Is Sony Ever Going to Let us Change the Region on our PlayStation Accounts?

[FliX]

It's well established and widely known that your PSN account is tied to a specific region and it is impossible to change.
This in and of itself wouldn't be so much of an issue if they accepted any global payment method. But the payment method (e.g. credit card or PayPal account) has to also originate from the same region.
So me using a US credit card or my US PayPal account (or even German credit card) as a payment option in the UK PlayStation store just doesn't work. It will not accept it. My dirty foreign money is not good enough for them apparently. (and I would have absolutely no problem with paying currency exchange fees or whatever)

Their official recommendation is to just create a new account, which is fine if we ignore that all my friends, trophies, PS+, cloud saves, and prior purchases are tied to my original account that I would like to keep.
Now I get some of the reasoning in so far as ok, some license might not transfer from one region to the other. I would be able to stomach that assuming most games are available in most regions it really should only affect a small number of my past purchases.
Other digital store fronts manage to make it possible for me to change my region/country and even years later I find it ridiculous that PlayStation does not.

I did have this slight glimmer of hope that with the launch of the PS5 and the recent network changes (wow, we can change our names!) that this might also change. But obviously that hasn't happened and it's just frustrating.

So does anyone think there is any hope for Sony to implement this?

Sony must realize people move and some people might actually move abroad. Shocking I know.

At least accept my foreign money!

 

[Lant_War]

It took them 10 years to let you change names. I'm not hopeful it'll happen at all.

 

[StraySheep]

It fucking sucks. I learned the hard way buying Wolfenstein Youngblood physical in Germany and then trying to redeem the buddy pass on my US account. One of many hot messes with this situation.

Pretty sure I'm still using my American bank account to make digital purchases when my only american income is family Christmas money.

 

[snausages]

I have a UK account but it seems my Irish payment information works fine, but I can't change the address on my account. Have to pay everything in GBP prices with euros

I think FFXIV is similar, I had to ask someone at support if there was a chance I could get banned from the game for 'false' information. It's very weird and inflexible, so many people emigrate for jobs. Especially here, it will become even more prevalent after the pandemic when our economy is in recession.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

This is what is keeping me from easily grabbing the Japanese PSone classics from the store on my PS3. You can't link a CC or PayPal to it at all, have to buy cards from resellers to do it. You can't even just buy them from Amazon as they are region restricted there, too, since it amounts currency exchange or something similar.

If there's anything about the MS Marketplace I wish they'd copy it's that the thing is global, you just can't always get to another market's stuff easily. And that last part is based solely on redeeming vouchers from games I imported for the 360.

 

[Storm]

I have zero hope for it.

The way DLC works for games, they can't do this easily. Every region is a different SKU

 

[RecRoulette]

Gotta make friends with 3rd Party currency resellers. The big store update would've been a good time for them to change things but that opportunity has passed.

At least you can play games bought from other regions on your main PSN account.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

I have zero hope for it.

The way DLC works for games, they can't do this easily. Every region is a different SKU

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I don't see there being a problem for content being of a region for a lot of reasons. I only have a problem with the fact you can't just, say, hop onto the JP store, grab something that's not released in other regions, then hop back and play it.

 

[Storm]

I don't see there being a problem for content being of a region for a lot of reasons. I only have a problem with the fact you can't just, say, hop onto the JP store, grab something that's not released in other regions, then hop back and play it.

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It means like for example. I have a UK account currently. Let's say I migrate my account to a US account. The SKUs I've purchased are not on that store, and the SKUs on that store would not be compatible with my UK games. Simply converting all purchases to the new store doesn't help, since that would break all existing save games for digital titles etc. It's a really awkward situation they got themselves in.

 

[NewDust]

This is a problem that is so easily sidestepped, either by buying PSN cards or setting up a secondary 'purchase' account (though that has issues with microtransactions and some DLC), that I don't think it is high on the priority list.

 

[FliX]

It means like for example. I have a UK account currently. Let's say I migrate my account to a US account. The SKUs I've purchased are not on that store, and the SKUs on that store would not be compatible with my UK games. Simply converting all purchases to the new store doesn't help, since that would break all existing save games for digital titles etc. It's a really awkward situation they got themselves in.

Click to shrink...

The DLC SKU thing has always been a (unnecessary) nightmare.
And if loosing access to prior bought DLC/savegames is the price to pay I'd be willing to pay it if they can fix their shit going forward.

 

[The Last One]

I really wish they would let us. My main account is an US one because when I created it in 2007 there wasn't a brazilian account yet. I have to buy from a second account (BR) to play on main account (US).

 

[Arubedo]

I still can't believe that you cant use your credit card on all regions, even Nintendo with their e-shop have a global purchase system, they are literally saying no to consumers money.

 

[Ravage]

DLC being tied to region is something I wish Sony would change

 

[OneEyedJuliet]

They will never do that because then they'd have to reckon with the massive disparities in prices across regions. Why would anyone in Europe pay 80€ for a game when you can buy it for $70 in the US store?

 

[Samiad]

I don't have any confidence this would ever happen at Sony. It sucks - I live in the US but have to keep my old UK PSN+ account alive as I'd lose access to all those games if I started anew with a US PSN+ account.
It was simple/painless to region transfer at Microsoft.

 

[Storm]

The DLC SKU thing has always been a (unnecessary) nightmare.
And if loosing access to prior bought DLC/savegames is the price to pay I'd be willing to pay it if they can fix their shit going forward.

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Honestly. Wouldn't be willing to do this myself, I have thousands of things purchased including stuff that's long been delisted that I use pretty often. I'm kinda shocked they didn't go for a universal sku for the PS5. Generation switch seems like the perfect time to do it.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

It means like for example. I have a UK account currently. Let's say I migrate my account to a US account. The SKUs I've purchased are not on that store, and the SKUs on that store would not be compatible with my UK games. Simply converting all purchases to the new store doesn't help, since that would break all existing save games for digital titles etc. It's a really awkward situation they got themselves in.

Click to shrink...

I meant more them being region specific. Pricing, licensing, etc per region is mostly why these happen. It's one of those cases where when you get into the logistical reasons for why DLC and passes are region locked it makes sense, it just doesn't ion the surface. Transferring/migrating them between regions would very, very likely not happen even if they were to open the stores up more.

I'm talking about just making it so you could flip to another store via a tab or something, then buy something form there with a currency conversion with the understanding that any extra content for what you bought is locked to said region. This may also be a reason why they don't want to mess with it, because it could lead to some consumer confusion if something releases early in another region, they buy it there at a markup because of currency conversions and then also cannot buy content on the local store for it because it's not for the right game.

 

[Kibou]

It sucks. I created a US account because PSN didn't exist in my country back then. Luckily I can get prepaid codes from Amazon but I'd like to use my PayPal :/ if they won't allow changing regions at least enable international payment methods.

I honestly don't understand how it is they won't, even Nintendo allows this and different SKUs remain attached to your account.

 

[Lashley]

Zero chance sadly

 

[Vash63]

This sucks a lot. I moved from US to EU a few years ago, had to create a new account *and* on a new email as making a new account with the same recovery email was not allowed.

 

[Ctrl Alt Del]

I really wish they would let us. My main account is an US one because when I created it in 2007 there wasn't a brazilian account yet. I have to buy from a second account (BR) to play on main account (US).

Click to shrink...

 

[Lemony1984]

It's near impossible to do from the backend as the EU SKU is totally different from a US SKU. That's why dlc and saves can't be shared between those games.

 

[Hardvlade]

I really wish they'd have a similar system like Xbox does. I have a US/Japan PSN account, the Japan account was mainly for demos and originally to get PSO2 back then.

on my Xbox account I've purchased games & demos from all sorts of places. Brazil, Russia, Hong Kong, Japan, UK. All using my US account. I'd love for Sony to do the same, make it much easier to keep it all in one place

 

[tolman]

Some dlc are tied to psn account they were bought on. I think all new Ubisoft games do that, no dlc sharing from secondary accounts.

 

[Heliex]

I hope so, my Mexican account has all my platinums but I cant even purchase anything on it since I dont live in Mexico anymore.

 

[Shoshi]

That won't happen.
I'm just worried they will prevent me from using PSPlus from a certain other regions and sharing that account which I only use for redeeming ps+ games with my local Playing and local purchases account.
I mean, I wouldn't subscribe for ps+ in my local account due to I rarely play online. And now I'm still spending more on PSN in total buying games from both, heck I even sometimes buys from 4 regions actually.

 

[Shoshi]

One thing they should add is to be able to see which region (or the name of account) a certain game is from.
They should also add the ability to see if a game is a full game or a Demo/Trial.

 

[Dave.]

This is a problem that is so easily sidestepped, either by buying PSN cards or setting up a secondary 'purchase' account (though that has issues with microtransactions and some DLC), that I don't think it is high on the priority list.

Click to shrink...

Yep, this.

 

[Yueezy]

Xb store is really my primary library on console because it is global account, so organized and easy to use other region etc. PSN is only for some exclusive for me.

 

[DoktorAkcel]

The problem is - PSN was made at times when cyber-security and convenience for back-end developers were not really a priority. Microsoft avoided that because, well, they're software developers at heart, and because over time they did overhaul a lot of guts in Live (the biggest overhaul even forced them to close down Live servers for original Xbox). For Sony, it would take more time, or something drastic, like having to switch off PSP/PS3/Vita's PSN functionality fully, deprecating them. I mean, apparently till the 2018 Sony used account's username as a primary ID in userbase, which is a big no-no. Who knows how much scotch tape and prayers keep the service itself stable...

 

[Puroresu_kid]

Yes it's annoying this isn't possible. They need to fix this nonsence where DLC is tied to the specific region as well. That's BS!!

 

[Zolbrod]

Their official recommendation is to just create a new account, which is fine if we ignore that all my friends, trophies, PS+, cloud saves, and prior purchases are tied to my original account that I would like to keep.

Click to shrink...

You can download games off stores from other regions and just play them on your main account, so your friends, Trophies, cloud saves and whatnot are not affected.
I've been using multiple accounts for over a decade now, and I've never had any issues.

I agree it would be nicer if they just let you change regions the way Xbox does tho.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

They need to start gifting system first but again this will require them to let us change region first and vice versa.

 

[StraySheep]

They will never do that because then they'd have to reckon with the massive disparities in prices across regions. Why would anyone in Europe pay 80€ for a game when you can buy it for $70 in the US store?

Click to shrink...

But the funny thing is what they've done is create that exact situation for people in this thread. I'm in Europe paying US prices.

 

[toadkarter]

Yeah I had issues with this in the past... Made my account when I was a teenager and living in a totally different country, which meant that when I moved I couldn't buy DLC for games I owned with the currency of the new country.

Ended up making a new PSN account, and as a bonus it cured me of my trophy addiction as obviously none of my platinums transferred over!

 

[Jawmuncher]

This is one aspect where they really just need to take a page from Microsoft. Switching regions is as easy as going into settings, picking a new one, and resetting the console.

A universal account where you just pay the specific currency needed is the best option. But my assumption is that they're too engrained with what they have now to fully implement it. As we have things such as DLCs not working if they're not the correct type or saves not working.

My guess is that if Sony finally does add region switching, it'll likely be similar to the PSN name change. Where you can change regions, but your purchases from said region are stuck in that regions store and your past purchases would need you to swap back to the other region.

Not perfect, but better than having multiple accounts still.

 

[Decarb]

They cornered themselves with region specific SKUs and DLC and now can't go back. They could've done it last gen when they had a clean break from PS360 gen (like Xbone) but they didn't. And now they're stuck because of BC.

 

[whassupbun]

Yeah the credit card problem sucks. I'm in Hong Kong and our PS Store is missing tons of games, especially indie titles. So I often have to buy from the US Store, which wouldn't let me use my Hong Kong credit card. I just buy prepaid US PSN cards from play-asia and be done with it.

 

[Puroresu_kid]

This is one aspect where they really just need to take a page from Microsoft. Switching regions is as easy as going into settings, picking a new one, and resetting the console.

A universal account where you just pay the specific currency needed is the best option. But my assumption is that they're too engrained with what they have now to fully implement it. As we have things such as DLCs not working if they're not the correct type or saves not working.

My guess is that if Sony finally does add region switching, it'll likely be similar to the PSN name change. Where you can change regions, but your purchases from said region are stuck in that regions store and your past purchases would need you to swap back to the other region.

Not perfect, but better than having multiple accounts still.

Click to shrink...

Yep it's kinda crazy that even with Nintendo you can easily switch regions with the switch and DLC and micro transactions are not effected yet with playstation this isn't possible.

My sons psn account is set to US and his now at an age where he has his own bank card but he can't purchase stuff like fortnite skins or battle pass, rocket league points himself with the card as its UK based so I need to buy US PSN cards for him.

Would be so much easier if we could just switch the region of the account.

 

[dex3108]

Can we get region free accounts and regional stores like every single PC Digital Store?

 

[.exe]

This is a problem that is so easily sidestepped, either by buying PSN cards or setting up a secondary 'purchase' account (though that has issues with microtransactions and some DLC), that I don't think it is high on the priority list.

Click to shrink...

Does every region have access to PSN cards? Also, PS Vita continues to get screwed regardless (no support for multiple accounts).
It just seems like a bad system.

 

[ThreepQuest64]

Nah, they're too ignorant.

 

[Madrugador]

Not being able to change region is complete nonsense. I've been waiting for years and expect nothing from Sony now.

 

[KiDdYoNe]

They cornered themselves with region specific SKUs and DLC and now can't go back. They could've done it last gen when they had a clean break from PS360 gen (like Xbone) but they didn't. And now they're stuck because of BC.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much /thread.
And yes, this fucking sucks, I hate being in RU region now.

 

[SplitYourInfinities]

This really is the only thing I ask Sony for. I'm lucky enough because I have a payment method from the country I was living in when I first created the account, but it definitely will be an issue in the future.

 

[Hatebringer]

Having to alternate between US and EU accounts sucks, but I don't expect Sony to change this anytime soon.

 

[Deleted member 5086]

I hope so, for my friend's sake. He's stuck with a JP account as his main one.

 

[Kunjiru]

I'm also wondering if they are going to ever bring PSNow to Poland, because holy fuck I've been waiting whole PS4 gen to play MGS HD Collection

 

[nikasun :D]

This is one aspect where they really just need to take a page from Microsoft. Switching regions is as easy as going into settings, picking a new one, and resetting the console.

Click to shrink...

What do you mean by resetting the console? Just restarting it? And if I switch from EU to US for example, can I pay with my EU credit card?