Change of country

[DarkKnight0907]

Sony's refusal to allow change of country is simply stubborn and shitty. They don't take into account those who have emigrated to a different country. Why can't they allow this?! Either allow this or allow us to transfer trophies, purchases, or wallet balances to new accounts. When asked and provided examples about other companies, they reneged and said "it's the stance we take" without any other justification. When so many other gaming companies allow this, why can't they do this with valid ID? This and lack of backward compatibility with older games has prompted me to buy an Xbox as my primary console. Hope they fix this soon.
Sincerely, a long term PS fan.

Edited November 16, 2020 by DarkKnight0907
Typos

[Shadiochao]

It's probably less being stubborn and more that PSN was never built with the ability to change in mind. So to add that ability would require a huge amount of effort, and modification of delicate systems that are constantly in use.

 

Lots of decisions with how they built PSN have caused them problems later down the line. Look at how long it took them to enable name-changing, but it was still implemented quite messily. Older consoles don't support it at all and PS4 is mixed. Your old name is still permanently tied to your account so it's not truly a name-changing feature, but rather disguising your username.

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, Shadiochao said:

It's probably less being stubborn and more that PSN was never built with the ability to change in mind. So to add that ability would require a huge amount of effort, and modification of delicate systems that are constantly in use.

 

There's this and also changing country is a big mess of potential legal issues as well.  Not all games are able to be sold in every country due to legal issues.  So let's say OP has Game X that legally able to be sold in their current country but in the country they moved to, Sony isn't able to sell Game X there and wouldn't be able to allow a previous purchase to be redownloaded due to the laws of the new country.  So how does Sony handle this? Obviously they have to block access to redownloading to stay in compliance with the laws.  But OP did purchase the game.  Refunding could be tricky because depending on the laws that may also not be allowed, also would it be fair to refund players who have hundreds of hours of gameplay in the game and all the trophies just because they can't redownload it due to something beyond Sony's control?  Stuff like that becomes tricky and becomes an avenue for abuse since there are scammers who would take advantage of such things to get games for free.  I know Xbox does not refund at all in this instance because it would be too abusive and they do indeed get complaints about it.  The other issue is the potential for abuse since each store has different prices for games and some are definitely less expensive than others.  There is a potential for abuse for people to change to countries that have less expensive games and then back to where they actually live.

 

I worked for Xbox support for two years and region changing was a common thing we were contacted about.  Many of us support reps really wished users couldn't change region because too many idiots wouldn't pay attention to what they were doing even though it gave a very blatant warning that they had to agree to so they could finish the change and yet it still happened by "accident" all the time and made a mess of accounts.  Unfortunately as reasonable as it seems to have the ability to change country, people are stupid and there are a lot of scammers in the world.  I don't blame Sony one bit for deciding they don't want to deal with the hassle that allowing such a thing will result in because I can assure you guys that the companies that do allow it deal with a ton of hassle and abuse.  Can't see them ever allowing the transfer of trophies, purchases, etc. between accounts either because no company allows that as of now due to that having an even higher potential for abuse (hackers could use it to steal purchases and trophies).  While I do get how people can be upset about Sony's decision, I do get from the support perspective why they would say no.

[AK-1138]

...So, still hyped about that whole all-digital future thing there, guys?

 

[Guest]

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Edited December 8, 2022 by NERVergoproxy

[TeamPlayer_1999_]

Might be off topic story to discuss, but I think there are far more demand with making PS5 backwards compatible with PS1-PS3 games more than changing country of that certain account imo (no offense)

[TurtlePM]

What's the thing about demanding? So if half world "demands" PS5 retrocompability with the previous systems, do you people really think they'll recreate a new console?!

Changing an ID was far beyond people "demanding" anything. An account was banned after several years. It doesn't matter how much that person spent, but they can't take that content by banning an account. If it was created in the first place with that name, it's because Sony allowed it to be created, so it's Sony problem. These situations usually end up in courts and that's when they start making chances and making things possible (*cof* EA with FIFA *cof*). It's like Refund being possible after decades in some countries when, here in Portugal, it's an obligation and it's possible since beginning of PS Store.

 

This change is also less "demanding" because not everyone changes country every day. It's a little forgettable, but it doesn't mean it isn't important.

 

Yet, I'd say they are actually trying to find a way to make it happen There is a "recent" option on PS4 Store that allows you to change your Store Country. But you can't do anything with it, even download free games, it's absolutely useless. But why it's there? Why it wasn't removed? Why would I care about the same sales and games from other stores if I can't buy anything? Or maybe I'm missing the point of all that option :/

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by TurtlePM

[AJ_Radio]

That kid made the name KINGMADAFAKA for his account name and someone thought it was offensive enough to get that account banned indefinitely. It was completely stupid and it caused an entire debate here on PSNP, I believe this is what @TurtlePM was referring to. It occurred in 2018, one year before Sony allowed name changes. 
 

As someone already stated, the name you chose pretty much sticks to your account. Changing county and region would take far too many resources and doing that now at this point in time is useless. Nothing in court could solve this. 

[GravelHS]

Recently I tried to use some gift card from UK where I live from few years now and I couldn’t because my account is stuck with wrong region where I lived many years ago. I currently have over 100 games bought in psn store bought for same price as in UK (checked many times and I even overpaid because of different currency charge in my bank). Why I mention this, so when I asked PlayStation support how to deal with this problem I received “create new account” replay and that’s it, so It’s not a solution, another one was to “share” games with my other account which is absurd as that means I don’t have access to my progress and most of the features like updates all my ps plus games and subscription. To do remote play I need another console, this is just crazy. I can’t use Disney+ and watch Star Wars because it’s not in my old country apps but on top of this I can’t use VOD that is in its offer because I’m in UK. I’m tired of this discrimination. I would maybe understand if prices were different on psn store but no I pay same and get cut off from stuff that everybody else have access to. Sony we need solution because this is just ridiculous!  It’s not only me but there are hundreds or even thousands of people like me that are forced to pay you double and use two accounts or be cut off apps and services they should have access to as other people...

[Maximus_Buns]

I agree 100%. There has to be a way that we can change or transfer if Sony does not allow changing account regions.

I had previously changed countries physically and now I can't buy anything due to my store and payment options all tied to my old country (which I moved out of).

Creating a new account means I will loose all progress from 6 years.

This is absolute BS from Sony.

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by The_Dogfathar

[The Moose Knuckler]

Why not just create an alt account from the region you moved to? You can buy games from that store using that currency and if you make it your consoles primary console any account on the console can play those games. Seems like an easy solution 

[LazyNotUseless]

On 11/8/2021 at 3:50 AM, The Moose Knuckler said:

Why not just create an alt account from the region you moved to? You can buy games from that store using that currency and if you make it your consoles primary console any account on the console can play those games. Seems like an easy solution 

What about your PS+ games tied to your old account? You lose that if you don't keep the subscription. It's just absolute bs. Not to mention, DLC content that is sometimes tied to the account that made the purchase. It's one of the better solutions sure, but it's still a huge pain in the ass.

[JAK-KRIEG]

I have a Spanish account since I've lived in Spain for the past two decades. When I got into trophies I created an account by typing in my address not thinking I would ever move back to my country of origin, (I'm moving back in 2023) so I'm forever stuck with my Spanish account. Yes of course I'll create a danish alt to buy games and dlc, but with things such as ps plus I'm fucked I have to buy a Spanish top up card and it's fucking stupid.

Edited October 10, 2022 by JAK-KRIEG

[matigrosso91]

I'm from Argentina. When i bought my PS3, an argentinian store didn't even exist. So here i am, with my yankee account with all my trophies, and an alternate account from here where i buy everything. It is what it is, i guess. Although i always wonder which would be my position in the leaderboards of my country here, for example.

[Letenko]

27 minutes ago, JAK-KRIEG said:

I have a Spanish account since I've lived in Spain for the past two decades. When I got into trophies I created an account by typing in my address not thinking I would ever move back to my country of origin, (I'm moving back in 2023) so I'm forever stuck with my Spanish account. Yes of course I'll create a danish alt to buy games and dlc, but with things such as ps plus I'm fucked I have to buy a Spanish top up card and it's fucking stupid.

As stupid as it sounds, it gives me relief knowing that I'm not alone. I just eorry that a day will come when they'll require us to us a Credit cards and they'll remove top up cards altogether.

 

A whole other issues is the handful of games that use your PSN country for matchmaking. Grand Turismo Sport and Warhawk come to mind. The Last on GT Sport made the online 10x worse and that was with me using fiber internet.

[JAK-KRIEG]

5 minutes ago, Letenko said:

As stupid as it sounds, it gives me relief knowing that I'm not alone. I just eorry that a day will come when they'll require us to us a Credit cards and they'll remove top up cards altogether.

 

A whole other issues is the handful of games that use your PSN country for matchmaking. Grand Turismo Sport and Warhawk come to mind. The Last on GT Sport made the online 10x worse and that was with me using fiber internet.

I do sincerely hope I'm not screwing myself by moving. That online matchmaking is not gonna be an issue, I did not consider this tbh.

[Black---Cypher]

This is definitely stubbornness from Sony side, the change required to enable people to switch to new market/region is not that complicated and can be done in a similar way as it is done for Apple store or google play, chose a region that you moved to, provide a valid bank card number from that region, verify and you should be done. now the question is how much software development is required to enable this change and is Sony willing to go that extra mile, and is the culture of the product team is user oriented, and until now the answer that I get is they do not care about what users need or want as long as there are people buying PS devices every day. the change equation is easy, the change will cost several thousands of dollars, to satisfy several 10s of thousands of users at most, that most likely will give up and create a new account instead of moving to XBOX or PC. 

[coolvista]

On 10.10.2022 at 5:40 PM, JAK-KRIEG said:

Yes of course I'll create a danish alt to buy games and dlc, but with things such as ps plus I'm fucked I have to buy a Spanish top up card and it's fucking stupid.

At least, you can do it) My primary account is russian and I have no any options to buy ps plus subscription when it will expire