UPDATE: Due to high traffic on PlayStation Store, you may encounter error messages or issues. We advise you to check back a little later and try again.
Note: In order to download two games at no cost, you must redeem them from the “Welcome Back” category. The individual titles are still available for purchase outside of the “Welcome Back Program”
If at any point you can’t find the ‘Welcome Back Free Game 1 or 2’ products, the list of available titles or a game you’ve selected, go to your XMB>PlayStation Network>Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>SCEA Promotions to complete the process.
We’re so excited to welcome you back to PlayStation Network. With the PlayStation Store back online, we’ve been getting all caught up this week, having launched an abundance of amazing content for download on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable devices across games, movies, themes and DLC. Today, we’re excited to launch the Welcome Back program to thank you for your loyalty, and below, we’ve got what you need in order to get access to the included content. So, here’s a list of questions about the program. If you don’t see your question below, mention it in the comments and we’ll do our best to provide an answer. Thanks again for your patience and understanding as we restored the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services – your support has meant a lot to us and is greatly appreciated.
Q: What’s in the Welcome Back Program?
A: To start, all PSN members who had signed up before the outage (April 20, 2011) will be able to select two games for the PS3 system and two games for the PSP system.
For PS3 owners, go to the ‘Welcome Back’ section in the PlayStation Store, and select 2 titles from the following list:
- Dead Nation
- inFAMOUS
- LittleBigPlanet
- Super Stardust HD
- Wipeout HD + Fury
For PSP owners, go to the ‘Welcome Back’ section of PlayStation Store on your PSP system and select 2 titles from the following list:
- LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
- ModNation Racers
- Pursuit Force
- Killzone Liberation
Select your first game from “Game 1”, then return to the Welcome Back page and go to “Game 2” to select your second game out of the remaining choices available. This goes for both PS3 and PSP.
In addition, we’re giving access to our premium subscription service, PlayStation Plus, which includes games, huge discounts, exciting exclusives and added features like online storage and automatic downloads, to all PSN members for 30 days at no charge, requiring no long term commitment. As with the games above, go to the PlayStation Store and under the ‘Welcome Back’ section, select ‘PlayStation Plus: 30 Days Free’, and you’ll be given access to all of the benefits of PlayStation Plus. Note that this will not auto-renew and simply expires 30 days after activation.
Current Plus subscribers receive an extra 60 days added to their existing subscription at no charge. For current Plus subscribers, no action is needed as the 60 days are automatically added to your subscription.
PlayStation Network users will also get 100 virtual items in PlayStation Home as a show of appreciation for your patience while Home was inaccessible. Additional content is coming soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.
A selection of “On Us” movie rentals are currently available to PlayStation Network customers this weekend only, where Video Service is available.
Finally, current Music Unlimited Premium subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of premium subscription plus days lost due to the outage.
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: I have both PS3 and PSP. Does this mean I will get 4 games all together?
A: Yes, as long as you were a PSN member before April 20, 2011, you’ll be able to receive up to 4 games based on the titles listed above; 2 on each platform.
Q: Are there any limitations to the PS3 and PSP games we are receiving as part of the Welcome Back Program?
A: These games are yours to keep.
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.
Q: When does the 30 days of my PlayStation Plus access expire?
A: Your PlayStation Plus 30-day access will expire 30 days from the date you activated it in PlayStation Store.
Q: When will (insert game here) be published?
A: Look forward to posts over the coming days that will show what content will be available at that point, or coming soon. We’re planning frequent store publishes offering lots of new content for everyone to enjoy.
Q: I’m getting 30 days of access to PlayStation Plus; can you refresh my memory on what I get with this service?
A: From the time you activate your 30 days of PlayStation Plus, you’ll be able to download games and game related content, purchase select store items at a discount, and have access to the exclusive features of Plus. You’ll also be able to get early access to any Plus exclusive Demos and priority Beta invitations that might be scheduled during your 30 days.
Q: Do I get to keep the games in PlayStation Plus forever?
A: Content that is free in PlayStation Plus will not be available after your PlayStation Plus time has expired. However, if you decide to join PlayStation Plus, you’ll have access to all of the content you downloaded during your 30 day access for as long as you are a subscriber.
Q: Do I get to keep any games or content I purchased with the PlayStation Plus discount?
A: Yes. Any content you purchase at a discount is yours to keep, regardless of your subscription status.
Q: Aside from the games and discounts; does PlayStation Plus offer anything else?
A: Yes! PlayStation Plus includes the Online Storage for Game Saves feature, allowing you to backup treasured game saves or access them from another PS3 system as long as you are a subscriber. In addition, you get the Automatic Download feature, which automatically updates your 10 most recently played games while the system is in stand-by mode so you don’t have to wait for updates before playing your games.
Q: What content will be in PlayStation Plus when I activate my 30 days?
A: PlayStation Plus content and discounts are regularly updated throughout the month. For up-to-date information on content within PlayStation Plus, please visit the Plus homepage.
Q: Where can I find the Welcome Back content in Home?
A: The 100 virtual items can be found in the kiosk in Home’s Central Plaza along with two personal spaces – Dragon’s Lair and the Mansion Garage. A new game – Ooblag’s Alien Casino – will be released soon (June 2011). This game will be free-to-play. As an added bonus, players that access the Ooblag Alien Casino space will be rewarded an active item version of the Ooblag game that can be played in your personal space(s).
Q: How do I access the content in the Welcome Back Program?
A: Follow the steps below to access the content in the Welcome Back Program:
1. Log on to PlayStation®Store
2. Click on the “Welcome Back” tab in the upper left menu
3. Select “Welcome Back Free PS3™ Game 1”
4. Within the category, click on the “Welcome Back Free PS3™ Game 1” product and “Get Now”
5. Select your free PS3™ game*, and “Download”*
6. Repeat steps 3-5 with “Welcome Back Free PS3™ Game 2”
7. Go to the XMB™ to play your free games.
Q: I clicked on one of the Welcome Back Free PS3/PSP Game 1/2 selections, clicked “Get Now”, but no games showed up. Now that option is no longer selectable in the Store. Where is my game?
A: This is an issue we’re working on resolving, however for the time being, you can still get to that content by going to the XMB and under the PlayStation Network column, go to Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>SCEA Promotion. You should be able to access the content in the option you selected here.
Q: Why am I getting errors saying I can’t access the Store?
A: Due to the surge of people going to the Store, you may experience some blocks in accessing certain areas of the store. Give it another try, or wait for a small period of time to avoid the rush.
Remember, if you didn’t see your question answered above, drop us a line below and we’ll do our best to answer it. Welcome Back!
ok I was having the issue of selecting the free ps3 game then getting an error and not being able to select a game, then when I went back into the store it wouldn’t show the option up anymore and I couldn’t choose any game – the solution of going to Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>SCEA Promotions worked thanks!
and btw, very unprofessional way of doing this, SONY – very confusing for the average user, and obviously the servers were not load tested for this huge release – maybe you should stick with making TVs
they put more detail here: http://us.playstation.com/psn/welcome-back/
i keep on gettting error messages plzzz fix this!!!!!!!!! PLZ PLZ PLZ PLZ PLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it wont let me download and game 1 and game 2 are gone and i didnt even download anything yet???
never mind i found the solution
eu tenho uma conta Europeia, baixei o primeiro jogo, mas quando fui baixar o segundo deu erro, dai sai e entrei novamante mas quando fui baixar havia sumido! e nao consegui baixar meu segundo jogo! :/
I clicked “Get Now” on the free game offer, it froze up a couple of seconds and than it gave me an error. Now one of the “Free gam’e” offer is gone and I never downloaded my game.
What Gives? Am I still gonna receive my 2 games?
Well thank you Sony. Is their any way you can have the store network server be swt up by state so we dont have a lot of problems? I have paitiently waited and cant wait a littile longer but this is becoming anoying. Please fix this ASAP. I cant wait till the tenth for the Black Ops DLC!!!!!
wait is it 30 days or 1 day?
@ 1228
Do you know which post please? Also, don’t bother if it’s about going into account management blahblah I know all about that. The problem is that the game that got stuck downloading 24% is not available anymore in the store and is not in the account management blahblah section where my PSN+, Pixel theme, and WipeoutHD Fury are.
So I’m wondering if infamous, which got stuck at 24% downloading, will be just totally unavailable to me unless the resume feature works (which it hasn’t for the past few hours as I sat there reading a book).
Annnnnnd I’m pretty sure everyone reads which is why we all know that the store is back up, eh? If there is a solution to my particular issue, it’s not on me to go read through 25 pages of crap for a golden nugget of information that might not even help. It’s Sony that has the responsibility to come here, let us know that even if things are screwed up now that we ALL will get our 2 games.
It is now everybody’s problem that Sony can’t think ahead and prepare, because, yes, they could have prepared for this traffic.
lots lots lots of errors just have to wade through them and get your free stuff..
I was able to get one of my free games, but I got an error for the second PS3 game and both PSP games, and they’re no longer appearing on the store anymore. What’s up with that?
Thanks for the free error messages, Sony -_-
SONY, PSN SEEMS TO STILL HAVE MANY PROBLEMS!!!
I got my “free game 1”, but when I got back to get “free game 2”, it did not stop with that “An error has occurred” (80710D36). It worked like 20% of the time, I tryed, I choosed the icon “free game 2” for the game infamous, but again it made that error message.
After that, without starting downloading the game, it got out of the window where you start download, and NOW THE WELCOME BACK WINDOW MADE “free game 2” DISSAPEARED!!!
Because of your fault not bringing PSN back on at 100%, it looks like I lost my chance to get my second game free that you offer for the dissapointing time without PSN.
Please explain and is it possible to correct this? Surely it will happen to other people, not just me!!!
Playstation store is giving me a whole lot of errors. I tried to download my first game, had an error midway through. There is nothing in my cart when i go to view cart, and my option to select “welcome back game 1” is now gone from the screen. I now only have the option to pick “Welcome back game 2”, have I lost 1 of my games?
@ 1246 Your right just do what he said people just fight your way through the errors and you’ll get your downloads.
Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance. Please finish maintenance.
I chose a game, went to the purchase the “Free” game, and then it disappeared, WTF? Now, there is no option for a 2nd free game download.
here is a bit of a stumper for the mods. I’m not sure what to do here so hopefully someone can shed some light on this.
I got my PS3 as a gift from my parents literally a few days after the PSN went down. My parents didn’t know about the network going down (obviously) and it was a surprise for me so I didn’t know they picked it up either.
My question is where does that leave me? I mean, I understand it was a few days after the drop date, but does Sony just hand people the shaft who are in my situation where they didn’t have a choice about it?
If so…..awesome?
if not, how can I go about getting access to the welcome back program?
just seems kinda funny to have this offer for people who are new customers to Playstation and are automatically handed the shaft.
And yes, I know that the welcome back program is exactily that, a welcome back program to all existing users, the same still goes for us who were given a PS3 during the outage and decided to wait out the outage as Sony kept saying that it would not be long for the network to be restored…….
THERE ARE MILLIONS ON THE PS STORE SO ITS GLITCHY WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
lol I cant see any games ?!? I just choose ps+ but when i enter welcome back program I cant see any games :( only PS+ content
@shakoo_makoo
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just give it time people, for now these is millions of people at the same time trying to get this stuff.
You have one whole month to get your free games and PS+. Personaly I’ll wait for June 7-8 to get PS+ so I’ll be in PS+ until the end of U3 beta PS+ only period and they’ll be more people trying to get the stuff. You waited one whole month, you can wait a day or two to give the servers and ps store a chance to upload these millions of copies of the free games…! : )
Don’t worry, everyone will have their 2 fee games, nothing is lost if you just managed to get only one so far…
“‘Welcome Back Free Game 2′ should appear in Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>SCEA Promotions – then from there you’ll be able to see the remaining titles”
I now get a ERROR CODE trying to do this to fix the issue of my downloads disappearing!
TRAINWRECK AND A HASSLE
for those of us that can read and figure out how to get our game selections back (good job)!!!!!!!!!
as for the rest of you idiots that are blowing a gasket they do have summer school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
reply on pg.1 to coment 35 tells you how to get selection back! c’mon use your brain,or should i say
eyes! stupid people suck. once again morgan welcome and thanks for your feedback on the situation.
BJtheLegend on June 3rd, 2011 at 1:17 pm said:
READ PEOPLE, READ:
IF YOUR FREE GAMES HAVE DISAPPEARED DO THIS:
Log into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List
Choose “PlayStation Network Promotions” from the list of services displayed
BJtheLegend on June 3rd, 2011 at 1:17 pm said:
READ PEOPLE, READ:
IF YOUR FREE GAMES HAVE DISAPPEARED DO THIS:
Log into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List
Choose “PlayStation Network Promotions” from the list of services displayed
BJtheLegend on June 3rd, 2011 at 1:17 pm said:
READ PEOPLE, READ:
IF YOUR FREE GAMES HAVE DISAPPEARED DO THIS:
Log into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List
Choose “PlayStation Network Promotions” from the list of services displayed
I got ripped off on “Free PS3 Game #2”.
I chose “Get Now”, PSN gave me an error, then said it can’t be chosen right now.
So I try to choose one of the free games anyway and it says I have to get the “Free PS3 Game #2” item first, so I try again and still get the same error as before.
I back out completely, “Free PS3 Game #2” option disappears completely.
So the PSN stole my second free PS3 game.
Very pissed off right now.
Even bought a new $20 PSN card today to buy stuff.
Definitely feel like that will be my final one.
i got on and it gave me an error then i backed out then it didnt let me for a few then i got back on again started to get infamous it shot me another error so i backed out then when i finally got back in it my 2 free games were gone frm the list whats up with that.
Error – 80710D36
appears if I try to access the store or account management.
Sagi read the message right above yours…
What the heck?! I tried to get the first PSN game and it said “Error” and when I tried to get the first game again, the icon dissapeared. WTF… so i moved to the second one….
I can’t even get into my account management section, i’am getting 80710D36 error message.HEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK here’s what worked for me: if you get the error in the store & the game selection is no longer available, log out of the store & go into account management>transaction management>services list>SCEA Promotions you can select the games from there.
if you cannot select your game form there then go to go into account management>transaction management>download list to see if you previous selections are there.
you will most likely get errors every step of the way, after all every player in the world is trying to do the same thing you are, just keep closing the error message & try again. i will eventually work.
have fun!
I will re-post this every once in a while
& @Dirk_Diggl0r my Infamous download is a 26%, its very slow but it is progressing, why not simply restart if u think its stuck. it will resume. has for me anyway but then again, maybe it just likes me better, lol
se o seu download sumiu: Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>SCEA Promotions
the games will come back if they disapear and you dont get them, at least mine did when after several tries through account management…only 291 minutes left…haaa, i should have waited, i recommend waiting. :(
iy won’t let me get into my account management keeps saying 80710D36 error
ok, I tried and tried, and the option to choose ‘game 1’ vanished… and it wouldn’t let me download the ‘get game 1’ before it went away, so I tried game 2 since i was still able to choose that, and got infamous started… but there is no option to go back and download ‘game 1’ since it didn’t actually start… and there is nothing in my download history for dead nation, since that was the first one I tried… Did I just screw myself out of getting a free game? What just happened?
hmmm picked them, they vanished from selection options but no sign of anything download status nothing.
hmmm
IF YOUR FREE GAMES HAVE DISAPPEARED DO THIS:
Log into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List
Choose “PlayStation Network Promotions” from the list of services displayed
to be honest if anyone can just repost this. it will help everyone since its for the people that lost the option to actually download the game. kinda lame if you really have to keep going thru 1300 post just to find ur problem XD
“An error has occurred” all over the place.
I was unable to successfull “Get Now” the PSP 2nd game, and now I can’t even get into the PSP 2nd game section after backing out. This whole system seems pretty unintuitive after seeing you guys get the voting system for the Choice awards right earlier in the year.
Alright, I has me games now! 2 for each of my accounts :D Luckily I had a Euro account so I also picked up Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty which was only available to the Euro-Zone.
I can safely say despite my semi-satisfaction regarding this ordeal the PS3 will be my final system, Sony has screwed up this generation so completely horribly that I cannot bear to go on. Video games are becoming so mainstream that they have become just as garbage as the movies they used to be based on.
This all adds up to a decline of quality with regard to originality and/or story driven content…it’s not all Sony’s fault, the fall of companies such as Squaresoft and Capcom have also contributed to the downfall; however, it just goes to show that it is 110% about money now and nothing else.
And yes it was always about money, but up until about 7 years ago 5% was about something else…it was about art.
Thanks for my 4 free games Sony… au revoir!
EVERYONE CHILL THE FU*K OUT!
Also if it gives u an error message just keep attacking it with X and think of it as a hack and slash. back (O) slash is X attack psn and win a prize?
ok, cool… its taking a lot of error screen messages but thanks, I found it through account mgmt and should be able to get it… eventually
@ 1260 You my freind are one of the few people with any sense on this blog for that i commend you good sir.
i was able to join playstation plus and get sum of the games from plus but i cant get my 2 free games to download and now i dont have options to try and get them again!!!! what do i do????
@SPACE_SAMURAI- lol
OK here’s what worked for me: if you get the error in the store & the game selection is no longer available, log out of the store & go into account management>transaction management>services list>SCEA Promotions you can select the games from there.
if you cannot select your game form there then go to go into account management>transaction management>download list to see if you previous selections are there.
you will most likely get errors every step of the way, after all every player in the world is trying to do the same thing you are, just keep closing the error message & try again. i will eventually work.
have fun!
I will re-post this every once in a while
My first free game thing is gone. Is this going to be fixed or what? I kept getting an error message. I wasn’t going to try it on my second one and lose it too.
Wow, Ratchet and Clank is actually pretty decent…for a FREE GAME… LULZ
70 million people are trying to download at once. ;) some bottlenecking is bound to occur. Me, I’m getting error codes over and over and over, but I find that if I just retry each time I get an error, then reach the point at which I’m told the content cannot be selected, all I have to do is follow Kristi’s advice on going the Account Management route on the XMB.
I’m still getting errors over and over and over, but if I keep retrying every time I get one, eventually I slip through the bottleneck. Both of my PS3 games are downloading normally now–on to my PSP games.
Just search the thread for Kristi’s advice (it’s in red), and keep trying, or wait and try later. It seems to work eventually. We waited THIS long; what’s a few extra minutes?
An slowly but surely the community is understanding what to do keep up the good work people.lol