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!
Oh, this is good: the “free, welcome pack!” offer expires? No, I don’t make it a point to keep up with the “news”, and after having to futz about with trying to get my account going again (after all of the errors the server had) I should have been in a hurry to “take advantage” of this offer? This is ridiculous, free is free, I just saw the welcome back offer after logging in yesterday – the *2nd*! No, on the 4th of July weekend I’m *not* making Sony my first priority Yet another example of the Sony life, welcome back but too bad if you missed it? I want my old PS3 back before the updates and this fiasco wasted my time!
@ Bubaroo you really are an ass, btw I was able to download the free game and get PS+, but still I feel the pain that you guys are going through. This is bull**** and Sony knows it, it doesn’t matter if you wait till’ last minute, as long its still under the time limit you should be fine. Next time Sony be more specific and you might skip a mess like the one that you have created to these people now. I really hope they do something so you guys can enjoy the welcome back package, even if it is to extend it a few more hours so you guys can take advantage of it. Good Luck!
It says THROUGH July 3rd and I took that to mean the promotion will last until midnight tonight. It could also mean the promotion ended midnight on the 2nd. Either way, I’m fine with it. I got all the games and items I wanted except one psp game. That was Modnation Racers PSP. I could care less since I’ll eventually get the version for the PS Vita if I live to see it. Besides, I sold my GO months ago. I can’t be mad because Sony owes me nothing at all and I rather enjoy PSN. Sony has their flaws, but every 360 gamer isn’t satisfied %100 of the time. I guess everyone has a case to be disappointed, but I’m cool with it. Sony, up your game a lil’ bit. That’s my only gripe with you…
Hey, Sony, where are you? People want to know what has happened with your welcome back program? It is July 3rd and there is no sign of welcome back program anywhere. You did enough mess with Play station Store some time ago. Are you going to continue that? How can you offer free games to this date and surprisingly disappear with all that? Please, as a costumer, I want a reasonable explanation about welcome back program.
triple_lei, as any company should know, accurate information about anything involving customers is one of most valuable things (if not the most) in customer relationship.
Sony has customers around the world, with different time zones. You may tell it’s only about PSN US businesses, but USA has different time zones too. Days will start/end in different moments in each one. So how could anyone have a good “date perception” in what FAQ said? Anyone had its own understanding about that, and if it happened, it’s vague information.
Besides that, many customers have chosen to get this free subscription on last day, maybe not only because they couldn’t, but to use the related privileges in contents released after July 3. As Sony stated in FAQ, anyone whose account is eligible would grab it until July 3. “WBP ends in July 3, 12:00 AM EST/Pacific Time/whatever” would be much more precise information, allowing anyone (regardless where we live, in any time zone) to take the proper actions in time. Clear information should be first way to Sony shows us respect.
Honestly…you talk about immature players, but offending all that didn’t have your understanding about this. Is that mature?
Sony, can u message me a date when i can get my second game? i downloaded the first game, and was gonna wait for my second game and i checked the blog and i thought that i can download something TODAY. so when i went to PlayStation store it wasn’t there and i checked the blog and started writing this message, SO PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously would BEG my friends to switch systems from Xbox to PLAYSTATION! I AM BEGGING YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so please with a cherry on top?
The message said “until July 3rd”..what happened Sony, it is still July 3rd. This is false advertising, it is my choice
if I want to wait until the last date to redeem the promotion and today is the last day per your message!! I have a screenshot, I am not making this up. ALL: keep the pressure, what is right is right!!
So I get it now. Sony did not wish to honor requests of all gamers who waited until today to activate their PS Plus freebies so they could have availability to its content throughout the month of July so to thwart them Sony closed the WB offer hours earlier than advertised. OK, Sony for those who play your games to death’s bed, laud Sony to their friends, colleagues, and spread the word of its superiority, playability, library store of games, etc., in other words to those who drive Sony’s business the company wants to lock out their abilities to get a free PS Plus MONTHLY pass? For what end? Are you attempting to wreck the the company? Those that you’ve locked out today from your WB program, are the very ones who were off PSN for an entire month. These are avid players that had no access for one month and I’m sure it drove many of them wild just asks parents of teenagers who play on the network. And your response, Sony, is, “if you have not taken advantage of our freebie by early 4th of July weekend, don’t even try… Sad, sad.
Just want to chime in to say that my boyfriend and I logged into the network to to activate the free offers but could not get anything. We could not find it using the Account Management method either. It was a nice offer and I’m not going to get terribly upset that a company can’t seem to get their dates straight. I see it as a friendly reminder to never trust them with any of my credit card information again. Who can trust a company that can’t tell the difference between a 2 and a 3?
Sadly, I also thought through July 3rd meant up to and including July 3rd for the redemption. And for all of you ganging up on people who waiting until the last minute calm down–there are plenty of legitimate reasons for this. I and a few people I know, for example, could not connect after multiple tries, but our internet tests said everything was working. Other people could have been moving, out of town, etc.
No reason to flip out that you missed it either. I did, I’m not happy, but they didn’t really have to offer us anything. The credit protection offer would have been sufficient on its own.
Maybe Sony will realize their mistake in implying people had through the end of the day today to redeem and extend it. I hope so at least.
Thanks for disappointing your base once again. Geez, you can’t even get the customer thank you right. As everyone else has said, when you read “This offer expires on Sunday, July 3rd, so please make sure to claim what’s yours before then”, people see that as “Sunday, July 3rd is the last day you can download stuff”.
As to why I didn’t download things earlier, the main reason is that I’m an adult and have other things going on. I was going to download it day one but read about people having tons of problems and extreme download times. I didn’t want to waste my time then, but I did make a note to go in today so that I wouldn’t miss out.
Just terrible, way to go Sony.
ok so i just heard about this yesterday but now i cant get anything even though it clearly says i have until the 3rd to download my stuff.. not happy right now sony
We need to be slamming them with threats right now! On the phone with them (waiting for 15 minutes) assuming others have this same problem. Tear em apart!
This is FALSE advertising and CHEATING!
We need to threaten a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT against Sony! They owe many of us two games! Regardless if we wanted them or not, it was an ADVERTISEMENT and they cancelled the advertisement prior to its expiration date.
The promotion was good THROUGH July 3rd. To me, that is 11:59 PM their time. Not 9:30 am!
We told the first guy we talked to that this was unfair, and would no longer be Sony customers.. to which they said oh well.. we have plenty of others… hmm.. sounds to me like they are really screwing up these days…. dont think Id like a product with a company who cheats and lies.
What a bunch of crap Sony pulling the WB offer 1-day early! I just Pre-ordered PS Vita and I was hoping to get 2 free PSP games today from WB promo and now it’s gone!!! Is this how you treat your loyal customer? Another lie or a bunch of BS that sony japan is past July 3rd already that’s why the promo ends. I call it BS! Will definitely switched my Vita to 3DS now.
Also, this promo is for North America not for Jpn so saying that the Sony Jpn is ahead of time is a bunch of low class act.
thanks SONY for those utterly rubbish free games of which i downloaded none of.
you didn’t even offer us 1 good game,not that i thought you would anyway….Jeez you couldn’t even offer us any decent security…
and what about all those hackers who still spoil it for everyone?……….
when you gonna do something about that?
am so pee’d off with the lack of customer service and info available to us.
and totally pee’d that my stats for a game i used to love and play has been changed due to one of many hackers still spoiling it for all those gamers who actually want to play it properly.
so come on SONY sort this mess out please!!!!!
delete all those hacked accounts – or better still…ban those i.p addresses…..Christ!! I’d even be admin if it meant stopping all those dumb hackers..
well Sony….you have now been told at last……someone had to say it sooner or later guess it was me eh?
I have been trying for 3 days to get my free stuff, but the “SCEA Promotions” in NOT in my account settings section. I went to the “XMB>PlayStation Network>Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>”… but it simply is NOT there.. PLEASE HELP! I tried again last night and again today, and it’s simply NOT there…
IF they were going to use Japanese time, that should have been stated in the email. Since it does not, one must assume its US time, and where they are originating from, and Pacific is what I have understood to be.
@Jeff Rubenstein: The original post about the welcome back package says the offer would go “through” July 3:
https://blog.playstation.com/2011/06/03/welcome-back/
“Through” in this context means all day, so why is the offer no longer available? There is nothing wrong with waiting until the last day, since the offer is still supposed to work on the last day. However, the offer appears to have been ended early.
If the IRS decided to suddenly make taxes due on April 13 instead of April 14… but they waited until April 14 to announce this change, how would you expect people to react?
I only had a chance to get one free PS3 game. I had trouble deciding what I wanted my second game to be, so I waited until the last minute, which I again remind you shouldn’t be a problem if the offer is actually good as long as it was originally stated to be.
How can we get this problem fixed?
btw… John is very sorry! When we reamed him about why the promo was closed out so soon. He told us it was their choice when to stop the promo as long as it was ON July 3rd. Even tho, we said, that the day had not PASSED and was not THROUGH as stated in several of their promotions.
SONY READ UP! We are not happy!! I don’t care if I waited until 11:58 to get these downloads, through is through and passed is not yet. We will get rid of anything and everything SONY (TV’s, Computers and DVD players) I dont want to deal with a company who cares SO little about their PAYING customers !!
I logged in today because I realized it would be my last chance to get my free ps3 games… And I was a bit shocked to find the promotion was removed even before the end of day July 3rd.
I kind of dumbfounded… ” no, they wouldn’t end it early, would they?”
I mean, the whole purpose was to restore faith in Sony Inc., and compensate customers for the inconvenience caused by their security lapse.
So, an initiative at was supposed to build goodwill with their customers has become yet another reason to find Sony both laughable and contemptable.
Good job, Sony! Never missing an opportunity to screw over your customers!
Signed, first and last time PSN Store user
Is there any way I can still get my last free game? I didn’t realize you meant it would end sometime during the 3rd – I thought you meant it ended as of the 4th.
This is BS, yes I waited to the last minute but the communication states through the 3rd and once this dates passed. Still the 3rd. The 3rd has not passed or have gone through. I should have had access to the offer until midnight tonight. Sony, you just lost a customer.
Why did you guys remove the welcome back content a day early? I was going to get the free ps plus today, and it already gone! It was supposed to be available today! Not cool, Sony. You are not earning my trust back pulling moves like this.
Same for me. Very disappointed as I also thought the program would be available for the whole day. I hope Sony does the right thing by making the free games available for an extra day.
A free video game is not such a big deal. . .on the other hand, the attitude taken by Sony and Mr. Rubenstein is the best Microsoft advertisement I’ve ever seen. YOU screwed up. . .”through July 3rd” has ONE meaning. The fact that you either don’t see anything wrong with terminating the Welcome Back program a day early, or you simply don’t care about further angering your (previously) loyal customers is what’s so shocking. In one fell swoop you’ve destroyed whatever goodwill the program was designed to generate. You might’ve been better off not bothering with it at all and just letting people be mad. Now they’re mad anyway.
I spoke with a CS rep and a supervisor at Sony today. Both were very polite and I felt like they wanted to help. Sadly, it was pretty clear that they’ve been instructed to find pleasant ways to tell upset customers to take a hike.
I’ve had every PS model since the launch of the original and never even thought about getting an XBox. Until today. It’s a good thing I have a Wii, because right now I’m too disgusted to even touch my PS3.
I wonder how many XBox 360s and standalone Blu-Ray players will be sold this week.
SONY, you really know how to show your customers that your really don’t care.
Thanks again for screwing over your customer base again by misleading us with information and then not being willing to step up to the plate and fix it or even admit that you messed up again. You made this Welcome Back offer and then didn’t allot for enough time or bandwidth to accommodate all of your customers. Every time I have ever tried to get my free games I receive errors and don’t get the downloads. I finally got my PS3 working, no thanks customer support, only to find out that the content was taken down on JULY 2nd when it clearly states that the program is going THROUGH July 3rd!!!
Only Sony… this had finally broken me and I will not be investing anymore money into my PS3 or the PSN since it seems to always be in maintenance when I can finally find time to get on line and play, they use mediocre encrypted firewalls to protect completely unencrypted user files from hackers that can use minimal code to access back doors and then say I’m sorry for the inconvenience by offering deals to us and then not even living up to THEIR policies!
i too thought that it would expire at midnight tonight. i waited so long because i kept having issues resetting my password. Very disappointed playstation
I think both sides have an argument for this. On one hand, Sony never had to do this, so be glad they offered the opportunity. They also didn’t want people being greedy and taking the offer at the very last second. However, the definition of Through is From beginning to end of. So it should’ve been available for all of July 3rd in their respective timezones. There are people who haven’t been able to get on the PSN for some reason until today either. In my opinion, they should just open back the offer for 24 hours sometime in the weekend so anyone who hasn’t gotten the offer yet could get it, ending all the complaining.
Because you ended the deal early on Sunday, i didn’t get my 30 days of PS+ dammit. Add that option under the service list option please. I already downloaded the games but I wanted to try out the plus service to see if it was really worth it. Add it NOW.
“This offer expires on Sunday, July 3rd, so please make sure to claim what’s yours before then.”
Strange…it’s July 3rd…..but it’s already gone.
Can someone tell me why Sony says one thing, but does another?
You know…like when they said they hadn’t been hacked for a few weeks, but didn’t say they had been?
Ah well, as Sony customers we should just be used to being lied to anyways, cause that’s just good customer service!
What is this, the procrastinator support forum now? Jesus.
I agree with the comments wroted over here. If Sony said that the promo is until July 3rd, the games and the PSN +Plus membership shoud be available until 23:59. But I accessed two hours ago and the promo is gone!!! What is this, Sony? If you notify everybody, you should considered that problems like this will happen. So, why you did not take the proper actions to avoid it? Please I will really appreciate that you consider all our comments here and give us some more time to download the games. Thanks!
Add me to the list of dissatisfied customers. THROUGH July 3 means it INCLUDES July 3. Sony did not list a final end time, so it was safe to assume end of day. Like many others, I find myself without all the freebies because of the premature end to the program. I was purposely waiting until the last day to enroll in PS+. Any hope of me actually paying for that service has gone out the window.
doesnt the program end today, so why cant i find it?
I’m pretty dissappointed over Sony taking down the welcome back program away prematurely. Even the blog entry states that it should not be gone yet.
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.
Q: How long do I have to get into the PlayStation Store and receive my content for Welcome Back?
A: Access to the Welcome Back content will be expiring on July 3. Once this date has passed, the Welcome Back section in the PlayStation Store will be removed.
One could be really petty and tell us that is past July 3 in some different time zone. Sony was never specific on what time zone they’d base it off of. They really should have.
Say whatever you want, calling us procrastinators or whiners, but the blog entry is pretty clear. People have legit reasons why to hold out until the last day (ie out of the country, busy with work/school, waiting to get a PS+ subscription on the last day, etc.).
We should really still have access to the welcome back stuff.
Dear Sony: as you can see in the latest comments on this post, a lot of people didn`t have access to the welcome back program benefits until today, the “last day” (3rd of July). I am one of them, i couldn´t enter to pstore to download the games because an internet wi-fi problem, but that’s just my case, among hundreds and hundreds more. The thing is that after several question and comments by other users, you don`t answer. NEVER.
This really gets you mad because it’s like we wouldn’t exist, nobody listens to us. So, please, ANSWER US and let us download the game/s we could´nt download till today (as you said in the original post 3rd of July the LAST DAY, not 2nd or 4th, the 3RD!). PLEASE ANSWER TO OUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS, and please bring us an easy solution, such as leting us donwload the content we weren´t able to in previous days for different reasons.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND I’M WAITING FOR YOUR RESPONSE!!!
Access to the Welcome Back content will be expiring on July 3. Once this date has passed, the Welcome Back section in the PlayStation Store will be removed.
expiring on July 3. Once this date (JULY 3RD) has passed, the Welcome Back section in the PlayStation Store will be removed.
You have said it as clear as water. Please bring us the solution to this problem that is worrying a lot of your users. Thank you.
Have we received any clarification on this yet? I logged on to take advantage of the package today after work and nothing was available…it was supposed to run through the 3rd…through means up to and including…I am thankful for the opportunity, but some of us aren’t on all the time and don’t have time to access our accounts…a definitive time should have been offered, not just a date…
This is ridiculous.
They SONY go down and not only do they steal the remaining money from my wallet but now after trying for 3 days to get online to get the free games for my KIDS’ PSPs the cheap pricks decide they aren’t going to honor their obligations to the end of the day.
I’m pretty much done with these incompetent, cheap, thieving bastards.
Garbage service and incompetent security and now after no replies to my requests to give me back my money they won’t even have the decency to allow the games they offer, as worthless an offer as it is, to be downloaded until the end of the day!?!?
Maybe if I post a message about this on a few HUNDRED websites and blogs they’ll get off their lazy asses and actually respond to a customer who had been loyal for more than 15 years now and who will NEVER buy one of their products again.
Sorry you folks have to read this but again, they SONY don’t seem to think they should answer a private email so screw them. They can read about how unhappy I am all over their own blogs and on every other website I contribute to (and that’s a whole lot of ’em).
It’s 9:27PM EST I like a lot of people, I’m checking on the Playstation Store and the welcome back program has been removed. I was able to get 1 game only and the PS+ preview, but wanted to download my 2nd PS3 game and my PSP games. I waited on the PSP games in particular because my memory stick died and I just got around to buying one.
I really think it’s in bad faith that Sony announces today is the last day of the program and then remove it before the day is over, specially on a holiday weekend!
I’ll be contacting customer support Tuesday (closed tomorrow), but who decided to remove this early today?
For a customer satisfaction program, how about not pulling stunts like this?
BTW I still can’t create sub-accounts, we still get this when going to the site to activate them;
—————————————————————-
Site Maintenance Notice
The server is currently down for maintenance.
We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.
—————————————————————-
as for the joke of “OPEN TO EVERYONE, BUT DON’T BE A JERK” crap they have at the side of this page, I wouldn’t HAVE to be a jerk if they weren’t being jerks themselves.
Maybe they should be more competent and people won’t need to be jerks. Maybe they shouldn’t blatantly STEAL peoples’ money when their “network” is down due to their OWN incompetence where they can’t maintain basic network security
I’m going to be a jerk until one of these pencil neck filled suits gets off his or her anus and replies to my emails or these posts.
If you were waiting wouldn’t it make sense to redeem the ps+ on wednesday or thursday. On sunday you are still on the same week for the last store update from the previous tuesday. I learned to not procrastinate in junior high. Not to say that the content should have been pulled when it was based on what sony previously posted, but there was plenty of time to redeem the games and free month of +, especially if you are a regular psn user that would have been hurting from the time the network was down.
Do not complain, everyone had 1 month to download the games, and now everyone it’s dissapointed because SONY removed the program a few hours earlier? That’s ridiculous
Jeff Rubenstein what a joke. You ended this program early in multiple different ways. First of all I, as everyone else, received an e-mail on or about 06-06-11. When I tried to log on that week to get items and redeem codes, the network was still not 100%. Then you announce on 06-30-11 that it will end 07-03-11. That wasn’t even a week. Do you honestly feel that 3-4 days is enough time to announce this kind of change? Where was the mass e-mail that you sent out to advise of the program, when the network was still down? By my counting thirty days form 06-06-11, and the network sill not 100%, would be 07-07-11. Then if you want to say when it was 100% up, it would have to be at least 07-15-11. The best part if this is that Customer Service does nothing for you. So to sum this all up.
1. Sony ended the program before 30 days.
2. Ended before July 3rd 2011 ended in all time zones.
3. A program that was suppose to show the users how much you cared for them, showed them how quick you will stab them in the back.
4. The blog is US.playstation, not japan.playstation. What is posted on the us sub-domain should be US time. Not to mention if it is EST or PST.
I also did not get a chance to download all the free content. I downloaded big little planet yesterday afternoon for my wife and she was playing it all night long. I had intended to download my second free game today, but was quite surprised to see that it was no longer available since it is still Sunday 7/3. I have been looking all over the internet, but have not found any positive feedback for this strange / ill-timed termination. What I don’t understand is if they clearly state this offer is only good for those who signed up before the outage (April 20th, 2011), why don’t they just check according to the account info and not limit the offer to a month or maybe send a link to everyone’s e-mail address with a personalized code? That would just make too much sense….
(cont.)
Sony will only do the right thing if they have to. The players have put up with Sony dropping the ball enough over the last few months. Our personal information was compromised, we couldn’t use our games to the fullest extent they were designed for, and now they are short changing us on a program to help right those wrongs. I will be contacting my Attorney General on Tuesday. I hope most of you upset with Sony will do the same. I will be contacting my Attorney General on Tuesday. I hope most of you upset with Sony will do the same. Maybe one of the law students can advise if we have a class action against Sony.
Respectfully,
Neil_McK1701
you said it ends on the 3rd i tried to activate my ps+ today the 3rd and there is no welcome back button. i assumed from the reading that i had until today to download everything. is there anyway to get my stuff?
Impossible to get my PS+ member ship for 30 days free. I try it but de “Welcome Back” nutton on the PS Store disapear. I cant I get my first 30 days membership??
Dude, where is the PS+ 30 Free Days?
I can’t find it anywhere to activate it on my girlfriend’s account, and today is the last day?
Why would you hide it ON SUNDAY?
It is nowhere to be found, what the heck? It doesn’t have it linked in the store and it’s not on the Welcome Back Special Offers page at all.
What gives?
I am another customer who still had one game to download and was under the impression that I would have today to do the download.
It would be really nice if you put the Welcome Back deal back up and made it clear when it will go down before just taking it down and surprising us like that.