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.
Very Very Very disapointed with this move. I have 3 PS3’s in the house so now I’m out of luck on the 3rd PS3. Being able to share games on all the systems in the house was good to last I guess. You seem to be taking away all the things I loved about the PS3 :-(
Disappointed FANBOY
I am excited to have a website which I can control my devices. Very good move!
I am, however, extremely dissapointed about only 2 activated syatems. I own 3 PS3’s and 3 PSP’s. This makes my life much more difficult. Thanks alot Sony for pulling back. Bad move!
I hope there will be a benefit to Playstation Plus in the coming months like, 5 activated systems! Why take something away when you have already proven you can allow it??? This is not consumer friendly with your current subscribers! You should have done something like all new USER ACCOUNTS would only be allowed 2 active systems instead of having to change everyone who has been loyal to your product.
Skillz5 all new USER ACCOUNTS would only be allowed 2 active systems instead of having to change everyone who has been loyal to your product.
this idea is fantastic to bad it will never happen and will solve this problem in a heart beat
So, could you have a multi-platform game, such as a PSOne game on your PS3, your PSP, and your PSVita? That would be three copies, but from two categories.
Also, is the rage I keep seeing in the comments about the Vita misinformation, or can you not transfer your PSN ID to the Vita, and therefore will be required to buy new copies of every game?
From the official reports I’ve seen, maybe I missed one, as long as you only have one PSP and one Vita you’re a’Ok, or as long as you deactivate your PSP and transfer downloads to your Vita.
Explain, however, what “Deactivation” means. If I deactivate my PSP, I can still play disc based games on the system, I just cannot use the PSN?
Yeah it should be at least 3 systems for all members that have had accounts prior to Nov 18th.
The majority of people i know own 3 ps3’s including myself, this will definitely change my mind about digital content. The idea of being able to deactivate is nice .. but a huge pain if you have to re-activate and de-activate
one ps3 all the time.
Absolutely lame, Sony. Not impressed AT ALL.
I can understand where Sony is coming from on this. They want to make some more money on their Downloadable content. People are using the accounts to get by on sharing content. Honestly, I don’t like the whole deal. Things get iffy whenever companies start messing with the status quo.
I feel as if something they should keep the five accounts. A person like me who can’t afford every piece of DLC or Downloadable Game that comes out needs ways to save money. A group of my friends and I share an account in which we just purchase content on it and we can all experience it.
If this whole deal stays with 2, You’re definitely gonna see a drop off in myself purchasing content over PSN. Which is getting ridiculous because now publishers are making it where you need an online pass in order to access content already on the disc. Its somewhat infuriating really because now I’m being forced to buy new, and whatever content is released I also have to give my money away to. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the day my love for gaming died.
I’m surprised so many people here own 3 PS3s. :o I just unplug mine and carry it to whatever room I need to use it in…
I’m not happy that this is happening, but I understand why and I respect it fully.
Don’t work to hard explaining these new benefits to your customers, Sony.
I can make this situation very simple for everyone:
It appears I am not likely to purchase DLC from Sony or through Sony in the future.
Problem solved. :/
1. many gamers who made PS a success are those who started gaming since PS1 era. these gamers are now mom/dad with kids & their own family. > 2 PS3s in these families are not un-normal.
2. i feel being deceived. I started building my digital game libraries at psn for long term and now you cut my legitimate usage by 60% all of a sudden? Are you cutting my remaining 40% when ps4 is released and tell me it’s not compatible with psn & is retiring psn?
3. Seriously, this may stop those who game share, but that does not mean you get sales from them. Those legitimate users who are pissed are gonna spend less. How is it good to game developers?
4. I thought the direction is going digital and you are selling more Playstation certified gadgets yet reducing the # of active devices to a mere 2? Unless you slash psn price big time, otherwise, there’s no incentive to go digital.
5. I thought psn is my digital gaming solution. But now i will look at others. Isn’t the gaming market getting much more competitive? Why doing the opposite? When you lose my trust on your ever changing policy (i am already pissed on no PS2 BC so you can sell more HD collection and PS2 classics on psn), i would be gone for good.
I have five kids that all want the Vita which I was going to get for them when I got my taxes back. Sony you just screwed that up for my kids and lost a huge sale. Nice going. What else are you going to screw up for us now that your afraid everyone is out to hack you? What is this accomplishing anyway? How is this suppose to help?
This is a great idea, thank you Sony. Will the website mentioned be available to check out on November 18th as well?
i have a dead fat ps3, but it blew out and i cant deactivate on my system but will i have the power to deactivate it on the pc?….And how do u know witch one to deactivate….will it say fat, and slim or fat,fat or slim or slim.
This is not cool i have 3 ps3s and 4 psps!! Sony really i pay to much for my dlc and other stuff and your doing this. I think this is a bad dicision.
this is total bs i live with two of my brothers each of us has a ps3 and we purchase everything on one account for all three to use i can tell you right now i will never purchase another digital title off the store and i was going to renew my plus subscription not anymore
This is stupid, but finally an answer to get my account off of the broken ylod fat ps3 I had. I was in no way gonna pay for a defective product that was doomed from the start to break and not be covered by their manufacturers despite the growing numbers of ylod’s happening. With this new online management coming, this will kinda help me. When do we get this feature?
SHINSPIKES lets hope it works but its sony im sure they will mess even that up
I have 4 PS3s at home. How many times can I activate/deactivate/reactivate back and forth for each system? Please answer this.
One more question, let’s say, can someone activate like 20 systems, but as long as the other 18 were deactivated?
Thank you.
Im ok with this, overall because an EX-friend of mine stole my content and didnt wante to deactivate my slot from he’s PS3 with this new application i will laugh on hes face HAH.
I DO want to point out dear Sony, on behalf of the game sharing, that the only reason people are sharing games is because THERE ARE some that are ridiculosly overpriced!
Other than that, thanks for the new application and i do agree that it should be 3 systems instead of 2. Thanks :D
Way to go SONY, remove something else, Just something that really makes me think 360 will wipe the floor with u another year, not to mention I can’t buy content of the PC to my PS3!
I think this put the last nail on the coffin for the PSP Go. Looks like 3 might be the magic number; 3 mobile devices (PSP 3000, PSP Go, PS Vita), and up to 3 PS3s (living room and 2 bedrooms). Just a thought.
I never game shared, so I dont really care, everything I bought belongs to me and my 2 PS3 systems/PSP3001….but if you think about it, the reason they did this was because of people that game shared. They are the ones abused the jesus out of it. Its understandable when you purchase content and activate it on other PS3’s that belong to you, but when you give out passwords and let other people get it free off you, well then thats when we ALL lose the ability to activate on 2+ systems, because of those type of people who want to be cheap and not purchase downloadable content on the PSN.
Also, the 2 seat rule makes sense from the general software license standpoint; one for the desktop, one for the laptop on the go. But for games, where there are multiple platform options and where it’s common to have more than 2 TV sets per household, seems a different rule should apply. I like the option to deactivate systems from an account, but maybe provide one more seat and make it 3 each platform type.
I’m going to go ahead and say that 2 is too few. But, three would be just right.. As, there are many people with three PS3’s, and, systems do break, need repair, and, can’t be disabled remotely from what I understand… Oh well, things happen, but, two is too few. I think three would be nice too. Five IS a bit much.. like, really, and, if someone does need 4, or more because they bought more PS3s… I don’t know why, but, maybe you should have some sort of verification plan, or something.. i dunno.
IF we deactivate all systems on the account through the pc option or even one of the systems is this system able to be re activated for game content that was bought of the PS Store before then 18th or would that action lock the system out of this older content in til there is only one activated ps3 on the network account?
I own 3 PS3s. And I just bought a 1 year PS Plus membership. So, I guess I am screwed? Twice in one year Sony. You aren’t winning over any fans. I have one in our bedroom, one in our family room and one in the living room. Are you saying I have to deactivate the ones I am not using so I can play my game on the console I want? How about I just don’t replace my 40gb when it dies and get an XBOX? How will that figure into your equation? Some people are sharing a $4.99 game. OMG. And to stop that, we will put in an unreasonable policy that results in people not buying PS3s. How does that make sense?
How does this effect singstar dlc if at all? All you people raging over this are so lucky, Singstar dlc is limited to 1 console and you can’t deactivate it without contacting Sony.
Really, im giving a second thought on getting a vita, who knows which of the new “attractions” will turn out to be “time limited”, also i’d have to deactivate my PSP to use the vita and it can’t even play PS1 games. So it’ll be activate PSP for PS1s, or vita. Bet they’ll play PSP games just in the 1st generetation of the console, then they’ll just take it out so PSP can still be sold and you cant use with more freedom the content you already bought because the consoles are going “digital”
I’m hoping it gets changed to three systems. That seems to be the sweet spot since I generally play on three of the systems my family owns. One in my room, one in the living room and one at my parent’s house when I visit them. Going to and from locations having to deactivate and reactivate systems will be a bit of a pain just to play them. Perhaps adding a feature to plus members giving us one more activation would be an option? I’m a member through 2012 but I think that would be an added incentive to be a plus member if the massive other content and benefits were just not enough for those on the fence.
At first I raged and I raged hard. …Then I read that I could deactivate old systems.
I see that you will be able to deactivate for games, but what about videos? My last PS3 seems to have had it activated there but it died and I can’t deactivate it.
@36 no way in Hell should I have to purchase a game twice just because I own more systems than you. I’ve bought a total of 5 PS3 systems, 3 of which still work. I give you, sony, more money than your average consumer and have also purchased over 100 games from PSN and I get screwed. I always try to just give constructive feedback, but I feel a bit sleighted. Dropping it from 5 is fine, but 2 is way too low. And on a side note, I don’t care how xbox does it, there are reasons I have continued to come to playstation, but never replaced my original 360. Vent complete. Please raise it to 3. That’s all that I and most others in disagreement are asking.
No flash card slots, fewer USB ports, no
backward compatibility, no Linux support,
no ability to engage in class-action
lawsuits, and now this… The PlayStation 3 is the only consumer
electronics device that loses functionality
over time. My PS3 does less now than
when I bought it.
I can deal with 3 activation but 2?
Face it people, for those who abused the system gets everyone who legitimately screwed over.
Now if Sony was actually competent, they would monitor those who are abusing the system activations by seeing the IP address. If the system activates from one area of the states to another in unreasonable amount of time or downloading something in that account in question from download history then logs out and re-logs in from different ISP IP then flag it.
I know Sony can do this as the PS3 boots they send out your history logs of your home network and ISP so they’re punishing us all.
The PS3 activation is already stupid as is but if we aren’t allowed to activate up to 5 system anymore (which Sony has not clarified on the answer), and if the systems has DLC or content that is still allowed to be used up to 5 system activation and is deactivated and lets say you have 2 system activation already, does that mean I can’t re-activate the 3rd-5th system now (not saying I have 5 systems as I have 3)?
Even if they still allowed 5 systems to be activated, now you bought a new DLC content and you downloaded to all of YOUR PS3’s, the system is not smart enough to deactivate the new 2 activated content rules and basically you have to deactivate the other systems and locking you out of your pre-existing contents.
Bravo Sony (no I didn’t try to make a pun), the whole 5 system activation thing actually enticed me to get the PS3 in the first place when I was fed up with MS with their DRM before the DRM transferring was out.
Also Sony, don’t bother looking up my purchase history for this account as I don’t buy anything on this profile, as I was paranoid about potential hacking of gaming accounts I use a separate one to purchase and that was before the great PSN hack of 2011.
To other gamers out their who actually use the system activation for legit reasons, you should also raise your voice. Sure Sony is going to offer system deactivation but they should’ve had this implemented a long time ago, and plus it would’ve made other people weary of game sharing as the owner of the account could deactivate them at any time.
Why Sony?! WHY!??
The PS3 maybe is the only system that while more time pass less things has, just remember; NO more retrocompatibility, then NO more Linux, No more SD Cards readers , Less USB inputs and now just TWO consoles per account.
I share my account with my brother and two best friends and we buy a lot of games, A LOT!, now am thinking NOT to buy anymore. Bad move Sony, pretty baaaaad move.
LOL @ people wasting their money buying 3 PS3’s. You all must have disposable income.
What’s the point of having more than one PS3 (or any game system for that matter)?
How will devices with the PlayStation Suite fit into this?
I will want to see how this actually impacts Sony’s bottom line. It will be interesting to see if it ends up not working in the end. I think a good measure of their success will be to look at Sales over time while controlling for PSN growth percentage wise. Overall I don’t think these measures will increase overall sales for them. A sure bet would be have better products in the PSN Store (not simply releasing the PS1 and PS2 catalog and overcharging). Also, setting up better price points for full games offered through PSN to be competitive with their physical counterparts would do more to foster growth than this.
I know Sony is hurting financially, but this is not forward thinking. They ought to take better cues from Xbox and Apple when it comes to growing their base. Could you imagine if you could only listen to your iTunes music on two devices?
On a side note, let’s look at the DLC for one of the biggest franchises out there: COD. I am willing to bet that the current exclusivity agreement between them and Microsoft that gets them the DLC a month in advance does way more in limiting Sony’s net sales of the same DLC than gamesharing ever did. People want to buy great DLC, but having to wait longer than people playing on the competing console is just not fun.
Sony, get some better strategists working for you or you will find yourself filing for Chapter 11 sooner that you think.
Its amazing how many people suddenly own “3 PS3’s”. I bet if they had it they were limiting it to 3 activated PS3’s..these same people would claim they have “4”.
Are you really playing on all 3? If it is for different people in your household are you all really playing the same game? In fact I view it like if you live in a household with someone who also owns a PS3 and you buy a game and they download it using your account…that’s piracy in my opinion. If I was Sony, I would limit each game and DLC to ONE CONSOLE.
Let’s face it, everyone who posted here that is upset by this..is just mad this puts an end to their free loading game sharing.
No wonder they made that no class action lawsuit clause on their end user agreement. That way they can start removing more features until there is nothing else to take because in the end, they are making every PS3 an expensive paperweight.
My Monopoly money is on that Sony fails to have a “website” to remotely deactivate your devices. They will deem it a security issue later on. Thus taking another “feature”.
I lose more and more confidence in Sony as they go along. Its been especially bad in the past 6 years when they had their egos up their butts.
Remember Sony, things that go up must come down. I better not hear you say that it was your consumers that failed you, you have been digging your own grave each year.
so many things you can do to improve the service provided
and this is the best thing that happened were
poor sony —— bad
listening to consumers
3 sistem,
“… 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.”
This is what keeps me from being miffed. My across-town friend already hasn’t played much of what I’ve downloaded on his system (and the only thing we’ve “played” together is Home), and right now he’s out at basic training, but it’d be a pain to have to call him up to deactivate his machine if I need to use someone else’s (especially since my live-in to-be bro-in-law intendeds on picking up a PS3 from one of his friends).
But I will say, for halfing our options, I’d’ve much rather you’d gone with rounding up for us. Three seems like a decent number: One for your main, one for a backup or secondary, and one for when you’re out visiting. Seems more flexible without being as exorbitantly abusable.
Now, to decide what I want 5-machine limits on… I bet this is partly a ploy to boost PSN sales!
Noby Noby Boy, Half-Minute Hero, maybe Dead Head Fred. Flower, perhaps…
OH! WHAT ABOUT ADD-ONS BOUGHT AFTER THE 18TH FOR GAMES BOUGHT BEFORE THE 18TH?
well atleast i get to deactivate my account from previous systems ive played on websites
@528 – Very good point! Assuming the Vita has/gets the ability to play PSone Classics, you’d have to bother deactivating a completely different system if you’re using all three (which may be the case, considering UMD libraries).
I don’t see the problem here I have enough money to but a two PS3s every month. No I’m not rich and the only PS3’s in the house were purchased by me which brings the total to two in the house. My house isn’t the biggest in the world but isn’t two PS3s enough in one house. I don’t know any one where I live that has 4 or more PS3s so this anger is rediculous and misplaced. Why 4 PS3 why not infinite PS3s. One for every room is crazy talk. Don’t most families get together to play in the same room? I play games on the one in my room the other one is used primarily used to watch movies on.
BTW someone mentioned 360’s DRM policy and I own one of those too and as far as I know you do only get one lisence per game and you pay 5 dollars more just to move it from console to console or friend to friend.
How would you like if PSN was to go that route.
The only reason I can think of is abuse of the service.
Thanks to hackers most of us will never know how well (or not well) the alternate OS feature worked on our PS3s.
Stop abusing PS3s people!
@540
Why do you people who say they own 3 PS3s are lying? My husband is a huge Playstation fanboy and purchased a 60GB PS3 at launch, and it is amazingly still going strong (after having it fixed once) and is in our bedroom. When the slim version was released, we purchased one for our living room to use as the center of our entertainment center, and because people were always arguing over which games to play. And just last month we bought our son a PS3 for his birthday (it is all he wanted, I blame my husband.) And yes, all three get used almost daily. Maybe it would be excessive for a single individual to own 3 PS3s, but I don’t think it is unreasonable for a family to own 3 PS3s or PSPs, or at least not families that have members that frequent the PSblog.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to want to play any of the games that we (well, my husband) have purchased on any of the systems that we own without having to take unnecessary steps. Honestly, if we had known about this last month, we wouldn’t have bought another PS3 for our son, and after the 18th we aren’t likely to purchase much off the PSN.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Thanks cheap ***holes.
This is why I prefer physical over digital releases. I can’t blame Sony, I blame the cheapskates who gameshare.
To people whining, all the games you bought before the date mentioned will still have 5.
So you’re not losing anything that you bought. You weren’t scammed out of anything you purchased. Blame people that abused their generosity with 5. It’s their fault, just like it’s hackers fault that we lost Linux.
can someone explain what this means im not quite getting it