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!
Question: It doesnt show welcome back free game one or two. I cant pick anything. So i did that one thing where you go to xmb and go through the serve list. it doesnt show up at all. what do i do to get the games then?
Sony, what the hell is going on with this welcome package? I am supposed to get 2 free games and I can only have access to 1 of them. When I first tried to download game 1, there were error messages popping up not allowing me to download it. Now I come back and I can only download game 2. WTF is this crap you’re dishing out! Unless you want another law suit on your hands I suggest you fix this!
You know what would be nice. How about the ability to down load updates for games that you just bought so that you could play them off line. These updates have nothing to do with personal info and should be made available. Or maybe play station should of put a hold on selling games since my recent games that i bought are the equivalent of a paper weight right now. GET IT DONE!!! OR GET OUT OF THE TECH BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!
@4651 why dont u take the time to actually read the blog before you post. It gives you instructions on where to find the games if you get an error. Since you obviously don’t know how to read i’ll copy and paste it for your lazy eyes:
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.
Upon the PSN coming back up, I decided to delete my account and create a new one. This is something I had been planning to do for awhile, as it was a subaccount under my brother. So when the servers went back up, I created this new account. Now, I’m unable to access any of the welcome back problem. Is there anything that can be done?
Great… already downloaded my games, thanks Sony….
@AceofAces Theres a explanation about this problem on the post in the blog, follow the instructions and you will be able to download your game…
@4648 – no worries. :)
mstoyo – if you created an NEW account AFTER April 20th, that account is NOT eligible for the Welcome Back program.
what..why there is no inFamous or LittleBigPlanet in the choices? Instead it shows the last guy, loco roco and others.
why is that?
No ideas about the free themes via PSN+?
Why no love for users who bought a PS3 early in the outage (on the 21st for me) and ended up with no online capability for a month?
No ID theft but still one heck of a missing feature. C’mon Sony. I contacted support and got a useless canned response.
I’m back and solved my problem! (Post #4345, page 87)
I couldn’t download the first game since my first package was gone because of an error. (And it wasn’t in the SCEA Promotions) However, after downloading the second game, the second package was still there and it let me choose another game (which was my first game) . :)
Also, if you lost your games, you can still go in the store and download them from there. Once you’ve selected them in the welcome back package, they are listed as bought in the store.
I’ve gone to the welcome back section and alll that’s there is a pixel theme, no games, and when i try to get the 30 day free trial with playstation plus it says this is not available for your account, whats going on ?
Will the welcome back package be available for 30 days because i have been gone off for 5 days on vacation so im pretty much worried i won’t get my free content anyone have replies about this please submit them to me
AceofAces YOUR AN IDIOTTTTTTTTTTTTT. read the freaking blog KID. get off your high horse and stop being lazy and ignorant.
@Ms_HelloKittyNYC…I cant count how many times i’ve said it either lol
@skull_dudexlv – I believe you have until July 3rd to receive your Welcome Back offer. After that, the welcome back option will be removed from the PSN as an option. Hope this helps.
I am gonna buy PSN Cards just because the store is back
First off Great job Sony!!!!!!!! thank you for the free games. Wipeout is awesome and its one of the few games that let me play custom playlist. Could you in the future make Hitman series for sale seeing that you guys knowingly took away our backwards compatibility, There is alot of games being made that are straight garbage and thats mainly the reason I wont buy from PS store. Thanx for hearing me out.
I am not gonna tell you ppl anymore on how to obtain the package cause if you can’t read the blog or the tips from some of us then you dont need it..THE ANSWERS TO ALL YOUR QUESTIONS HAVE ALREADY BEEN GIVEN BY SONY AND US!!
Skull_dudexlv youl be good, you got till jully 3rd
so we are hours away from sony press conference and not a single post yet? weird , anyways i just saw the new Resistance 3 trailer , WOW !!!!!!!!! Resistance is back !!!!
sony come on now please help me out. it says content not accessible from your account, My account was created after the blackout but that is only because of the blackout on why i didnt create an account since it would not let me. i created my account the moment you all came back online. I had my ps3 for close to the full 2 months you guys were down during that blackout help others out too, i would love to be a part of this welcome back package. I used to be an xbox gamer and traded for the PS3, I truly love the system more than xbox and I need your help on this Sony to be able to access the Welcome Back Package… Help Sony…Please
let me get this str8.. we’ve been offline from psn for more than weeks.. then now i cant even play my old movies cause i get a stupid ass msg from cinavia.. sony.. u dissapoint me.. whatever happened to “it only does everything”? it sure does only do certain things.. whats the use of watching videos when u can only view the ones from your camera.. dumb.. either way sony.. people are gonna find away to by-pass your cinavia error msg.. i seen tons of youtube and online forums about it.. u guys are wasting money tryin to prevent this..
sooo.. umm.. let me get this str8.. we’ve been offline from psn for more than weeks.. then now i cant even play my old movies cause i get a stupid ass msg from cinavia.. sony.. u dissapoint me.. whatever happened to “it only does everything”? it sure does only do certain things.. whats the use of watching videos when u can only view the ones from your camera.. dumb.. either way sony.. people are gonna find away to by-pass your cinavia error msg.. i seen tons of youtube and online forums about it.. u guys are wasting money tryin to prevent this..
I was looking forward to this, but as a bunch of other people having the problem i am having i guess …. well i clicked on the welcome back and it led me to a list with just a pixel theme ): ive tried all the tips it did not work and im not being ignorant as far as i can see so can someone help me please? or is this just an error
and i have tried going to account management but it says no content available on the services list ): help me please
@Embytion … I am having the same issues! i figured maybe if i downloaded the pixel theme it would unlock it all, kinda like a pre download but that didnt work, have u tried anything else???????
I got my PS3 games downloaded but when I tried to download my the PSP games according to my facebook account I got 1 psp game voucher downloaded but no game and did not get the voucher for the 2nd game. Now when I go into the Welcome Back tab in the store all it shows is the Dynamic theme…… Suggestions ?
Bring back “the drop”!!!!!!
@Deathspear666 lolz I give up.
hey. can anyone answer me?
my question i mean.
Ok how do I get the free game I never got I went to get little big planet and said i bought it but it doesnt show that I did and I cant get the game icon back this is messed up…
Is anybody else having problems signing in on the PS3 I cant even logg on to get even get to the store but it was working fine the other day
WTF Sony! What about all the peeps that have all of these games? Not good choices at all. Glad your online is back up though.
@machine i did that too and stil nothing D:
anyone know what happened to angry birds – mini downloadable game?
It disappeared once the store came back and haven’t seen it since.
Also, anyone else have problems downloading games using mediago to their PSP?
I can get it downloaded from store to PC, but it won’t transfer to PSP.
i was able to download 4 ps3 games from the welcomebackpack i could get the 5th one but i dont think its going to be anygood and i was able to get like 4 psp games also i was able to do all that bc my wife had her own account and so does my brother and he has a psp, plus my account so when i got in i got my 2 games and my wife got her 2 games and my brother got hes 2 games , i felt bad bc i felt that i was cheating but then i reed this (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.) so all im saying is if you have other acounts you can download other games too..im just trying to past some good news out : ]
hey playstation people,
i bought my ps3 just after the psn went down, there’s nothing you guys can do for me in regards to the welcome back thing? i’d have signed up for psn as soon as i got the console home, but wasn’t able to.
thanks.
I thought we were supposed to get two games? I downloaded the first one then when i went back to click on free ps3 game 2 it wasnt there nomore! :( Does this mean i dont get the second one?
@4688 dude i jus figured that out too. lol, i have 2 accounts. my master n the one and i created when i figured out that u cant change user name, which i thought was stupid… until now cuz now i have 4 free games, awesome!!
and yes i admit, if i read that far i woulda known… lol
you ROCK SONY! I LOVE PLAYSTATION NETWORK .YOU GUYS ROCK ALSO WHEN PLAYSTATION GONNA GET THE NEW CALL OF THE DUTY MAP PACK ESCALATION
Thanks Sony, I knew you wouldn’t let us down.
It won’t let me get my two free games! I tried doing it like they said and it never let me download a game!
@*tore316* well u were 4688 when i responded
when I click to get free games at store it says not available on my system. when I go to services list there is nothing there. psn was down when i bought my ps3 system, couldn’t join till it was back up, guessing I don’t qualify because I wasn’t registered before system went down? which is ok if that is it, just want to know.It did give me the free 100 items.
Glad to see the Network back up and operating. Definitely appreciative of the freebies and looking forward to playing them. However, the “Welcome Back” package is quite limited and the selection of games falls short of getting a “WOW” out of me. I’ve been a loyal PS enthusiast since day 1 making my perception of Sony’s brand image is more resilient than that of most. If I’m a little disappointed with the offering, what are the less faithful thinking?
Just my two cents….
Nonetheless, thanks for the freebies.
SPKilo