Amazon and Sony have entered an agreement, allowing the world’s largest retailer to sell and distribute digital codes for PS3, PS Vita and PS4 at sometimes discounted prices in the United States.
In the UK, retailers such as GAME offer digital PSN codes, though these are always sold at RRP rather than allowing room for sales and discounts, as Amazon’s new store appears to offer.
Amazon’s store is also offering a $5 credit when you buy selected titles. If you couple that with the 23% discount on Madden 25, then that’s almost a $20 saving over buying directly from PSN. Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time also has a 50% discount, saving you $20.
The storefront has just launched today, so it will be interesting to see which discounts and offers are available further down the line, though there are some significant savings already.
Hopefully this comes to the UK, and similar savings are offered here.
Source: Gamasutra
blarty
It’s interesting that MS is going for the publishers and agreements over exclusivity, which means very little without cross platform play, and Sony seem to be going for distribution agreements which could have a direct impact on gamers in terms of keeping more money in their wallets
Peter Chapman
I just used this store to buy something that I redeemed via my US PSN account.
Amazon won’t process purchases made if your address is in the UK but it will process a UK credit card if you change your billing address to a US address.
Given that PS3 (and PS4) games on the PSN are $60 (currently about £37.75), this is a massive money saver while that loophole is open. It’s a >£20 saving on many UK PSN Store prices and will likely be much cheaper than most UK retail sells PS4 games for the first few months too. Hopefully US PSN (and multiple) accounts are just as simple to use on PS4 as they are on PS3 (and not as awkward as the Vita…)
quinkill
So is this considered cheating the system by Sony (or yourself)? Aren’t you avoiding paying UK taxes by doing this?
Peter Chapman
it’s certainly not something Sony supports, although they don’t do anything to prevent US accounts – and I suppose it does avoid paying UK taxes on that purchase – I hadn’t considered that.
salvodaze
It’s not cheating, while it’s not encouraged. Many people in countries that don’t get all releases have different PSN accounts from different regions, Sony certainly knows this can’t stop it without confining a system to a single account. An overlooked loophole is what it is.
blarty
Nah this have an address in the US is frequently used with Amazon’s PC key store see savygamer.co.uk where they mention this in pc deals quite often.
The only concern for me would be whether DOC or competent is disk Id locked like when you see, only download this DLC for BLES-012345 etc on the PS store. Be interesting to get confirmation though
Peter Chapman
DLC will usually be locked to the region you bought the full game – so you’d need to buy that in the same way (or via PayPal on PSN?)
blarty
yeah sounds like a possibility, only issue is whether those items are available to download from your current store, or whether you’d have to have a separate ‘digital import’ PSN id on the uS store in order to redeem them
Kennykazey
Oooh, that sounds worth a look. PS4 titles are painfully expensive at full price.
Alex C
Huge for consumers, huge for publishers and developers.
Amazon dwarfes every other store put together (including PSN) and is massively convenient.
Indies can suddenly push their PSN games on Amazon? Yes. Yes.
bunimomike
Just had a quick look. That’s wonderful! Talk about comprehensive. Hope it proves to be a roaring success for both parties (and consumers).
toutski
Is this any different than the one they (tried to) launch back in 2009?
http://www.destructoid.com/amazon-com-opens-a-playstation-network-store-151250.phtml
Greg Turner
Fantastic news – hopefully they’ll roll it out Worldwide.
Broonba
I’d love to see Amazon bring this to the UK as I regularly buy stuff from them. Fingers crossed.