I recently moved and in moving I happened to change country, change continent and change PSN region. Moving, even when it’s thousands of miles away is not such a big deal. Yes, packing it’s boring, yes, it takes time to feel at ease in the new home but all in all it’s always a good feeling to wake up in a brand new place. And I adopt the snail approach, always bringing my “house” with me: I pack all my stuff in the old place and unpack in the new one (ok, it’s not this easy either but taken with the right spirit!).
So everything has come with me: my computer (yep, in the suitcase no less and nothing broke!), my clothes, my personal belongings, my game collector’s editions goodies (!), my PS3 (and that too, didn’t broke in the suitcase!!) and my boyfriend, of course.
There’s only one thing that got stuck in the old EU: my PSN account.
It didn’t move 1 inch, let alone change region. It’s curious if you think about it, you can move and bring everything tangible around with you and then your virtual identity can’t move, it stays there. One would think the opposite to be more natural, instead the virtual worldwide world can manage to be less mobile than we are!
On amazon and most other websites all you have to do is change your address, change your credit card details (in case) and you’re set! On PSN though you can’t change your region, there is NO way whatsoever to do that. Now, let me tell you this is very annoying.
Sure some people may think it’s not such a big deal, of course the world is full of much worse injustices, however, let’s look at things in perspective.
The perspective here is that of a gamer. While we bought a PS3 at launch, I only got my own PS3 in 2007, custom bundled with Foklore, a game I absolutely wanted to play. From that moment on it’s been almost six years of intense gaming. Hardly a day has passed that my PS3 wouldn’t be turned on and we have lived epic moments together. Why should I forfeit all this because I moved? It doesn’t make any sense!
Changing region, as a PS3 gamer means changing your identity and losing your past.
The only thing one can do to access the new region store is creating a new account. It means giving up your previous (gamer)self: all your trophies, all your content, all your subscriptions (I’ve had PLUS since it was launched). To me, as a passionate gamer, it does not make sense!
I know what you’re thinking and yes, I keep using my EU account, but the truth is, it’s not an ideal solution: some games won’t even work properly (only LBP Karting so far, but such a pity! Can’t invite my buddy and play with him if we use our EU accounts), other have additional content that I won’t be able to use and now, with cross-gaming on PSVita I’m lost. I can only download PSVita content on my NA account, but I play the game on my EU one on PS3, so either I play with my brand new NA account on PS3 or I lose the feature… neither works for me!
Moreover, you know, sometimes I just forget… Just a few days ago I finished playing Dishonored and I decided to buy the DLC, I simply pushed the PSN button and jumped (slowly mind you) into the store. I purchased the DLC and went back to my game… but no DLC was there because I bought it from the European store! Sure I was a bit dumb, honestly I didn’t even think about it, I just went straight to the store and bought, and now, if I want to play it, I’ll have to buy it again from the NA store.
This problem has actually bugged me (us) for the last few months but I’ve lived with it, but now the PS4 is coming and I sense, I FEAR, nothing will change on this front and I’ll have to say farewell to my 6-years old account.
Counting my options on one hand I decided to make a post on the PSN blog, other people will certainly be in the same situation, someone DOES indeed read those suggestions… to my dismay though I found such a post already existed and… it is backed by 65 people no less: http://share.blog.us.playst...
REALLY? Only 65 PS3 gamers in the last 7 years have moved around the world?
Well, fellow gamers, even though you will never move from your country, even though you’re not touched by this matter, I ask you to feel some gamers-empathy.
The impending arrive of the new generation urges those like me to take action now, hoping to finally be able to reunite with that virtual identity that got stuck in the old home.
Personally I am also willing to pay a fee for such a service, as I imagine it’s not just a ctrl+C ctrl+V (maybe), I just want SONY to give us the option!
Ivy
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Huh. That's definitely not an issue you think about unless you're affected personally.
Send them snail mail. A lot of snail mail. That's how I get businesses to fix situations that I'm a minority in having....that's all I can think of, lol.
Sony Corporation of America is located at 550 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022
I'll go ahead and throw a few at them, too.
Welcome to Murrica! Where'd you move and how do you like it so far?
Yea, I'd do the same as SilentNegotiator says. That might bug them enough. But I'm afraid they simply can not do it due to technical/law-related problems. Since it's as you say, not an intended feature of the network, they have to do it manually, which is a big hurdle in such cases. I'm not really surprised this isn't a built-in feature. It's not something you could brag about in presentations and announcements, so that's why they simply ditched that or never even considered it.
Also, I see that the title of this entry is not entirely serious, but obviously there have been more than 70 PS3 owners who moved to different continents. It's just not a thing to care about to most of them. Most gamers don't even realize there are things like the PS-Blog, so obviously they can't see, let alone back ideas like that. That in turn just shows Sony that this is not an urgent issue. So yea, I'm afraid nothing will change there.
Use your old account, problem solved. My brother is using a US account since day1 while living in europe without any problems. There are PSN cards for every region all over the internet and you might even be able to still use your credit card if you have one. Creating a new account would be the last thing that would come to my mind when moving to another continent/PSN region.