UPDATE: The Welcome Back offer has been extended until 9am Pacific on Tuesday, July 5th. If you haven’t had a chance to download the offerings, please do so before then.
Just a friendly reminder: Your complimentary Welcome Back games are waiting for you, but they won’t wait forever.
To welcome customers back after last month’s outage, we’ve made a selection of PS3 and PSP games, as well as a 30-day subscription to PlayStation Plus available for free download via our Welcome Back program. This offer expires on Sunday, July 3rd, so please make sure to claim what’s yours before then.
For more details on the Welcome Back program, please click here.
Now start downloading, and thanks for being a part of PlayStation Network!
I must agree, the Welcome Back section was GONE earlier today and hasnt come back up. I’m very angry that they cut it off a day early. False advertising indeed. Thanks alot Sony, don’t think I’m gonna buy any more of your crap if your gonna treat your customers like this AFTER the outage.
I’ve been trying to get access to the free games today but I don’t even see them on the network. I also tried to do it through your services list and there is nothing for Sony promos Help!
@CrzyAs1an
“Through July 3rd = stop deal by 2pm EST of July 3rd.”
Going by Sony/Grace Chen-time that is completely accurate. Remember, PSN would be back up “within the week” as determined by Sony rather than local & internation time zones and whatnot.
The real reason they took it down when they did was because anyone getting PS+ today would have had it through August 2nd which would have been 5 store updates. Cutting off access to it now saves them a weeks worth of content. So mark your calenders all of you +’ers who’ve been whining that your updates have sucked because of freebies. You’ve got another months wait until things get back on track. :)
Thank you for the generous offer! It appears, however, that many of us (myself included) thought we had until the end of the day 3, July to activate the program. Hate to get left-out. Could you please considering an extension to the program?
wow, no notice when the free games offer will expire nice sony. A simple email would have been nice. I believe your network outage lasted longer than this pathetic offer. Everyone’s personal information out there for ever and you put a time limit on free content, come on man up and take some accountability.
Ironic it happened to be today that i went to download my stuff only to find this post…. haha guess this is the last sony product i buy
I didn’t realize Sony was this ignorant to their customers! Not only did they have a security breach but now they trick people into signing into their store on Sunday July 3, the day everyone will be home playing video games because of the holiday. This is corporate trickery at its lowest. Tempting customers with freebies but then telling them it is no longer free. We’ve all got to learn that Sony says one thing but does another. In other words, Sony just cannot be trusted. Do the right thing Sony: live up to your promises for once.
I’m so upset about this. I can’t believe this backpedalling. The official FAQ section now says:
“Q: When will I have access to the Welcome Back Program?
A: The content offered as part of the Welcome Back Program is available for download today and will be available for 30 days.”
It looks like they changed the FAQ and the terms and this post is a ridiculous attempt to change the rules after the fact. Someone at Sony got things mixed up somewhere along the line. Completely ludicrous. I mean, it’s only an extra day for crying out loud! Thumbs down, Sony.
I did my stuff yesterday, I just had a feeling because MS pulled this stunt on some Marketplace content back in 2007.
But really, it does also make me angry because I passed this blog link onto my PS3 friends over Facebook this morning so they could handle their downloads AFTER CHURCH. Well, guess what? they took the content down by that point it seems.
You never see Best Buy cut off a weekly promotion SATURDAY MORNING. It is ALWAYS close of business on that day. And if using Asia time is the excuse, this is even worse because supposedly PSN over there is still not back up?
Sony, it is braindead decision making like this that is the reason why your company took THIRD PLACE in this console generation and watched MS blow by you.
Thanks for the content, and the offer, as I got mine done, but still, this decision is not going to make you guys look good or competent. If anything, this should have been extended through the US July 4th holiday because a lot of folks are celebrating that holiday by being on vacation or travelling.
Like everyone else I just logged in to download my 2 free games “through” July 3rd.
I contacted Customer Support and the rep there said that she was surprised it ended today but that she couldn’t do anything about it–the promotion was over. Like others, I had marked today as the day to take care of all of this knowing that most promotions I’ve ever seen would run through midnight the day on the final day, and I didn’t see anything posted by Sony that would have led me to believe otherwise. Hopefully Sony can make this right given that they caused confusion with the wording of the offer yet it was removed early on the day it was to end.
Wow just found out the welcome back promo ended at 2:00pm ET, Thats great Sony! why not make it 12:01 am! That makes no sense most promotions tend to end at 12:00am at the end of the day of the expiration. It wasn’t even made clear on the network itself. This is why people are moving over to microsoft. Also some people have reasons why they couldn’t download the games earlier. I had issues with my network for over a month and I just got access in the last 24 hrs. So there are reason for people downloading games on the last day.
I phoned through to the UK customer service/technical helpline on the 2nd July as I wanted to find out a little bit more about this offer and the advisor I spoke to said that the deal would be available until the end of the 3rd July 2011.
Now this was my main reason for calling as my last PS3 died a few months ago so I was thinking of buying a new one. Well this offer persuaded me, set it all up this evening and now I find that I can’t download any of the free games.
My main concern is the reminder e-mail I recieved about this offer states is available through July 3rd and an advisor confirmed it to me over the phone. I have just paid £250 for a new console, under the advisement of a customer service advisor that this deal will be available.
I shall be calling Sony helpline in the morning as I either want these games made available for me or at least crediting my account with enough funds to cover the purchase of the two games I wanted.
So frustrated by Sony and in all honesty they have never been helpful to me when I have been buying sony products for over a decade. If this doesn’t get resolved tomorrow I am ebaying my ps3 and moving over to xbox i think.
Can’t believe people actually waited all this time to claim their freebies. Pathetic…
I, too, reminded my Facebook friends to ‘dont forget, download your free games from Sony Playstation Network. Today is the last day’. Thanks for making me look as sorry as Sony looks now, Sony.
Who thought of this program and why do they still have a job? You err on the side of customer expectation that they see an end date, and that date is part of the promotion. Why the heck do you put July 3rd as part of your program anyway? Why not July 2? You better make this right with me, Sony, or I WILL spread your actions all over Facebook and you will have very angry fans. That is a PROMISE!!!!
I should have figured Sony would figure out a way to botch this up too.
Kudos to Sony for continuing to keep their heads up their own backsides.
I am more frustrated about this than the ps3 outage. Taking out the welcome back package a day early just goes to show you how honest Sony actually is to their customers. Its the matter of principle rather than when one decides to claim the freebies.
I finally managed to make some time to log back into PSN after a few months knowing the Welcome Back promo will be a nice, well, welcome back treat but it was very sad to see that it was removed early. Quite frustrating considering many, many other people also made plans similar to mine and were foiled the same way.
I’m happy. Got both my free games, free plus for an extra couple of months. Thanks Sony. Couldn’t be happier. Everyone else that didn’t get thiers, well, guess you should of done it a little sooner. HAHAHA. And, BTW I thought the choices of free games was outstanding. Thanks again Sony.
“For more details on the Welcome Back program, please click here.”, where “here” is:
https://blog.playstation.com/2011/06/03/welcome-back/
And from this page, which as of 3:17 CST (Central Standard Time) IS STILL STATING THE FOLLOWING::
Q: When will I have access to the Welcome Back Program?
A: The content offered as part of the Welcome Back Program is available for download today and will be available THROUGH July 3.
Even my timestamp on this post says July 3rd, but the content is gone.
While I got my content (and thanks for that Sony), my friends who wanted to get this done today CAN NOT.
This is a disaster Sony, you might want to get on top of this QUICKLY. So, what will the “welcome back” promo for this complete mulligan? I guess I could download a copy of Killzone 2 or Uncharted 1…
“Comments, Open to Everyone, But Don’t Be A Jerk” – Because Sony has got that handled it seems.
Sorry if I seem cross, but this does make me angry at the treatment my friends are getting today.
@Bubaroo – you are an ass.
who wants to play some red dead
I only logged into the PSN to claim the free welcome back games. I guess I know why I’ve been a loyal 360 gamer these past few years.
@Bubaroo – do you work for Sony? Your selfish attitude would point to yes…
News flash for those folks who don’t understand expiration/valid through/etc… It means it ends at 11:59pm/23:59 of that day. So the content should have stayed available through 11:59pm/23:59 Pacific on July 3rd, 2011.
Nope. Not an ass or an employee of Sony. Just an appreciative consumer. They gave me two free games, and two months extra of PS+, just like they promised. At first I had to fight to get it to download, but it was still done before the first day of the Welcome Back Program ended. I am GRATEFUL (yes, it’s an actual word!!!) to be given free things. I like free things.
Well, if these complaining children learned what a “deadline” is from all this, they’ll know not to wait until the very last minute next time, which should help later in life. Believe me, when they reach high school, they’ll be in a world of hurt!
It’s fine (yet still baffling) to be disappointed, but to blame Sony because YOU were procrastinating on their more-than-generous offer of two free games? Worse than scum.
@Burbaroo, how did you get 3 months of + ? i thought the freebie was only 1 month?
Two months… Because I was already a subscriber and had a month left on my account when the PSN went down.
How can you even think that it’s ok for a company to notify its customers that a promotional item is available through a certain time period and then the company stops the promotion a day early? How would you feel? People have lives and depend on the company keeping it word about time frames. Certainly, the Japanese have not learned this yet because that’s exactly what Sony did to all of us gamers who logged onto the Sony store this morning only to discover an inability to download freebee games. And Sony Customer Service reps stop telling us that the time frame was based on the asian time zone; errors and omissions are what got you into trouble in the first place.
Same thing for me that for a lot of customers. I just realize that is the last day for the welcome back Offer.
I can see it but not use it.
It seems there is two deadlines…..
+ triple_lei, what gives? More than generous? My birth-date, credit card number, name, address, phone number and password are now a product of the underground information for sale to the highest bidder, identity theft artist, etc. and Sony is generous in giving me two lousy games worth less than $75.
Go review the study of economics and logic btw because your reasoning is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy off.
I have a life. It’s called time and priority management. If you were too busy to claim them within the last month, which is a decent stretch, that is your fault. I made time to get them. Waiting until the last minute is never smart, especially on something that’s free.
Oh, and I didn’t even get the two games, because subsequent the first download the WB store closed…
@Gu1Gu1 Can you prove that they stole your information? I haven’t had a problem with any of my credit or personal information. As for as I can tell people are complaining more that it might have been, than it actually was. Not discounting your claim, but if you have solid proof, I’m sure Sony would do something about it. Once again, not calling you a liar, just saying.
The point isn’t that I waited until the last moment, the last moment as advertised by Sony was THROUGH JULY 3, 2011, and I don’t recall that 12 noon denotes a time “THROUGH JULY 3, 2011. Whether you agree with it or not t was an error an omission on Sony’s part that their customer suffered for…
Oh yeah, taking it down early isn’t cool. Never said that was. I’m guessing they’re going on Japenese time. Just shows you all businesses suck. But waiting until the last twelve hours out of a month? Can you honestly justify that?
Bubaroo
“Appreciate your comment, Sony rep, and oh, don’t worry I won’t be divulging that to you, but Sony will have my say so through my rep.
@ bubaroo waiting last minute shouldn’t have any effect on claiming what you deserve within the time limit advertized. Whoever waits last minute still should get the right to claim their downloads as long as it’s within the time limit that Sony mentions.
July 3rd 15:30. The Wlecome back pack is gone… How hard is to keep your word SONY????
I like how Jeff has the time to battle it out on Twitter with Garnet Lee but not address any of us here on the blog.
Whoever said that they were told that it was taken down at 2pm EST, that is untrue as well. So if it came from a Sony rep then they are obviously just making up excuses. I logged in way before 2pm EST which would have been 12pm MST for me and it was already gone. The only stuff that shows is the 100 virtual items for home, but you can’t checkout/download the content as it gives an error message that the content is not available.
We were ripped off. I’m sure the reason a lot of people were waiting for the last day or two to activate the PS+ offer was because the stuff that they had since it has came back up just wasn’t worth it. So for all you people that went and activated it immediately then that’s just like being ripped off as they didn’t update their content with anything really good or worth while. Plus what happened to the store being updated twice a week to catch up with the downed time? They never did that either.
This was completely FALSE ADVERTISING. I am sure there will be lawyers that will file a class action law suit due to this. No matter what Sony says about it ending in Asia time, they already screwed up by saying it would be available THROUGH THE 3rd and or REMOVED AFTER THE 3rd.
I have been really disappointed with Sony ever since I got my PS3. I already had an Xbox 360, but wanted a PS3 because I thought the Playstation Network was better than Xbox’s, especially since you got access to it for free. I guess the saying “you get what you pay for” is true. I signed up for the Playstation Network only a couple weeks before it went down. At least I got my 2 free games out of this botched up deal, but even then, I constantly got errors trying to download them. I waited this late to get the 30 free days of Playstation Plus because I was going to be gone for part of the time during the offer and didn’t want to redeem it and waste it. I didn’t get back until yesterday and I thought I’d still have today to redeem the offer. If this is how Sony treats it’s customers after exposing them to identity theft, I guess I’ll stick with Xbox. Heck, I might even check out the new Wii.
Burn down Sony!! Screw the Government!! God Hates Me!!! Everyone’s Out to Get Me!!! (Now I’m just annoyed and going to leave. Thanks again Sony. Off to enjoy my two free games. HAHAHA.)
Games were nice,
Free month of + was Great
but like always with Sony the problem’s not the content of the message, but how it’s delivered…
In this case very poorly.
Ending on July 3rd doesn’t mean ending at 23:59 on July 2nd or at 00:01 on July 3rd.
It means customers can access the content ON July 3rd, all day !!!
Yeah… people who wanted the month of PS+ to start today got screwed. I got screwed
So did this end a day early? I’m trying to register but can’t find the Welcome back on the store anywhere.
The other frustrating thing is that all the people that CAN do something and add it back to the PS Store or whatever are probably on Vacation until after the 4th, and probably by then they’ll have another excuse. They more than likely had something set automatically to have it removed, so I’m sure the service reps can’t do anything at this time. We just need to CONTINUE to keep calling, emailing, posting about this until Sony fixes it. As well as letting other gaming sites/blogs know about this as well so that way they can maybe help in getting Sony to put it back up for at least one day.
There definitely HAS to be something Sony can do to fix this. Even if they supposedly “can’t” put it back up in the PS Store, they can most definitely give people a 1 month credit/trial for PS+ and or credit for whomever couldn’t get their games. Even if they put a time limit on when that credit is valid, like for 24hrs. There is definitely someway somehow they can “fix” this. Don’t give up and just accept what a lowly rep that is probably outsourced in another country has to say.
I havent signed into my account since the outage was over because I was out of the country, So does that mean I miss out on the free games? Thats unfair because I always wanted to play Infamous….
@triple_lei … What I’m blaming Sony for is NOT properly communicating when their “deadline” was. Maybe if you had experience with “deadlines” you might actually understand what the word means.
Alot of you seem to forget how a business should treat its customers. Did they do the right thing by offering free games, etc. absolutley! Did they properly communicate when the deadline was going to end… absolutley not!
It doesn’t matter what their intentions were, it’s all about the execution and they’ve botched that job pretty poorly. On the flip side I’m not going to say this was intentional. My guess is that some programmer messed up the date for when these items were to be removed.
I no way shape or form is the consumer at fault with this. The responsibility to properly communicate the deadline is fully on the shoulders of Sony and its employees. If you disagree with that go spend some time learing about business and customer relations.
How Sony handles this “hiccup” will tell me alot about the company.
“But waiting until the last twelve hours out of a month? Can you honestly justify that?”
A friend of mine kept getting error messages whenever he tried to download stuff. You know what Sony’s official response to that was? “It’s busy, so wait and try again another day.”
it figures when they post the 3rd they really mean o by the way the ACTUAL last day to GET the games is the 2nd. like why does the post say the 3rd when clearly the last day to get them was the 2nd talk about missleading, makes jeff look like an idiot