I Made a Better PSN Web Store

[Sunny]

Hey dude I've been using your site a lot and it's been wonderful, but lately the individual sales never update, that and some games won't show me that are on sale unless I click on the PSstore tab, don't really know how to reach out to you so I'll leave this here, thanks again for all the work you put into the site.

[ryuji_sakujo]

Awesome site, very useful for finding discounts!
Is it possible to fix the "price history" chart for DLC? I noticed there's a chart for games but no chart available for DLC.

[NathanielJohn]

9 hours ago, ryuji_sakujo said:

Is it possible to fix the "price history" chart for DLC? I noticed there's a chart for games but no chart available for DLC.

 

There are price charts for DLC. See https://platprices.com/game/72014-conan-exiles-isle-of-siptah for example.

 

If you're not seeing a price chart for a particular product (DLC or otherwise) then it's because PlatPrices has never noticed any sales or price changes for that product. The product page should say something like "This product's price has never changed" down where the price chart would normally be (see https://platprices.com/game/105097-horizon-forbidden-west-burning-shores for example) -- let me know if there are DLC items where this is not happening.

[Super-Fly Spider-Guy]

Sorry to shit on this, but gotta be real, the only thing the web store doesn't do that I would like it to, is list PS3, Vita, and even PSP if I'm being greedy. The store is still live on console, I bought Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus a week or so back fine. The info is still there just waiting to be scraped.

[tw34kfr34ky]

Oh wow i wish i found about this before.

Im very impressed thank you!

[ryuji_sakujo]

34 minutes ago, Super-Fly Spider-Guy said:

Sorry to shit on this, but gotta be real, the only thing the web store doesn't do that I would like it to, is list PS3, Vita, and even PSP if I'm being greedy.

hmm.. to each their own I guess ?

But if you claim that the PS Store is flawless just because it has a shiny exterior then I would have to disagree.. and yeah removing legacy systems (PS3, PSV) since about August 2020 is also a drawback.. There's a bunch of metadata on https://platprices.com/ not present on PS Store.. there's other "middleman" webstore fronts too like PSPrices where you can easily organize a wishlist (past the limitation of 100 items on PS Store) and even hide games you don't want to see, browse other categories and use filters not present on PS Store.

There's tons of uses for alternative web fronts, and they're especially useful if it's somehow possible to sync up "already purchased items" and filter out items. That's one of the biggest annoyances with PS Store, the fact that you gotta wade through a lot of crap when you're looking through the sales (for some of you that includes wading through shovelware), so any webstore front that addresses this issue is awesome in my book.

40 minutes ago, Super-Fly Spider-Guy said:

The store is still live on console, I bought Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus a week or so back fine. The info is still there just waiting to be scraped.

That's the native PS3 Store on the console I assume? There's no easy way to scrape it as the data can't be accessed conventionally through HTTP requests..

Someone would have to reverse engineer the store or emulate PS3 on a PC and couple that with some OCR tech to parse out price listings.
And that has to be ideally done daily, over multiple regions. Not sure if games get price updates anymore on legacy systems, I don't think they do, but surely content gets silently delisted.
I don't think it's as feasible as you'd think with conventional methods, whereas scraping data from the https://store.playstation.com/ is comparatively a much simpler process.

[Vynzen]

Hi,

 

Superb site, but enlighten me - is there an option to see which games have unobtainable trophies/plats?

 

Thanx!

[NathanielJohn]

1 hour ago, Vynzen said:

Superb site, but enlighten me - is there an option to see which games have unobtainable trophies/plats?

 

This URL gives a list of all games in your currently-selected region that have unobtainable trophies.

 

If a particular game has unobtainable trophies, it'll display that information prominently on its game page (see e.g., this game page).

[HansPatat050]

I love the website, simply great.

 

I did notice something strange. For example today, I checked the price of Streets of Rage 4. Didn't show as it was on sale, so I closed the tab. A second later, email, price drop Streets of Rage 4! This has happened quite a few times already. I thought it was a coincidence but this being the 4th or 5th time it seems like if I watch a game which is on my wishlist it triggers the pricedrops to be processed? Not sure what it can cause.

 

Exactly the same thing happened just now with Riders Republic.

Edited August 31, 2023 by HansPatat050

[Rejim]

10 hours ago, HansPatat050 said:

I love the website, simply great.

 

I did notice something strange. For example today, I checked the price of Streets of Rage 4. Didn't show as it was on sale, so I closed the tab. A second later, email, price drop Streets of Rage 4! This has happened quite a few times already. I thought it was a coincidence but this being the 4th or 5th time it seems like if I watch a game which is on my wishlist it triggers the pricedrops to be processed? Not sure what it can cause.

 

Exactly the same thing happened just now with Riders Republic.

 

 

It can be that the discount is not synched on the website, but when you visit it activates the sale for that game (if you refresh it usually updates and shows you the discount), so that triggers the email. 

[Xylobe]

Looks like the site is currently down @NathanielJohn

 

Quote

Could not connect to the database.
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function prepare() on null in /home/psstoref/ps5s_lib/db_connect.php:28 Stack trace: #0 /home/psstoref/ps5s_lib/check_login.php(14): call_sql('SELECT `LoginTo...', Array, true, 2) #1 /home/psstoref/public_html/index.php(7): require_once('/home/psstoref/...') #2 {main} thrown in /home/psstoref/ps5s_lib/db_connect.php on line 28

 

[ItzBedrov]

Nice work

[OoSk1lleDoO]

On 11/18/2020 at 5:43 PM, NathanielJohn said:

Hey folks, I've been working on a trophy-hunter-friendly version of the PSN web store for the past month or so (ever since Sony re-launched their webstore), and it's now ready for people to take it for a spin:

 

PlatPrices.com

 

Features:

1. Wishlist, library, and hide lists.
   You can keep track of games you are interested in (and optionally receive e-mail notifications when they go on sale), games you own, and games you want to hide (i.e., games you have no interest in). You can optionally have the site hide games that are in your library as well (so that you don't see them when browsing sales, for example).
    
2. Trophy list, guide, difficulty, and time-to-platinum integration.
   Game pages have links to their trophy list on PSNProfiles, as well as guides on all major sites (PSNProfiles guides are displayed first when they exist). A difficulty and time estimate is also provided for games, and that info is also displayed when browsing lists of games. Here is what the top of the page for Final Fantasy VII Remake looks like, for example (the "Trophies" text at the top-right links to the trophy list on PSNP):
   
   
    
3. Search and sort based on price, difficulty, time to platinum, and so on.
   Want to find all free games with a platinum? You can do that.
   Want to sort all Assassin's Creed games by trophy difficulty? You can do that.
   Want to find all games that are currently on sale and have a platinum, and sort them by platinum completion time? You can do that.
   Only have $4.54 in your wallet and you want to find all games that cost $4.54 or less and have a trophy difficulty of no more than 2/10? You can do that too.
    
4. Prices in other regions.
   Everything described above works in any region of the PS store, and you can see if a game is cheaper in another region at a glance on its game page. You can also hop directly to other regions so that you can quickly buy a game in multiple regions (if you're into stacking trophy lists).
    
5. Screenshots and trailers.
   Screenshots and trailers are displayed for most games, unlike on the official PSN web store.
    

More features will be incoming soon, and the trophy database is still a work in progress (like I said, I only started this a bit over a month ago) that will improve over time. Your feedback, feature requests, and corrections to trophy information are very appreciated. If you see a game that is missing a guide link, let me know about it (and give me the guide link). If you are familiar with a game that does not currently have a difficulty estimate, give me your difficulty estimate for it. Etc.

 

Thanks to @baboon_overlord for helping me beta test it over the past week or so.

 

This is crazy, thanks for sharing!

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by OoSk1lleDoO

[tamusic6]

The bad thing about the website is that it hasn't loaded the offers correctly for months.

I had everything in the Spanish version but since it was not updated but the German version was, I started changing everything to that version.

Now neither the German, nor the Spanish nor the others, to load the offers you have to do it manually to trigger the update event.

The truth is that the website has these types of errors from time to time that are annoying and make me think that the website is abandoned, I have to use another website or the official PlayStation store garbage. When I finish searching for deals that I don't have on my wish list, I put them on this website because the UI is still wonderful, but it shouldn't be like that.

I don't know if it's easy to solve, but sometimes I get the feeling that I'm the only one who uses the website, because half of the updated offers I see that I was the one who triggered them hahaha.

[Gagan_30]

Hello there, I am here to report a issue with PSN store availability and the store price display.
For Doom Eternal, it says there is no price for it and when you click on the PSN store link, it goes to a playstation store error page. 

It should display the price of £34.99 or say its included in PS EXTRA.
Here is the actual store page for Doom Eternal:  https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP1003-PPSA01982_00-DOOMETERNALBUNDL

 

[LukeDuke200]

I seem to be having an issue seeing the product descriptions, none of them are appearing for me anymore. Not sure when it started but just noticed it now.

[barra333]

I'm not seeing any descriptions either. I feel like it takes much longer to load pages too.

[Vitallani]

8 hours ago, LukeDuke200 said:

I seem to be having an issue seeing the product descriptions, none of them are appearing for me anymore. Not sure when it started but just noticed it now.

It's been like that for a few weeks now.

[NathanielJohn]

On 2/14/2024 at 5:51 AM, LukeDuke200 said:

I seem to be having an issue seeing the product descriptions, none of them are appearing for me anymore. Not sure when it started but just noticed it now.

 

On 2/14/2024 at 11:14 AM, barra333 said:

I'm not seeing any descriptions either. I feel like it takes much longer to load pages too.

 

Product descriptions are now back, sorry for the delay. Also, games with quick and easy platinums now have their video guides embedded right in the page (if a YouTube guide is linked).

 

See https://platprices.com/game/5315-bucket-knight, for example.

 

The slow page loads are next on my to-do list to fix. Some database queries are really dragging lately.

Edited February 16 by NathanielJohn

[Vitallani]

Thank you for getting the descriptions back up, and the embedded videos are a great new edition. It is so much easier (and more informative) browsing games on this site that it is the official store website.

[realm722]

On 2/16/2024 at 2:43 PM, NathanielJohn said:

The slow page loads are next on my to-do list to fix. Some database queries are really dragging lately.

 

Thanks for staying on top of everything to do with the website. I hope you make some decent money running it because it really is a pearl of this community and cool it was founded here. Odd question, have you ever been interviewed/explained what inspired you to make it in the first place?

[NathanielJohn]

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

Thanks for staying on top of everything to do with the website. I hope you make some decent money running it because it really is a pearl of this community and cool it was founded here. Odd question, have you ever been interviewed/explained what inspired you to make it in the first place?

 

Ooof, I wish it were popular enough for any of that to have happened! Haven't made any money yet (ads and affiliate links barely cover server costs), and definitely no interviews.

 

To answer your interview question though: Sony revamped their webstore around the same time that the PS5 launched, and it was *awful* for a while (it's since improved; search filters etc. were added). I figured I might as well see if I can make one I like better.

[NathanielJohn]

Updated the homepage today, since the box that showed the 6 "most recently discounted" games was pretty useless. Now there is a box showing the 6 most wishlisted games that are currently on sale, and another showing the 6 most wishlisted easy plats that are currently on sale. Let me know of any weirdness, if you notice any.

[TheDarkKratos]

I have used your site since last year, and is has been invaluable to say the very least. 

Fantastic work, and many many thanks for putting it all together. I have got many deals.

And yes, it is better than the SONY store. Much better. Easier to navigate, and concise.

 

Spoiler

 

[JohnCenaSong-]

On 2/22/2024 at 2:49 AM, NathanielJohn said:

Updated the homepage today, since the box that showed the 6 "most recently discounted" games was pretty useless.

I disagree. The homepage was a helpful feature for me as a tool to see how many games have been added and when at a quick glance which made browsing new additions easier, especially as not all new discounts are in one lump tied to a particular new sale banner. It gave me a good guideline for when I decide to start actually trawling from newest. The removal of the recently means a removal of that helpful header that I think was with that and it was super handy for me at least. I feel like the alternative of 'most wanted' also seems a tad redundant because 1) you mention they're most wishlisted, thus wishlisted users would already be aware and 2) they're typically large popular AAA titles or trendy indie titles which normally sit at the top of the sales on PlayStation anyway.

 

What I appreciate about 3rd party sites such as Platprices is offerering what the lacklustre PlayStation store fails at for convenient browsing (which you still do, massively, despite this small nitpick ). Having a homepage that showcases what PlayStation are already showcasing themselves doesn't to me seem a valuable use of that space though.

 

I understand and agree that displaying the random handful of 6 that make it into the recently discounted block can be pretty useless when a new bulk sale drops, but the newly discounted header at least was still really useful and I think is a disappointing loss to the homepage.