UPDATE: On November 17th (Pacific Time), the PlayStation network will undergo maintenance. Once this maintenance window has completed, the new policy will apply. If you want to purchase content under the current rules, please do so before this maintenance begins on November 17th.
We’d like to inform you of some upcoming changes to the usage policies for PlayStation Network game content. As of November 18, 2011, the number of devices that can be activated on one PlayStation Network account for game content purchased from the PlayStation Store will be updated as follows:
For game content purchased after November 18, 2011, a new policy will apply and the number of devices that can be activated will be as follows:
- PS3: Users will be able to play the game on up to 2 activated PS3 systems.
- PSP: Users will be able to play the game on up to 2 activated PSP systems.
Please note that this update will not affect game content purchased before November 18. The PSP rights include PSP-1000/2000/3000 series as well as the PSPgo system.
PlayStation Network users are able to change the activation setting through each device, and Sony Computer Entertainment plans to provide a new PlayStation Network account management website where users will be able to deactivate particular devices attached to their PlayStation Network account via their PC.
For more details on how to activate/deactivate the devices, please visit here or contact consumer services.
Considering the fact that we (well soon) will be able to deactivate accounts online is great news. granted i dont think my ps3/psp account are on other systems, but even if they were i could just delete them via online.
My only concern is about the Vita. will it be considered a psp in this? or will it be its own “system” thus having the 2 activation?
This is bull crap u guys who all are ok with this and think its stealing well its not sony is stealing from us False advertising that is what this is they announce we get all these features people buy the stuff ps3 for those cool features and now they take them away i mean what the hell more and more stuff is slowly being taken way from us people open yur eyes darn it its about time we do some thing you know i for one have 4 active my brothers all dont have have money so in my family we learn to share we all saved up to get a ps3 then when we finally got it we are start slowly getting screwd you know what now i can see why anonymous started doing….
stuff to sony and frankly i hope some one will have the balls to sue sony or some thing as this is going to far more stuff being taken that was originally promised idk if any of you have realized all these better improvements like an update for more psn id colors for psn id and cross game chat hmmmm seems to be more taken then given the last cool thing we got was colors for a name tag i dont care what others systems do like xbox with 1 account to be active thats not the point the point is we were promised 5 told we had all these features wich got many to buy the system then they take it from us
sum one start a petition or some thing i am not agreeing to this False Advertising sony is inforcing on us like we have no say in the matter i for one think sony might as well realize keep pushing yur customers and we wont keep buying.
for sony employees who dont wanna say a darn thing in this you are pathetic if you guys are ok with this change sum of us are not rich sony and this helped some families
I agree this should be at a minimum 3 systems, 5 is clearly better as I have never run into an activation issue with 5, but since Sony is on a path of self destruction …
So can I still do 5 accounts after november 18 on the stuff I purchased before then? Like add a 3rd 4th or 5th ps3 to download my stuff on November 19th or later for stuff i purchased before then?
So Karen, will the remote deactivation be retroactive or will it only work going forward with this 2 activation stuff?
Also, as a follow up to your “You will be able to deactivate systems online” statement. Does this mean I will be able to deactivate a system if it breaks? Or will the remote deactivation only work if the remotely deactivated system connects to PSN again so you can remove it?
this move is only going to encourage piracy, not cut down on game sharing. People who would game share aren’t going to say, “oh you know what, I better buy this now since I can’t game share”. They’re going to jailbreak their PS3 and pirate it instead. The whole myth that you are “losing sales” due to piracy is just that… a myth. The kind of people who game share or pirate software aren’t going to start buying those games when they have no other avenue for obtaining them. They’re just not going to play them. Most people resort to game sharing and piracy because they can’t afford the game.
This move is going to minorly inconvenience a few game sharers, and royally screw the customers who legitimately used the feature. I already know I’m going to spend much less on the store. So congratulations. This has me very angry. Like, buy an xbox angry. And I hate Microsoft on a whole lot of levels.
You fools don’t blame Sony for this, you should be blaming on those stupid idiots who shares their accounts with their friends. You think Sony or any developer is going to allow this anymore? **** No, I personal am happy with this feature and maybe now developers and publisher can now easily get some profit out of their released DLC or games through PSN. Don’t complain ohhhh my friend to poor I need to share with him, then to bad.
Unfortunately the only thing people like me can do is complain. So for that, I’ll try to “reasonably” complain.
2 is way too little. If the number went down to 3, it would still suck, but it would at least be acceptable. This is not acceptable.
This is ridiculous. I share with mates, who can justify spending £12 on 4 maps for the next rehashed fps?
Sony take your…
ability to run Linux.
account & card details & give them to the black market.
ability to make game content more affordable.
Give you a website so you can take your content away from yourself & fool yourself into thinking you’re in control.
When is Sony gonna start giving again?
Microsoft already offer a site where you can purchase games and deactivate 360s. You may have to pay for their internet service, but at least they add to it rather than taking it away.
And I love the forum moderation on here. There is a PLANNED website to remove functionality from your £250 box. How about addressing the whole issue, rather than picking out bits you can copy and paste to? Maybe respond to those users that are unhappy with your change rather than ignore them. Or how about fixing your current website before bringing in another? I refer to http://bit.ly/3MaPyY derelict since 2008. Evidence of Sonys commitment to customers.
Now lets see how long this stays up. I enjoy my ps3 as much as the next person, but I dislike the shoddy treatment we have received from such a supposedly well established company. /rant.
Hey, Sony isn’t Bank of America… once Sony decides to do something, it isn’t going to change its mind no matter what their customers say.
Just awaiting my comment to be moderated…..maybe sony don’t like their customers opinions but only their bank details?
Oh man, this is a very stupid decision. This will not stop gamesharing at all! Gamesharers will only require a little more organization, but they will still be able to activate/deactivate systems at will (in fact, the website will make it even easier) and share whatever they want with whomever they want. They will just have to prepare a schedule, and that’s it.
Instead, this decision will punish your honest customers. In fact, it will punish your MOST loyal customers. Kinda ridiculous when you think about it.
Who makes this decisions? Don’t they stop even for five minutes to think about this stuff?
I own only one PS3, and I’m going to buy another this holiday season, so this doesn’t affect me at all, but I can understand why many of your most loyal fans are going to be angry.
Sony you have over 300 pissed off consumers already. Please stop your insanity.
wow this sucks i agree with everybody that it needs to be 3 that’s fair. i personally own 3 but only 2 of them has my account but my friend also has my account on his ps3 so after the 18th of november we can’t share anything wow that’s a bummer. at least i get to deactivate other ps3/psp remotely.
Hi, one quick question, my psn acct is already activated in other system that got the YLOD, so I was unable to deactivate them. Will I be able to do it now on this new website? Thks a lot!!!
okay so just please answer this for me. i had a broken ps3 in the past that has this account activated and i can’t deactivate it up till now and this was prolly a year and a half to 2 yrs ago
you are telling me even tho that system can’t turn on and is thrown away i can still deactivate it through pc?
right now i have my account on ps3 on 4 consoles the broken 1, my main one my friends who place im always at and my step fathers, can i deactivate them all through pc, because my password is saved on all of them and i actrually dont get how it would work because they can reactivate them. will i have to make a new password till i go back to those places also.
and now psp, ive owned 6 pspsall together in my lifetime, and i didnt know till my 5th one that you have to deactivate the old ones not in use anymore and now i have 1 account left and all the old psps are either stolen or broken the pc with be able to remove every one of them thanks for a reply
Hey PS blog, this policy change sucks. I hope you guys consider the push back from this like the banks did, when they reconsidered there debit card fees. I’m a playstation fan because you guys are different from microsoft and don’t nickel and dime people to death!
I think that reversing your policy flat out sucks, forget those people who were sharing, if you guys had to make a take a few more phone calls from those persons to deactivate their accounts on other systems, so be it, but don’t punish us all for it! We have 3 systems in our household as well, we like being able to share games among the 3 systems and accounts. The 3 ps3s belong to 3 different people and we like being able to play online alongside each other with games that only allow for online multi-player.
RECONSIDER THIS POLICY DECISION, DO NOT PUNISH THE WHOLE OF PLAYSTATION FANS BECAUSE OF A MINORITY WHO ABUSE THIS FEATURE.
So much for us mutliple PS3 owners.
I bought PS3 for the convenience of having multiple around the house, time to get rid of this then.
Btw, nobody should be defending this blatant ripoff. Sony I’m looking squarely at you when I say this. You are once again in direct violation of the law. Alteration of a contract after it goes into effect unilaterally is a breach of that contract. And no your illegal ToS won’t cover you from prosecution. Congratulations you bunch of idiots you’ve now not only alieanated millions of paying customers but opened yourself up to prosecution once again.
but really does nobody in sony bother to think of the consequences of their moronic actions? obviously not. You’ve not only shown yourselves to be the douchebag of the whole industry but lost yourselves millions in sales. maybe you should’ve considered all the customers who will simply stop buying from you online. but that would require intelligence you so sorely lack. but once again i must salute your stupidity for another way you’ve managed to outsleaze everyone, even microsoft.
Sony should have announced a no slogan for this idiotic plan: “SONY: we put the F U in FUN”
And btw, Yes sony knew this was creating a backlash as they are now back to rabidly censoring comments with such reckless abandon they’d make the Gestapo blush.
THIS IS ABSURD!
This is a universally stupid FASCIST move sony. And stop with the fake comments supporting this. You are clearly in the wrong and you know it. And know your despotic ToS won’t shield you from what is very clearly an illegal attempt at altering contracts in 1 sided illegal manner after the fact. You may mistakenly think shafting your customers yet again makes “good business” but once again its a lie and you only fool yourselves. But in the end its your loss, quite literally as you’ll lose millions in sales cause of your own greed & ignorance.
So Karen, when can we expect Sony to give us the means to deactivate devices via PC?
Please make it 3!!! I have two little brothers, so what am i supposed to only share with only one of them now?! I buy off of the store all of the time, please just listen to your customers and make it 3 activations. A lot of your loyal customers are asking you to change it, thank you
I found that many poster don’t understand plain English to ask 3 millions time the same questions.
Whhhooo! what will happen to my bricked PS3 from 3 years olds??
Whhhaaaa! will I be able to play on my 2 PS3?
Whaalala! Sony you sucks because i can’t double cross you with my 5 other friends in sucking up all the content of PSN for almost free. you want me to go on XBOX???
Hey Microsoft don’t even allow 2 system activations so be my guest and go play out cold.
Yes i found it sad that a good idea was abused, so honest people that got kids can’t share with more than 2 system. Yes 3 should be more appropriate.
But Wake up. Console his a more fortified bastion of videogaming in the sense that its harder to hack and Dev have more confidence in it than PC because of that. You wanna share and get free stuff go to PC gaming you’ll find your fair share of shet. Just don’t cry after that because Dev don’t prioritize developement on PC because of thieves! Personnaly i prefer that 2 activation than some drastic measures like DRM!
Not happy with this news, we are a family of 5 and each have a PS3, this means i would have to buy a item 3 times for us all to have it. I have PS+ and buy a lot of additional content from the store but will not be doing so in the future.I think this is unfair after being a Sony supporter for many years.
people are complaining to be limited to only 2 systems now? Try having multiple 360s in you household and share digital games/data…or even your live account period. You WILL have to deactivate/active your systems EVERYTIME you play on a different console…that’s right even to just use your live account specifically. They pay for that service and still are limited. Be grateful they allotted you one more than the competition. Stop being cheap and support the devs that make the content you play. This isnt a free world. Im sure if your developed software that you sold (licensed) to consumers you wouldn’t want people playing it for free? You want to me paid for your work. That is all.
Hi:
I think is a good move to reduce the number of PS3’s allowed to share content with one account. By other hand, 2 consoles isn’t enough. I think 3 systems could be GREAT.
I have 3 PS3 systems (2 with YLOD) and a PSP (Missing). To activate or deactivate Systems over PC is a great idea too. Thanks for that.
Red 5.
Disappointment, disappointment, disappointment. Never rated a post 1, but I’d rate this a 0.5 if I could. Instead of adding features, you’re taking away.
SONY is going down the hill nowadays, following the patch of Microsoft. I hate it, why do companies only think of how to maximise their money and minimize features? I want the 2006 SONY back!
path*
Sorry Sony, can you repeat this please? I couldn’t hear you over the backlash from you losing millions of consumer’s credit card details this year already.
Really this is a huge impact on me. I have 3 consoles and now you are telling me that I have to either purchace two for them to cover or go online every time and deactivate to be able to play on another. And that is not to mention if I decide to travel and go to another family members house agreed 5 is pushing limits but 2 I would say 4 maybe 3 but not two. Sony listening to your supporters. And Thank goodness for the website being added I have had to send it 2 of my consoles for repairs and lost two of my 5 already due to Sony not resetting my account. All I got from them was “You should have deactivated your account before sending the console in.” great idea if the console would have turned on to be able to do that.
I personally am not affected by this, since I only own 2 PS3s and 1 PSP and have never game shared, but it seemed like a nice perk for the many people who used it legitimately. Like a lot of nice things, though, it got abused by a few and is now being taken away from everyone. It’s a drastic measure, and I can’t say I agree with it, but I understand why it had to be done.
So I have two PS3s so ok- but I have FOUR PSPs (my 1000, my 3000, my son’s 3000 and my daughter’s 3000)
I also have a VITA pre-ordered.
Within a year I planned to buy the kids each a VITA.
How freakin’ lame is it to have four models of PSPs and the upcoming VITA and pull this s***?
Maybe- go with 2 PS3- 2 PSP AND 2 VITAs and ok- but this just blows!
I would love to be a fly on the wall at a Sony board meeting- “Ok guys- people are starting to like us again- how can we f*** that up?”
Whats next? Can only use two controllers? Can only play dlc on Thursdays?
Who is the GENUS that we can thank for this bold move?
I strongly recommend you guys rethink this.
I myself own 2 PS3’s
1. My 60GB Original Model and now has my 120GB Slim HDD in it (Secondary PS3 for the bedroom)
2. My 120GB Slim that I have a 500GB HDD in. (Main PS3 for the Living room)
I myself vote for 3 PS3’s and 3 PSP’s to be Activated. Because I dont want to go to the hassle of activating and deactivating systems when I want to go to a friends house and play together with content I bought myself on my own account.
I want to visit my friends house with no hassle in coming over and enjoying a PSN game.
To all those people that own 3 or more PS3’s in there house hold I recommend buying the Digital content unless it has a Physical Disc game and buy the Disc game when there on sale. That way you can have multiple copies and not have to worry about activating and deactivating a system to play the game.
I understand why there doing this because people are abusing the system and SONY is loosing money because of it. I myself dont mind this new rule but VOTE for 3 Systems for both PS3 and PSP to better rule out these arguments with many PS3 owners
I have 3 PS3s in my house (1 is mine, 1 my brother’s and 1 that’s mine and it suffered from a case of Hard Drive failure due to over usage). I love the idea of remotely deactivating account on other consoles (since the failed PS3 is using up a video slot), but I believe that 5 should be cut down to 3 really. Plus Sony, remember the last time when you took out the “Other OS” feature, even though people were using it illegally (the same way some are). Although with this you are robbing honest gamers of the enjoyment of downloading a game at a friend’s house using your account so you may play with him/her.
And when we go to the website to deactivate the accounts on consoles remotely, how will we know which consoles we want to delete? Also, if we are at the current limit when the switch to 2 consoles per account happens, will we get some kind of error that we can’t go online until we deactivate the consoles.
“Karen Spearrin on November 4th, 2011 at 10:27 am said:
It will be possible to deactivate devices via PC.”
So i can finally deactivate my PS3 that i had to send back to Sony months ago and was sent a new one?
wow…I just read a comment stating a guy has 3 systems in his household that belong to 3 different people yet he feels he’s entitled to only have to pay once for a game…reeeaaaallly?!? What makes you think you should only have to pay once for 3 different peoples’ systems? If I buy uncharted 3 today and pop it into one system that means I’m entitled to play it on 2 other systems as well at the same time? Or do I have to pop disc out and put it in other system? This world is full of a bunch of free loaders and corrupt people. That’s why the economy is down…people feel they are entitled to so much yet can’t reason why they should spend money. How about you go work a 5-day shift and don’t get paid for it cause the job says “hey there’s other people that work here too…I paid them so why should I pay you too?” where’s the logic in that?
Also- the main PSN account is mine- also the main PSP I use is my 3000 and my upcoming VITA so those will be the “two portables” that will be activated.
So whats that mean? Who really pays the price of this stupid move?
My kids.
‘s ok though- I guess it will just push them a bit further into the Nintendo camp with the Wii and DS/ 3DS!
Not that you (Sony) care right?
SCREW THE CHILDREN huh?
rethink this or at the very least remember the fallout of STEALING our BC and our OOS. Those slick moves did wonders for your bottom line huh?
idiots!
That’s it
I hate SONY now…
I won’t buy any dlc from PSN store from now on.
Bad move sony, bad move
First advertise Linux support then take it out then this
I won’t trust anything from sony again in future.
as you guys can take out anything whenever you want…
I cannot believe how you made this far…
This company is unreliable.
I won’t get the future sony console and will not get PSVita also that I had preorded already
I will cancel my Preorder , as I don’t believe in you anymore
who knows later you remove Free Online
then later paid online then later start charging everyone money for playing their console per hourly basis.
then later take out this and that …
I don’t trust sony anymore
More PS3 functionality bites the dust!
Wow
hey MagNuM-OPs, that’s why we don’t support microsoft, they suck.
Just a thought, but since the digital downloads are now limited to two PSC (Playstation consoles) systems and two HPS (Handheld Playstation) systems, will there be a price cut on things from PSN? Mainly PS3 games and add-ons being 60% cheaper since they can only be activated on 2 systems instead of 5 if they are purchased after November 18th.
Considering I have 3 PS3s in my house, this is disappointing. My family won’t be buying many things from the PSN store after the 18th.
It is about time for online deactivation, though.
So… I have a question that may concern many of us. Suppose I have more than 2 PS3s activated, and any content bought before November 18 will be playable to up to 5 PS3s… how does this affect the limited playability of new content. What I’m really asking is how does the two way activation works? I have 5 systems activated, but only two are able to play new content. That’s clear. But let’s suppose one decides to deactivate one of the PS3 systems… will I be able to re-activate it for old content use, or will it be locked down until I have the corresponding number of PS3s? (In this case, 2).
I’m looking forward to an answer.
Unacceptable Sony. No way. I own two PlayStation 3s and like playing my downloadable games at my friends houses and having to deactivate and reactivate isn’t acceptable at all. More than half of your loyal Fans are still disappointed and mad about the fact that PSN went down months ago and you’re going to try and limit our freedom on our consoles for purchases? Those PS Store purchases we make are ours and you trying to limit the way we use them is not right. You’re getting in the way of our fun and gaming experiences. You should be ashamed.
Idk why I even read comments on blog posts cause some people really feel that what they are saying is right. “I have 3 ps3s and 4 psps for my kids…yet I feel I should only have to pay once for all them to enjoy at their leisure…”
Let’s do some math. You develop some software. You sell it for $10. You allow people to have this software on 5 different devices at any given time (active). You DO ALLOW devices to be activated/deactivate on the device itself and/or remotely.
spend 80hours on this software with 5 other people paying them $10 an hour.
80×5=400x$10=$4000 for labor.
You sell 500 licenses. 500x$10=$5000 ($1000 profit..nice)
Now these 500 ppl share this software with 4 others for free. 500×4=2000x$10=$20000
See the difference? $5k vs $20k all because of people wanting to share data for free
Sony, king of changing the rules halfway through the game… Extremely disappointed in this move, and while I know they will in no way listen I have to agree with everyone else that 5 –> 2 is beyond drastic, 3 (while still a slap in the face) would have been more “acceptable”. I personally own 3 PS3’s at my house, 4 PSP’s, and am planning on getting a Vita, but crap like this terrifies me of whatever is next to come.