PSN Restored, Sharing Dropped To Two

[drop2]As we said a little while back, the PlayStation Network sharing system has been dropped from five accounts down to two as part of yesterday’s PSN downtime.

Also previous purchases and download vouchers will still work with whoever you shared them with, as from today anything you buy or redeem will be locked to just the two machines.

There’s a caveat: it’s two PSPs/Vitas and two PS3s per download, which makes sense.

You can now also deactivate consoles online for the first time, something that previously required access to the console in question which – as you’ll no doubt know if you were in this situation – isn’t always possible.

We assume this will all be welcomed by developers and publishers – “no game-sharing please” said PixelJunk’s Dylan Cuthbert to us once, and he certainly won’t be the only one to lose out to people ‘splitting the cost’ of games.

We’ve also heard rumblings that the – well – er, that’s all off the record.

73 Comments

  1. Very happy with the feature. I can just “deactivate all” and then re-activate on my living PS3 at home. Perfect.

    • Think you’ve just answered my comment below AG! Good idea.

    • Yep, I think that’s how it’s meant to work. Slightly clunky, but good enough.

    • Aww, finally cutting ties with my release 60gb Fat YLOD PS3 :(

      (Thanks for the link Nofi)

      • Can’t bring myself to do that just yet! Only used up 3 out of the 5 activiations and still have the 2 slims going strong (touch wood, lots of wood)

      • Lol, I think I will as I like to keep everything nice and tidy, and for some reason I have 4 PS3s activated yet only have 2, and 1 previous PS3….so have no idea where the 4th activation has come from!

        Yes, touch wood!!

    • Might be a bit risky de-activating all of them as your current console could encounter “teething problems” with this new feature when trying to re-activate. I’d just do the one’s that you know are no longer in-house just to be safe!
      Otherwise it sounds like a great new feature ;)

    • @Freezebug They are named things like “System 1, System 2” so it is hard to tell which is which unless you have a good memory. I also dont think it is even possible to deactivate one at a time on the website as it just refers you to the deactivation tool that is on the console itself under account management.

      • \sytem 1would be the first console

      • I know, I remember that console. Do I remember the others? Cant say I do to be honest! So deactivate all suits me.

      • AG2297, have you tried Deactivate All, then re-activated your current PS3(s)? I’m kind of hoping someone will have done this before I risk Deactivating All.

      • No I havent tried it, put off by the “once every 6 months” incase something goes wrong like it wont re-activate. I also want clarification whether it does immediately deactivate them or if it is this que thing.

      • Yeah true. Well I guess I’m not in any rush since I can still use my current two PS3s, so may wait until someone has done it successfully before I do my Account house-keeping!

      • It seems Dlaf42 on page 2 has tried Deactivate All then reactivated his PS3(s) and it works, so doesn’t sound like it queues them.

        Think I’ll try it later, since you can activate manually on the PS3 I can’t see that we wouldn’t be able to reactivate our PS3s. Hopefully.

    • Yeah good enough. Itunes works the same.

  2. Great! However on the page it lists the PS3 Systems as: My PS3 System, My PS3 System 2, My PS3 System 3 etc… How do I tell which is which?!

    • And you can’t deactivate individual devices? All or nothing from the web then?

      • I think you can do specific ones. You need to click on ‘Devices’ along the top and then ‘Playstation systems’ on the left side

    • Clearly My PS3 System is your first PS3 or your recent PS3 lol.

  3. Remote deactivation can only be used once every 6 months.

    The deactivation system ‘queues up’ the devices to be deactivated. The next time those consoles are connected to the PSN, they auto deactivate. I assume, the remote deactivation via the website is more an Account Reset rather than a device reset, as the machines will only be physically deactivated when online.

    • I see, that way only current PS3s can be re-activated, effectively deactivating any YLOD PS3s…even if they are never actually re-connected to PSN to be automatically deactivated?

      I have 2 PS3s, and an old one that was returned to Sony that I couldn’t deactivate. Are you saying that when I log on later with my 2 current PS3s, that both will be deactivated, but I can re-activate them both which will take up my 2 allocations? That way I wouldn’t need to use the web to deactivate all.

    • I really hope not :(. Do you have a source for this so I can read more? It would mean dead PS3s cant be deactivated, making the whole tool completely pointless to those who wish to deactivate dead consoles or those who have their account on a friends PS3 who hasnt deactivated yet. Requiring the PS3 to sign in to the account again would mean this brings no benefits.

      • Yeah, this needs clarification. Surely it can’t work like that otherwise the service is pointless. However Sony may have implemented it due to their Music thingy and mobiles/PC accounts, and not with YLOD PS3s in mind.

      • Ok, clarification time.

        The web service ‘auto-queues’ a deactivation sequence for all Game Activated devices, PS3s and PSPs. The moment any of those devices are connected to the Net/PSN, it instantly deactivates the physical device. The device does not require the account holder to sign in on that device.

        The reason I mentioned that the web portal is more of an Account Reset rather than device reset is because of the requirement for the deactivated device to be connected to the Net/PSN.

        As far as I can tell from testing the system, once you ‘Deactivate All’ the count of active devices linked to your account is reset to 0 but physically, the devices (PS3s & PSPs) are not fully deactivated.

        More people need to post their findings on this as only a few have tried it so far.

        I think the important thing to take form this is that while the physical device is not deactivated, your account (virtual activations) is reset to 0. Which I guess is the important part.

        Confusing isn’t it? Sony don’t like doing things the easy way.

        It’s also worth noting that Video Deactivations are not working though this service, you still need to phone Sony about this.

      • Thanks for clearing it up, as long as the virtual account activation number is happy with it (so I can reset it to just the PS3 I am using) then I’m happy :).

        I’ve also seen people having problems with video deactivations, shame that isnt working online yet.

      • Thanks Danlisa.

        Glad it’s the number that resets and not the hardware, since my YLOD PS3 could be on the rubbish pile somewhere and not being put to good use!

        I shall Deactivate All and then just activate my current consoles. Thank again.

  4. Sure I can see how the deactivation access is good, but I can’t for the life of me think why anyone can believe that reducing the content activation to two systems will do PS3 or PSN any good in the long run…. one of the big reasons I mainly buy games for the PS3 is so I can also download online passes and DLC for my 2 lads PS3s (all in the same house and on the same IP). And regarding a six-month wait between (de)activations… what happens when someone’s gets a new PS3 only for it to break after a couple of months or they get it stolen, and so on…

    Sony need to implement a Family Account for stuff like this… and if XBL implement proper DLC sharing on their existing XBL family pack, then I’ll likely be buying little on the PS3 from now on

    • Isn’t that what sub accounts are for? They still get the dlc don’t they?

      • DLC and PSN content is linked/activated via the PS3 console id. Sub accounts are mainly used for under-18s where the master account manages funds etc.

  5. 7 devices! (3 PSP’s) Well at least the names are incremented, so the ones that are top-left are tho old ones, bottom-right, the new.

  6. Classy! This is the what I encounter when I try to deactivate a system:

    The server is currently down for maintenance.
    We apologise for the inconvenience. Please try again later. (500)

  7. Erm…. can’t seem to deactivate anything individually, says I need the hardware to hand.

  8. Ok so let me get this straight. If I leave all five PS3s that are listed activated that means that all five can play games downloaded upto this point in time? So does that mean that from now on, only two of those five PS3s listed can download and play games purchased from today onwards (I presume the first two I try it on)?

    • That was my understanding, but cannot confirm.

    • Yep correct.

      Your account can still be active on up to 5 devices (5 PS3s and 5 PSPs), even if you deactivate ‘all devices’ now.

      Those 5 devices can still play all the content you bought before today.

      As of today, any purchased content can only be used on 2 PS3s and/or 2 PSPs at any one time.

  9. Sony stop ruining my PlayStations! I don’t have my old 60GB in hand so how am I supposed to deactivate it?!?

    • You use the website; that’s the whole point of the website!

      • But you can’t from the site, not individually

      • Deactivate all; activate the PS3 you do have.
        I just did this; It’s not hard.

  10. It seems to be all or nothing but you can decide which content to deactivate, ie games, music or film. Just means when you go to use any online you’ll need to activate them again

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