the list goes on) microtransactions.

For me if it can be downloaded from "Your add-ons" section - it work fine. If pre-order bonuses aren't downloadable (like in Fifa) - it will only appear on the account of the one who bought the game. Same goes to deluxe\special\etc. editions of new games - for example, Destiny 2 had all the pre-order bonuses (and add-ons, that came with Season Pass later) in my download list. Battlefield 1 Revolution (which I bought on disk) had a code for a premium which added to my download list all add-ons, DLC's and "deluxe edition pack" (= 5 battlepacks), so my friend could get that from my account too if he ever buy vanilla BF1.

 

1 hour ago, Sir_Bee said:

I would like to add one caveat to this that actually bugs me.  Automatic cloud save backup will not work if your system is not your primary system (which it cannot be for this set-up to work).  So that would be a feature you need to forgo if you want to make this work.

Yes, it's a big thing, so be careful. I'm always manually using this feature on the selected time-consuming games, especially after my original 500gb HDD stopped working couple years ago on Christmas eve due to frequent power outage in my area. Made me buy internal power supply unit even.

The other (maybe bigger) thing is that you can't play games you bought offline. Or then PS servers go down. Only the ones your friend bought (because this is the account you have as primary). Sony checks for the licenses every 15 minutes, and if it can't reach the servers - game becomes unavailable until the internet connection is restored.

 

2 hours ago, Sir_Bee said:

Only the primary account needs plus too.

 

To play - yes. Online would work on both consoles fine. You can even download PsPlus games from primary account to your account and play them, but you won't be able to do that from your account using PSstore and add games to download later. PsPlus games will be stored only on the account that is paying for PsPlus. 

 

If all of this is not a problem for you - sharing accounts is a great solution for your problem) 

[Nitro]

14 hours ago, assedabass said:

For me if it can be downloaded from "Your add-ons" section - it work fine. If pre-order bonuses aren't downloadable (like in Fifa) - it will only appear on the account of the one who bought the game. Same goes to deluxe\special\etc. editions of new games - for example, Destiny 2 had all the pre-order bonuses (and add-ons, that came with Season Pass later) in my download list. Battlefield 1 Revolution (which I bought on disk) had a code for a premium which added to my download list all add-ons, DLC's and "deluxe edition pack" (= 5 battlepacks), so my friend could get that from my account too if he ever buy vanilla BF1.

Yeah, pre-order bonus' are usually just for the account on which the game was pre-ordered off of. However, take Blacklight Retribution for  example. The money doubler is only active on that account and is not downloadable. In terms of Dr. Monty in BO4, maybe he is downloaded with the game but it checks your account for the Black Ops Pass before it lets you play with him.