Sony stops letting retailers sell digital game codes.

I never once bought a full playstation game from a 3rd party retailer, EXCEPT one time through the Humble Bundle when they had the Humble Playstation bundle (basically a whole bunch of THQ games for dirt cheap). That was a great deal, but only a one off, so if this means no more Humble Bundles for playstation games that sucks (Humble Bundle is like the only place I even buy PC games anymore since steam sales aren't what they used to be). Otherwise this move seems to be of zero consequence.

Might be because it was pointless, and opened them up to having game codes stolen/hacked.

@kingtito: ok, maybe I went too far. But it’s still not that big of a deal. Like I said last time I got something digital from GS it was on my receipt.

That ain’t a good way to do things.

No it's not a big deal but let's not pretend less options is better for anyone other than Sony. I find it funny how cows are acting like this is a good thing for them.

@kingtito: I’m not a cow. I just don’t think buying digital things and having those codes for said digital things on the receipt is a good thing, therefore I don’t find it that big of a deal.

@2Chalupas: stolen has no loss for Sony, since the store paid for it and they would need to prove it was stolen and not used by an employee. But I did hear that Sony might be starting digital trading so that explains some of this.

At that point, i'd assume it's an insurance claim. That being said, it could be a nightmare on the back-end as the store would have to claim the code as stolen, report that to police/insurance/provider, and then Sony would have to find who utilized that code and nix it.

@lundy86_4: not sure how sown stores work around the world, but here prepaid cards are under the cashier and you ask if they have say a 50 euro card or steam credit or whatever. Bit hard to steal them. But it's not hard to try and guess a code and someone buys it, sees it doesn't work, goes back and asks for his money back and be stuck trying to prove he didn't use it. Its just a mess the little person pays while the big guy profits.

@Ant_17: In Canada you can just grab them off a rack, but i'm not sure if they need to be activated.

Yeah, in terms of an already used code that's shitty. I've been there before for an in-game bonus, but couldn't be bothered fighting for some aesthetic stuff.

I'm going to defend this move because i like Sony. I have no reasons. Just like I think extended warranties are smashing deals.

@lundy86_4: but it still doesn't hurt Sony to have them, unless they are being sued by some big chain over the codes or they are really working on the digital trade system.

@Ant_17: Realistically, yeah. It'd be man-hours for Sony, and even then they could probably just look up the utilized code in their system and tie it to a specific console. I reported a fraudulent CC charge to Sony and they suposedly looked it up whilst I was on the phone, and purportedly locked out the console.

I'd be seriously interested in seeing a digital-trade system.

Here in the U.S, you can grab a prepaid cards from the rack at any electronic stores and pay at the chaser since they have to activate the code in order to work when you put them in PSN. I always use prepaid cards on consoles and sometimes on Steam as well during a sale of course.

Prepaid cards are the best way to not deal with using your credit card which is a smart move, it's the actual game code it's being discontinue but I find those to be useless cause they never go on sale and having them in the market made no sense at all when you could just buy the physical copy while you are their.

Well, I am definitely not giving Sony my CC info ever again. I hear if account gets hacked and the person uses it to buy $2K in microtransactions the user only gets store credit, not a refund, or if charges contested with CC company then Sony will scrap the account and everything on it. Not doing it. Plus they get hacked and CC info compromised so not good.

I always buy direct from PSN in this generation of gaming. I buy all digital games. They have really competitive sales throughout the years. The only thing that customers loose out on are 3rd party sales for PSPlus subscriptions. There have been very low prices on 3rd party websites during the holidays.

I don't see retailers liking this one bit (not to mention consumers). Could that be interpreted as a sign that Sony wants to further their growth outside of retailers?

Dang... you win Mr. ProtossRushX lol.

Ok....

I didn't say you were. I was speaking to the cows that are acting like less options are a good thing for them.

Sweet. Sony is giving gamers less options.

"If you don't buy things the way I do, you're buying it wrong - the thread."

The retailers are going to still sell digital currencies.

I've just honestly never understood why somebody would buy a digital game code (or one of those physical "cards" containing a digital game code) from retailers. I mean it would make sense if they were cheaper or something, but as far as I can tell the retailers are never cheaper than they are on PSN or Xbox Live (aside from that Humble Playstation Bundle I mentioned). So what's the point? I guess if you are giving little Johnny Black Ops 4 for his birthday you can give him the "card" that says Black Ops 4 on it. So that's something physical you are giving as a gift to represent that you got them Black Ops 4. Otherwise the whole process of buying a game code makes no sense at all anymore. Game keys should have been phased out a long, long time ago. It only ever made sense to validate a CD/DVD key, since PC publishers were especially concerned with piracy/bootleg copies of physical games and wanted to add that validation layer to try and prevent that. If you are buying straight from a digital marketplace, such concerns don't exist, validation should happen behind the scenes.

@sts106mat: All of the above lol.

@nintendoboy16: Yeah MS are arseholes for trying to get me to put a credit card down to download the free original Xbox games.

Not happening.

I don't think it matters. Based on my own personal observations, if someone's in a store making a game purchase, 99/100 times they're buying a physical copy. So I think it's safe to assume that that's pretty much the case everywhere.

Even if this means "less options" for PlayStation owners, I'm sure they're fine with it. It's an option that almost no one is using or really cares about.

As a PS4 owner myself, I've never bought a single physical game for my system. Everything I own is straight from their PlayStation store. Same goes for my Xbox. And my Switch has only ONE physical game and that's Breath Of The Wild. Everything else is straight off the eShop.

Its not pointless for me.

Im stationed in Germany at the moment (for little over 2 years so far) and I buy those codes to send to family back home as gifts.

Sucks not being able to do that without having to log into their account and add the game.

I dont want to send cash or wallet funds.

Why not from PayPal? Or a prepaid cards from Sony?

This is definitely a non-issue and Sony just needs to monopolize the situation in order to maximize profit. It really makes no difference where customers buy the content.

Seriously, I think it is a big deal that Sony is taking away third party codes for content on their store. It's not like Sony made every game that is released on PSN. I buy third party codes for cheap on PC and I think you should be able to do that on any platform.
In addition to all of this, the asymmetry in posts about Sony restricting third party store content when Nintendo has steadily controlled the prices for every game on their store is hilarious. Essentially, Sony is taking a page from Nintendo's book in anti-consumer practices.

Micorsoft will do the same.

Take a look at the date when Sony supposseldy stop letting retailers selling digital game codes April the 1st.

You either buy with a CC, or you use cards with pre-determined values (i.e. $50/$75/etc.) You end up paying more and more to purchase a new game, due to the leftover from the old purchase. Buying the game code gives you the game at that specific price.

MS was dragged through the mud for using a point-system in the early days of last-gen... As people constantly had points left over...

MS was shot to shit last-gen for a similar practice. They sold "points" as opposed to a dollar value, and those points often were higher than something you'd like to buy... Thus you consistently had a positive balance that was never used... That's in their pocket.

Im not sure I follow.

Buy from Sony? You mean online?

Like i said earlier, its a headache. (ive done it before)

I would have to either get their account info and log on to their account on my Pro, or use a VPN to get to Playstation US and log in with their info and buy that way.

Now, i simply just go to base and buy the US card and mail to them.

Amazon here in Germany no longer sells US codes either.

So you could buy digital Playstation games from Gamestop, Amazon etc.? Were they even cheaper?

Sony is becoming evil again but I don't care. Moved to PC and the only thing I regret is not doing it sooner.

I just realiead I thinkt his is a much bigger deal than I imagined/// could be significant...

They're gonna de-list driveclub too from PSN.

SO now you can't buy games either digital or code! FoR tHe GaMeRs

They sometimes have Playstation bundles on Humble Bundle, so this sucks for that reason. Or just being able to find the digital game cheaper in other stores. Good ol' anti-consumer practices at it, again.

People aren't able to use their brain for much here so let me give a suggestion for why Sony may be doing this.

Everyone knows Sony is preparing to announce PS5 and that they've filled many patents for "legacy" BC which may span multiple generations.

Perhaps they are limiting the sale of digital games by 3rd parties because of how they are going to implement BC and possible digital downloads for an entire collection of PlayStation games.

They may have needed to change how game sale distribution is handled to limit piracy.

I don't see how this is bad as this dose nothing to limit physical sales.

holy crap, in my country psn, a 60$ game cost about 90$ +_+

That is probably the only negative with digital games. If a store like Steam shuts down one day then everything you bought from that platform will be gone.

Pretty silly honestly.

I see alot of people talking about taken away options what options its a freaking digital code for a ditgital download you can only download from psn....... I stick to phycisal copies for consoles so that means amazon or actually driving to best buy so no big issue here.

I don't do digitial unless I'm using steam or gog

Wait...are these the PSN dollar cards they’re stopping or literally stuff you can buy digitally at the GameStop store?

Like I think I bought something once that was digital at the GS store and the code to put in on the store on the console came on the reciept which I still think is a dumb idea.