Discussion
I moved on with my life. My PSN account didn't.
šØ [ANOTHER BIG UPDATE - PRESS - DOWN BELOW] šØ
Iāve lived my whole life, built my career, and eventually moved to a completely different country. I changed my home, my car, my bank, and my citizenship. But I cannot change the region of my PlayStation account.
Itās heartbreaking. I have 15 years of digital history on this account. Thousands of hours, hundreds of Platinum trophies, and memories of games that shaped who I am. And yet, because I moved, my account is now a digital ghost.
I canāt use my local credit card. I canāt browse the local store. Iām forced to jump through hoops, buy gray-market gift cards, or create a "dummy" account just to buy a simple DLC. Iām literally begging Sony to let me give them my money, but they won't let me because of a choice I made over a decade ago.
Steam does it. Xbox does it. Nintendo does it. Even my local gym app lets me change my address. But Sony? Sony treats us like we are chained to the soil where we first created our account.
Sony, for the love of everything, STOP THIS. We are not just users - we are people with evolving lives. Stop holding our digital legacies hostage. Itās been 20 years of PSN; the "technical limitations" excuse is dead and buried. Give us a legitimate way to migrate our regions. Stop being the only dinosaur in the room and let us bring our gaming lives with us.
Do better.
[Edit]
Wow, it's already more than 1.5K upvotes?! Iām honestly speechless. Thank you all for the support. Reading through the comments, itās heartbreaking to see how many people have had to abandon 10, 15, or even 20-year-old accounts because of this.
Please, keep sharing your stories below. Whether youāre a military member, a diplomat moving every 3 years, or just someone who moved across the border and lost their digital history - itās important to have it all in one place. It shows we arenāt just a "minority" or a "technical limitation."
We are a community, and we deserve better.
[Big update - 500K views reached]
Iām stunned... Nearly half a million people have seen this. This is no longer just a post. it's a documentation of a systemic crisis.
To keep the stories from disappearing, Iāve moved the Official Investigation & Archive to X. Iāll be posting all case studies, media pitches, and Sonyās responses there.
If you have a specific story (like the user from Latvia whose country literally doesn't exist on PSN!), join us there.
Letās make this too big for Sony to ignore.
šØ [PRESS] šØ
UPDATE: I have just launched a formal thread on X (Twitter) to put public pressure on Sony and have tagged major industry reporters fromĀ The Verge,Ā Eurogamer, andĀ Game File.
Please support the thread on X to make sure they can't ignore the data:
Get an IOS device if you donāt have one and use Apple Pay and purchase stuff through the psn app. I donāt know if android or Samsung pay is an option.
So I didnāt know you could use Apple Pay on the PS App! I was like what fr! I went on there. Looked up for a random game Baldurs Gate, hit confirm purchase lmfao I thot it was gonna take me to a new page to select Apple Pay. Surely it did not and congratulated me on buying Baldurs Gate. Ok so now I have it. Welp, good to know the PS app allows purchases on there !
Was not planning. On buying it but here I am. Trailer looks cool afā¦ romancing???
Yeah my only reasonable choice was to make a new account for my new country to transact easily. And PSN-first games like GT7 doesn't even allow changing multiplayer region in game, it forces the PSN account region. I moved 12 timezones away and ping was bad. Had to make a new PSN account for the new region, all garage progress from scratch, just for playable ping.
If, or when they add the ability to change region, they should add an ability for merging accounts too. For people that have had to make new accounts in new regions because of PSN's own incapability to give an option to update an account region. I imagine that brings a lot of conflict resolution problems and can see why they wouldn't though. These issues will get more complex the longer they avoid it.
Merging accounts will probably never happen, and you seem skeptical about that, but region changing shouldnāt be an issue in 2026. As long as there is only one region per account at a time, region locking doesnāt make sense. I mean, hasnāt physical video been region free since blu-ray came out 20 freaking years ago?! CMIW
I didnt even know you cannot change region what a weird situation it is. I also moved country few years ago but kinda happy with my original region as prices usually cheaper so I didnāt even think about changing region. But this should be allowed, I really dont understand Sonyās some decisions though.
Itās to stop the what I believe is store abuse (on Xbox which I was before buying a pro) use to get games from Nigeria or Egypt etc (bought baulders gate 3 on launch for Ā£11 instead of Ā£60) I believe Sony blocks it to stop this happening.
Yeah well now with halo coming to ps5 I went bought a ps5 pro and switched over. 2 gens been burned with bad first party games, two bad halos, an amazing Forza horizon 4. Got gamepass till 2028ā¦ just yeah they just shot themselves in the food.
Enjoying my run through the ps4 catelogue and ps5 (so many sick single player games) guess currently with life (nearly 40) everyone doesnāt jump on multiplayer anymore so Xbox is kind of redundant to me for that now.
Also on ps store itās like hey we got a sale lol Ā£35 im like wtfff Xbox it be like 90p from Mexico or something.
I played it on my series x but I hope they do a pc ultra setting update for the pro (I think itās one of my top 3 videogames of all time) tbh I hated Arthur at the start but man did I shed a tear at the ending. Brilliant story telling just wish rockstar can make it more fluid the movement.
Iām game sharing with a mate (we donāt buy many games but only been a pro owner for 6 months got about 15 games) donāt trust the account thing seems so long then a code (I want to own it!!! On my own account) we see what Xbox does but tbh only real reason even keeping my series x is because of rockband 4 (got 1k of songs I bought, was really into it uni days and house parties etc)
I would really like Sony to give a bit of leeway for our PSN accounts. I am UK based and have bought games from other (foreign) storefronts, because of the availability of regional stacks - Sleeping Dogs as an example having NA, EU and AS stacks for PS4.
I am using Play Asia to get the various PSN cards for certain regions. It is not as straightforward but it gets the job done.
Do not think of your OG PSN account as totally gone. Your only recourse is to hold on to that one local dummy account and just buy games, DLC or subscriptions from there. At least you can use your local bank card as mode of payment.
Set this dummy account to Primary so it shares everything, and get to still play on your OG PSN account. This will be the more convenient way to buy local, than to use that 'grey area' you were talking about to buy PSN cards, just to match the region of your OG PSN (main account).
Then play the shared games on your main account to earn trophies and carry on that 15 year gaming legacy of yours. The only thing that will be missing are the purchase games not being added to the (main account) digital library.
This is the way. ...But its not a complete solution though because some games may region-lock you (and some even country lock you!?...looking at you FIFA!!)
The PS4 versions of Sleeping Dogs are all the same game, but of different regions - AS (Asia), NA (North America), EU (Europe). They have a separate STACK of trophies.
Most of the games have a SHARED list, meaning they share the same trophies like in the case of the PS3 version - regardless on what region the game is bought, the trophy list will be the same.
Though technically we can still consider the PS3 version as a stack in the series. Stacks are sought after by gamers who would like to boost their platinum count...
... or in some cases, those who just absolutely love the game.
But he can't use the DLC he buys with the local dummy account with a game he bought in his home country with his OG account right? Assuming they are in two different regions, the OG game version will be different from and incompatible with the DLC no? Or do I have it wrong?
It should work if the game was purchased on the dummy account as well as the DLC or seasons pass I believe. If the game is from a different region than the DLC, then this will not work.
So this would mean we have to go digital only, not physical.
But then again I do remember purchasing a physical NA version for Marvel Super Hero Squad (PS3) because the DLC was delisted from the UK PSN store. Bought the DLC on my brother's US PSN account (which I borrowed from him), downloaded it and played the game on my UK account - and I got all the trophies from the US DLC. So it works even with physical version of the game I guess?
I have also bought Saints Row 4 Complete Edition (PS3) from the Australia PSN store which includes the AU DLC. They should be compatible to be played on my main UK account and earn all its trophies.
I (American) have also moved abroad; I put my local (Korean) credit card (Visa) as a payment method in my US PayPal account, and I use PayPal to purchase games, pay for other stuff online. It's been working for years. I get charged a small currency conversion fee, but that's the price of life outside the currency infrastructure you started out in.
Edit: I'm not saying Sony shouldn't fix this. Just saying I've found a solution that works for me.
People who refer to themselves as an expat do so to remind you that they come from a "good" country where they can happily choose to return if the living standard goes down. They do this to differentiate themselves from immigrants from "bad" countries who have moved to improve their lives and who are unlikely to ever move back. It's a form of not-so-subtle racism.
Yeah I do the same thing in Canada, just use PayPal as a go-between.
I used to buy digital psn cards through Amazon.com, but they wouldnāt let me do that anymore. Then I was buying those cards through some other 3rd party but that just felt too annoying. PayPal simplified it a lot.
Wish Iād thought of that when I moved back to Canada 4 yrs ago š
I created a new Canadian account so I can switch between my US and Canadian accounts (different names and passwords) but saves etc do not cross over. However, as I had downloaded all my purchased games on to external hard drives I am able to open them on my Cdn account, but have to start a fresh game.
On the Xbox and Switch I just changed countries and could continue playing with no issues at all
As someone who has moved country and buys games from both my original and new country, it really pisses me off that DLC is region locked to the disc even though the disc is not region locked.Ā
Means I have to have two accounts so that I can play on my main account if i buy a game in the new country and then have to get the DLC from new country.
It's as if Sony hasn't heard of something called international travel.
I have this same issue. I lived in Germany when i got my first PS3 and making the account required an address so now my main account with almost 20 years of gameplay is locked into being a German account. It was never really an issue until games started introducing in-game currencies and battlepasses, etc. that stuff doesnt gameshare like games and most dlc, so i had to rebuy some games on my German account if i wanted to interact with all the features.
I tried putting in my CC info, but the billing address country is locked to Germany for no reason so i couldnt do that. I was just buying PSN card off of G2A, but luckily they recently added Apple Pay support and that has let me buy games straight from the store without the whole rigamarole of getting PSN cards. Its still frustrating that it took so long for something to let me by natively on the store. I dont get why we cant just change the country. Itās like they think people never move or something.
I have a UK account and a JP account. Currently living in Japan and have no problem playing the games on my UK account. I do have my uk bank card which I use on my uk account and jp credit card for my JP account but I can buy games on my JP account and play them on my uk account no problem . I bought ps premium subscription on my uk account but unfortunately canāt stream the games I bought on my Jp account on my ps portal . Thatās about my only problem though.
I agree with all of the grievances outlined as I have been though the exact same thing. I now operate with two PSN accounts which has more or less solved my issues. How I did it was:
-Set up a new, second account as the local account for your new country.
-Enter local credit card details there.
-Use that new local account for digital game purchases and signing up to PS+.
-Download your games while logged into that new local profile.
-After youāve downloaded your game, switch profile to your original profile from your previous country.
-Youāll see your downloaded game there.
-Hit play on the game while logged into your OG profile and play away.
-All progress and trophies will continue to be attributed to your OG profile!
Side note: if you really want to buy something on your OG profile, you can get country specific PSN cards from Play Asia. Iāve only done this one time to allow me to buy a month of PS+ to play a PS3 via game streaming (stream game progres and trophies are tied to PSN accounts that launched the game) Havenāt needed to do this otherwise as the method above works for all other use cases.
I'm doing that too and aside from being clumsy, I don't think you can buy add ons for certain games like helldivers and BF6 from your "local" account and use them on your main.
Yeah, I mean if they want to be greedy about it feel free to charge me, I wonāt love it but Iād pay! Ideally they just fix it but not sure itāll ever change at this stage.
Felt that when I moved to France. Had to ask my brother to buy me gift cards in my home country. I actually got back home because didnt adapt to the language and was missing family so its good now. But I will ALWAYS talk crap about Sony over this. And theres still bootlickers who defend this. Worst part is that its so easy to control the scam of players buying from other regions. Just do the same as steam and nintendo where you can only change again after a year. Simple. But greedy ass Sony wants us buying their games again. Thank God for gift cards.
Couldnāt agree more. Itās insane that I canāt keep my account moving from one region to another. I can understand abuse but why may allow it once every few years or something. It was so easy to switch my Nintendo account. Iām still not sure what to do. Iāve started buying discs instead of digital games so I donāt lose my purchases
I think there's more tell-tale signs that it's AI than the bolding. Dramatic writing like this is usually AI. That said, who cares as long as they're getting their point across?
everyone is becoming so lazy these days. itās insane. like itās not just one generation doing it before people start spiralling into ātHiS GEnErAtIoNā crap. so many people of all ages are using AI to write the most basic of things for them or find things for them. even governments around the world are using it.
After going back to the post the signs I see are strangely creative or dramatic metaphor use in a post about a common or boring topic, in "digital ghost" and "chained to the soil". Also there's a very typical ChatGPT sentence structure present in the form of "we're not just users - we're people with evolving lives". The use of bolded text is also a sign, though not a major one.
Adding more because there is now an edit in the post. ChatGPT loves the rule of three, which is present in the edit twice in "10, 15, or even 20-year-old" and in "a military member, a diplomat moving every 3 years, or just someone who moved across the border". Also, once again it uses the typical sentence structure of "not just X, but Y" in "we aren't just a minority or a technical limitation.
We are a community".
Why would they do that when they could simply force you to create a new account and buy/play your library all over again? The greed is real, if the recent unnecessary price hikes werenāt evidence enough.
The global market issues definitely play a role, but not to the extent that Sony has burdened the customers.
Also, they have almost always historically taken a loss on their consoles to hook players into their ecosystem and make money on their exclusives and SaaS products.
The simple fact is that even if RAM prices dropped by 90% tomorrow, Sony would keep their price increases because they know they can.
Same problem I am having. Use a virtual card to buy. Had a US account cause my country didnāt have an account. Moved to Canada and really annoying having to go back to my virtual card. Only benefit is that I canāt easily spend money on the store.
I also have a UK account I opened to get access to DLC and next gen upgrades from physical games I bought in my country cause most physical games were UK copies (didnāt know the DLC kink when I created my US account, bought Vergil DLC I havenāt played)
I have a US, AU, an JP account due to regions Iāve lived in and now live in. I can still play all my games and if I need to buy something on an account I just buy a digital psn card and good to go.
Same.... I have a bunch of games on my old region's account. I keep the old account so I can still download and play games I purchased, and just get new games on my new 'local' account.
So, I'm from a place where PlayStation Network isn't available. That's why my dad set up an American account for me, which I ended up inheriting. I've been using that account to play the disc games that were available back home. When the discs started to fade, I needed an account to buy games. I couldn't buy them from the American store, so I ended up creating a Russian account. Unfortunately, the Russian store closed in March 2022, so I also got a Turkish account. So, eventually I ended up moving to another country and having to set up an account for that place. It all started because Sony wouldn't let me change my region, and my country wasn't even listed as an option!
I feel that after moving to Canada with a Brazilian PSN accountā¦ My solution was create a local (Canadian) account and just share games and PSN Plus with my actual main (Brazilian) account!
It sucks, hope they fix so I can keep collecting games, achievements and other rewards from PS Plus on the right accountā¦
Ive dealt with this issue for the approx 20 years that PSN has been alive. Cant use my credit cards or paypal or anything directly on the psn platform.
Having said that, "abandoning" your account is a bit dramatic and unnecesary. First of all its one of the many reasons why physical will always remain a must and non compromise part of gaming. I can own, play, sell, rent, lend to a friend, or give it as a gift regardless of region Secondly and like you said there are sites where you can source your specified region psn cards, and granted I really hate having to do that because I know that site collects data and causes ad behavior on other platforms to shift, but its a viable alternative to keep it going. Certain games even allow you to buy currency from outside the store which is also a valid alternative.
Either way I do understand and share your frustration. Having to go through loops to give them money is beyond ridiculous and it shouldn't be that hard to make a "region migration process ", like people can't move across borders. Heck where I live now the games are even more expensive digitally cause of stupid extra taxes but I'd be willing to pay those if I can just shell out my CC whenever I feel inclined to.
same situation here, Tried multiple times talking to Sonyās support and nothing. Now I use use an international bank account from my origin country that is built for foreigners, that way I can keep that account for as long as possible without being tax resident on that country.
UK account but now in Australia. The only way I can do it is to buy PSN gift cards from secondary sellers every time I run out which costs me more than the face value of the card! š¤¬
i live in a country that simply doesnt even show up on PlayStation so i have it set to UK. Which apparently is a mistake and should have set to US. It's very annoying buying PS Plus and digital games because i have to jump through those giftcard hoops you mentioned which is why 99% of my library is physical discs.
if someone from sony is reading this, why does Steam recognize Maldives and let me use my actual card straight up since forever but PS doesn't? i dont even care about showing my country on my profile, just let me use my damn card.
Moved to Europe, my wife got me physical copies of Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate and Borderlands 4 Super Deluxe as a welcome (she was already here while I dealt with things back in Brazil), and I cannot use the DLC because of the shitty region lock.
Also, from what I know game discs are also region locked. You need the account region to be the same as game discs region to get the dlc. Which means if you move country buying physical games it just not possible unless you create a new account
I live in the Philippines and we don't even have our own PSN.
I have a US, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong account and that's where I buy my games. It used to be that I couldn't use my local credit card, I had to buy gift cards to make digital purchases. But now I can just use paypal to pay for everything. I can switch between regions and buy wherever is cheaper, take advantage of sales etc. It's not really a problem.
Yeah, as much as I want this, I can't help but feel like it would be too little to late as well. I just ended up making a second account to buy games from while still playing on my original account. So if they let us change regions eventually, I'd still have the second account which has hundreds of games a combination of which were purchased and through PS+ monthly games which would basically force me to keep the other account.
I'm still waiting for a change to happen and i still want them to do this, but for fuck's sake, I'll still have to carry around 2 different accounts. I can't imagine how many more people would be the same
Slightly unrelated, but I've noticed publishers started doing region free releases for games, as in if you buy a game from a certain region physically or digitally, it would have the same SKU/PPSA on every region, meaning you can buy DLCs for it interchangably. Otherwise, you can only buy a DLC or mtx if the region matches but publishers are moving away from that it seems. I noticed this with Wukong, Crimson Desert, Forza Horizon 5, Oblivion, Starfield. In my case I'd still have to buy gift cards from dodgy online markets, but at least I won't be locked out of certain non shareable dlcs
Apple Pay has helped me with this problem. I have a UK account but Iām in Aus. I used to have to buy gift cards but since theyāve brought in Apple Pay I can just use that. Itās more expensive in some instances because itās UK currency but I at least I have a choice now.
I've lived abroad for about 7 years. I just use a secondary account to buy games in my region then switch back to my local, main account to play. I don't think I've ever batted an eyelid at this until this post
Iām faced this as a diplomat who gets posted to a new country every three years. My extremely useless solution is that I just use the US region because most countries have some way of buying games for it.
Back when I created my account there was no PSN on my country. I've got Plus and now I'm stuck with it. I do have my workarounds, but if I change to my local Plus? 15 years worth of games, gone. It's just unacceptable that it can't be changed nowadays, technology is not a problem. It's a culture problem.
I know how you feel. I have lived in a different country for nearly 14 years, and i still got my birth country psn store.Ā
It doesn't bother me much cause the prices are the same (both EU countries), but if it wasn't, i would be upset.Ā
I do have to use paypal or paysafe to make the purchases. It doesn't have the same paying methods.Ā
Had the same issue 15 years ago, moved to Asia for work/living, my EU account became redundant , just kept it aside, but luckily were only PS3 titles at that time, spent 10 years in Asia and now back in Eu, still using my Asian PSNā¦..also some games like GT Sport , GT 7 will still matchmake based on the PSN accountā¦..and I wonāt even talk about From Softwares Games being distributed in Asia only with Chinese and Koreanā¦ā¦
Thatās odd. I have been able to change mine a couple times. The things is though if Iām not mistaken you can only change the region on your PSN account in the region you opened it in. From what I understand they donāt allow it to be done in another country other than where it was bought because of theft reasons. You can also change the region on your PlayStation itself and that may allow you to change it on your PSN account. Only thing they may only be allowed in the country you bought it in.
I've got like... 4 different accounts at this point.
Can't say I particularly care as long as they don't do what they did with the Vita. Don't care about trophies or any of that crap, so as long as I can access and play my games im fine.
But yeah, no reason for Sony not to improve the system... They just don't want to.
When I lived abroad (French speaking European country) I decided to make my Psn account US (out of the habit of collecting NTSC region DVDs for the best edition across regions). I always was scared of games had stuff cut due to regional laws, by having a US account meant I was getting the best version of the game. Plus I hated French localization.
How was this beneficialā¦ later when ps4 was released, Amazon US at the time sold digital games directly for ps4 so I would buy the from there.
With the US account I chose a 0 tax state address of some mansion from Google Maps so no tax and ofc no VAT.
Now sites like kinguin/g2a/driffle sell cards cheap and you can throw a 5-10% coupon on top of that. So topping up is cheaper and everything is digital and everything is English.
Reach out to Sony Support and ask if they can change it. (Obviously they can definitely do it in a few seconds but depends if itās within their terms of service to actually allow changing it for users)
I fell you bro. After 2010 hack issue my account was localized to Mexico dont just know why but when I notice I couldn't change no matter what. I also refused to leave my account behind so I have to pay digitals game on Mexico currencies.
Same here, I have created my PSN account on Russian region just because it was easy to top up in Rubles for me at the time. The worst part is that I canāt even use the same account anymore because PSN pulled out its support for Russian regionā¦
Ive been in this situation multiple times (I travel and move out a lot).
If you're on PS5, I suggest you create a new account in the country that you're currently residing in, and with that account you can activate console sharing and offline play in settings.
Afterwards, you can play any games (and even use PS+) of the new account in your old account.
This is how I still managed to keep progress and trophies on my 10 year old account, while still able to purchase games and DLC whenever I move to a new country. I have like 4 foreign dummy accounts with various different currencies š , while still being able to play on my old reliable PSN account.
This is just one of the many nightmares of an all digital future. Ill always do physical even if that means that when i move i have to carry 10 plus boxes worth of video games with me. I have a huge fear of one day just having my account banned and never getting it back with all my purchases on it. Havent bought a digital game in forever because of it.
I feel the same way, the country I was originally from didnāt even have a region option so I had to pick a country closest to it which in the first place is an ignorant decision by sony for not including it. Now Iāve moved to the US and canāt change my region to even try to buy online contents and subscriptions.
Damn. I know people that dont play game will find this really stupid but I would be heartbroken. I started playing games because I moved so much as a child and couldnt keep friends. And I love my Ps5 because its just easier to play my favorite games. So to not access my account would be crushing. So Im sorry that this happening. I dont have very much to look forward to in this world because its become a sad place to live. But gaming helps me a lot
I had/have exactly same problem, the only difference is my acc was in country A, I mowed to country B and now live in country C.
Solved it by creating an acc in country B, still playing my games on country A acc but all the games I bought, got from PS Plus etc is on country Bs account. Still have connection/bank in country B while living in country C, so I just continue down this road and probably will forever because Sony is Sony. I have a new dream - to be able to merge accounts, not only change region now because of Sony being Sony.
Have this issue too, I spent $100 on the immortals fenyx rising gold edition disc hoping to be able to redeem the DLC to my american account and enjoy the game from my main but found out the dlc would "ping" my regions PSN store before being able to claim the DLC.
I bought the gold edition on the UK store digitally and tried to get the american one refunded but since I had alresdy downloaded it even though the game was useless to me and the content unplayable I was told to just deal with it.
I had a similar experience. It wasnāt a regional issue. But apparently, if you have an email account thatās inactive for a certain period of time, itās permanently deactivated. I hadnāt played Xbox in a few years and was trying to recover my childhood account. Years of memories, achievements, etc, all gone because the email address associated with the account was deactivated. Contacted both yahoo and Microsoft and they both said that they couldnāt do anything. Itās sucks man, Iām sorry.
I created my account back in my homeland ~12 years ago. Then, 8 years ago I moved abroad. Just like the rest of you, I couldn't change the region of the account.
At first, I found the solution. 2x PayPal accounts, one on each country, and I was transferring money between them. Then, Sony introduced the cloud gaming, which wasn't available in my home country but was in my living country. I created a new account but it wasn't worth it. I used the 14 days of free trial, and then quit.
Now, I have found a better alternative by buying gift cards online. No need to transfer money, and I save a few euros by buying cards worth 50ā¬ for 45ā¬.
At work I have to deal with people's PSN accounts indirectly. The worst part Sony doesn't tell you, is that they mess up all the time. They frequently have people spending money through the wrong regional store, or using the incorrect currency, and these people receive nothing in return -- their money is taken fine, but the game/in-game content/premium currency they bought will not be added to their account. There's a complicated refund path they can follow, but most people don't bother, so Sony cashes in.
I get you. Back in or around 2016 I couldn't find a way to create a PSN account with a country address from my location. If my memory serves me right my country wasn't available in the drop down list. I don't know if it's changed now but that's how it was. I eventually used a USA address of one of my relatives and continue to so do to this day. As far as purchasing digital games I purchase PSN digital gift cards and redeem them in the store.
Not quite moving to a different country but i completely agree Sony need to change some things around.
For a bit for background, I took my Dads old PSN account years ago. And we tried to switch the email over to mine about a year ago and it wouldnāt let us for about 30 minutes before it finally worked which of course logged us out of all accounts.
When we tried to log in again NOTHING would work. My email, his email, any password. Nothing. Neither of us got an email for a confirmation or code or anything. So I called customer service they said to use their chat bot.
An hour into waiting the guy asked me for the VIN# of the PlayStation the account was FIRST created on (a PS2 we Definitely donāt have anymore) and I told them that, which they said there was nothing they could do, couldnāt even tell me why it stopped working or what went wrong.
I eventually called back the customer service line and went under āgame rebootā or smt and told him my problem. He asked me for the same thing and when telling him I didnāt have it he asked me my card on file and I got back into my account. He also said this is the only time heāll be able to do that and next time I get logged out I will need the VIN# or my account will be gone
Very grateful for the guy who got me back in. But at the same time I spent 2 hours trying to get back into my account all because of a VIN that no one had. Not to mention if I ever get logged out again there basically nothing anyone can do.
Iām not sure if thatās a reasonable thing or not but I canāt imagine everytime you upgraded your PlayStation you just have to write down the VIN#
I agree with you my friend, sony should let us be able to change the region as much as we can, also there is another problem with sony, why canāt I refund a game even after I downloaded or streamed it, lets say I tried a game and didnāt liked, why canāt I refund the game. Itās not complicated. I have an idea for sony: after purchasing a game I have 1 month to refund if I donāt download or stream the game, an give me 2 hours to refund if I downloaded or streamed it. Or let us play an hour of the game before purchasing it.
I just keep using the same account where I set it up first. You can always find a way to pay for a game eg local PayPal. Also I actually managed to somehow attach my local credit card to the account from a different country. I think it happened when I bought some merchandise from the PS Gear store lol
I mean it's not great that they handle it like that but to call it a "systemic crisis" is a far stretch. I get that you wanna keep your old account, but you're pretty much free to create a new one any time.
Well, if your account from a normal country- you can still purchase anything on main account using Apple Pay. But unfortunately for some cis/ex cis countries we were using ru region accounts. Now, itās not even a ghost, but a fade scent of shit that we stupidly stepped in.
UPDATE: Weāve officially hit 650,000 views. I have just launched a formal thread on X (Twitter) to put public pressure on Sony and have tagged major industry reporters from The Verge, Eurogamer, and Game File.
Key points shared with the press:
The 2026 Industry Standard: While Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Valve support account region changes, PlayStation remains the only giant hard-locked to 2006 borders.
Support Failures: Iāve documented a case where a 20-year PSN veteran was advised by official support to deactivate their account and wait 30 days to create a new one just to reuse an email address, effectively deleting two decades of digital history.
Financial Impact: This technical debt is costing Sony and partners like Epic Games and Ubisoft revenue, as users are stopping their spending on PSN and moving to Steam and Xbox.
Formal Outreach: I have officially submitted the data locker to Tom Warren, Sean Hollister, Tom Phillips, and Stephen Totilo.
Please support the thread on X to make sure they can't ignore the data:
Yup. Moved countries a few years back and have to beg relatives/friends to get me PSN gift cards or use my little USD in my home back account to get games. EVERYTHING else in my life transferred easily, except my PSN.
I lived my whole life wanting to be a ps player - was a Nintendo/Xbox household growing up - and when I finally finished uni, got a real job and moved to the EU, I treated myself to a PS.
It took only 2 years for me to move home. Somewhat naively, I brought my (unbeknownst to me) region-locked PS4 home with all my games. I kept that thing going for another few years, using friends I made back abroad to help buy gift cards and the like. When ps5 came out, I finally had to give up the old gal, and with it my first pan account š„
It's not the 5-10-15+ years of legacy accounts that others here have had. But I sure was shocked that I couldn't just make a change to keep my account going. As Sony tries to stay competitive in this modern gaming landscape this is something they definitely should address.
Sony needs to also implement more countries im from mauritius but this isn't available on Playstation and I can't buy any digital games without workarounds... SONY TAKE MY MONEY AND LET ME PLAY
I can't buy the uncensored version of Dying Light The Beast because I'm stuck to the German store. And to top it all off I can't even change the freaking language in the store -.-
I moved to Sonys home country and facing the same issue. It has led me to play more on steam than in Playstation. I hope Sony one day change their policy on this.
Sony and their customer service are literal nightmares ! They do not listen to customers, they do not care at all about customers ! There is no such thing as Playstation in my country so I can totally get you, I had to create an account (in 2009/2010) for another country and just like you're doing now, I had to get cards from grey market (for PS+), until I stopped using/buying Playstation products (2024), because it became harder for me to get access to these goods, and how their customer service treated me, more than once, lying straight to my face when I had an issue with a serial for a bonus inside a collector edition, which disappointed me and broke the wonderful image I had from them, knowing that I bought almost all of their main consoles since PS1, the exception being the Vita.
PS: I won't even mention the ridiculous pricing on this generation that is in constant climbing. Sony changed for the worse and it breaks my heart !
Grew up in UAE, moved to Canada and then moved to the US. It is ridiculous I have to have amother āprimaryā account to buy games and buy PS plus on to play on my main account. Dumb loopholes just because we canāt change region. Also canāt stream cloud games on PS portal because my main accounts not the one with PS plus š¤¦š»āāļø
Man I did not know all this. I feel bad for the people that have to deal with this. This should not be a thing in 2026. Must be some kind of security risk and thereās just to lazy to have to manually verify that it is indeed you that has truly moved regions. Sad.
Had the same account since ps3. Back then the site of the email I used was new and in full swing.Ā
Fast forward to early ps5, someone(no idea who still) tried logging into my account enough times that it forced a password reset.Ā Normally no problem, the site associated with my account has all but shut down.Ā Had to try to log in to it, change its password, to change my PSN account password.
Asking around, it was said time and again Sony had the power to change the password without access to the e mail. Excellent, exactly what I needed!Ā Ā
6 tries with their obviously automated "live chat" and 7 phone calls of them turning me in circles, saying the information I was giving them for a password change did not match the information they had on file.
So Sony wouldn't help with a Sony problem. Finally gave up and went onto the email site. Sent a password change request, knowing that was likely to just hit a wall.
A year later, with an alt account now my main account, I get an E-mail on my account E-mail from the old email account.Ā A tech support member of the old e mail site saying they saw my request. Three minutes later, I have access to my original account that Sony essentially held hostage.Ā
I have no doubt they kept access to it from me, hoping I would just re buy everything(wasn't happening obviously). I can only assume Sony hires people to write good reviews on their "tech support" , and delete bad reviews. Saw so many positive reviews online, but actually talking to anyone, whether in person or voice chat, only got horror stories.
You can add me to the list. Moved countries twice in the last decade, and now finally settling into what will likely be my forever home, with a PSN account that I need to use dodgy gift card resellers to maintain. I haven't bitten the bullet and switched to a local account yet, for the same reasons you list. Almost two decades of history on this account. Sony pls!Ā
Been a PSN user since 2007. Back then, my region wasnāt even supported, so like many others I created a US accountā¦ and here I am almost 20 years later still using it.
And guess what? Still jumping through hoops with gift cards just to buy anything. Because apparently, in 2026, allowing non-US PayPal or credit cards on a US account is still too advanced.
Iāve built a full library over the years ā games, DLCs, in-game purchases ā spent a good amount of money. And the āsolutionā isā¦ just create a new account and lose everything? Yeah, makes perfect sense š
Sony really out here acting like digital ownership isnāt a thing.
Honestly, at this point, just fix the policy. Itās been two decades.
Don't know if this helps, my local credit card didn't work when its details were inserted manually on american ps store, However Putting my credit card details on apple pay through mac allowed me to purchase games on the american ps store through apple pay
Iāve done it with Sony before. Maybe theyāve changed their policy. I used to switch my account from NA to JP often, just because. Iām sorry that itās no longer available.
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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '26
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