How to buy games on the US PSN Store in the UK - and for cheaper

16BitKings - "Being a member of the United Kingdom means that I am a subject of her majesty and frequently drown my sorrows with tea and crumpets, but more importantly, I am forced to pay extortionate prices for games on the PSN store. But there is a method in which UK PS4 owners are able to buy the full digital games from the US store and play them on their UK account!"

[SavageKuma]

Now that is an article I can get into.

[-Foxtrot]

What I hate about the PS1 classics on the store is that you wait for years and years for games like Resident Evil 2/3 or Spyro the Dragon but when they finally come they are the American versions of the game. I mean what the hell...I could of just set up an account to download the stuff off the American store.

[Stringerbell]

Ha funny thing is I often purchase games from Shopto and even with the conversion rate form pounds to dollars and shipping international I still save $$$.

[user1439414]

UK games on Retail always sell for much cheaper than the RRP for instance call of duty ghosts should have been £49 but most shops sold the old gen (xbox360/ps3) version for around £40 and the next gen versions RRP was £55 but again shops all over sold them for cheaper. I picked it up for xbox one version of ghosts for £42, if I wanted to buy this digital the price on the xbox store is £55 :| It makes buying digital almost worthless since u have no resell value and are paying much much more for the games. If it was the same price I would buy them as digital since I hardly sell my games anyway and do love the idea of not having to change disks all the time, but until Microsoft and sony take a note out of Steams book and realise that digital copies should be cheaper than a physical copy then console digital is not a viable option for me right now.

[ramiuk1]

what about updates for region issues?
i imagine this is illegal?

[annus]

You need a postal address to sign up for PSN don't you? It use to be like that years ago at least. I would assume using someone else's postal address is illegal.

[Fixay]

It is illegal and even says somewhere in the terms of service that your not allowed to do this...

All that being said I still do this myself lmao

However it is kind of scary knowing that at anytime they could probe deny me access to all of the content i've purchased on my US account /:

[ramiuk1]

them revoking access to everything is my issue,banning me another.

also sony would be totally in there rights to do it too,so people coundnt even kick off a fuss

[rustyspoon80]

Has anyone done this? I have games I bought from the US store on my PS3 but you didn't have to set a "Primary PS4" (step 5), does this in any way affect UK store downloads? I dont want to have to switch each time I switch games, or does the UK account still stay as Primary also?

I just hope now Amazon are selling PSN uk downloads we may see some better prices.

[Fixay]

Basically create a US account and then set that account as the primary account. Then you will be able to log into to your PSN UK account and all of the US content you've downloaded can be accessed and played on your UK account. (This is what I do ) P.S if the US account is not set as primary then when your on your UK account all of the US content will have a padlock icon next to them.

Uk account and downloads are un affected

[rustyspoon80]

Already got a US account. So basically any accounts that you wish to use on PS4 for downloads etc (US, Hong Kong, Japanese) all need to be set as Primary?

[Fixay]

Yeah that's right mate :) Just set them as the Primary account when you wish to use the content you downloaded on them on a different account. (If that makes sense)

If you don't mind just staying logged in on the US or Jap account and playing then you don't have to set them as primary. I only set them as primary so I can earn all of the trophies on my UK account and be able to play the games on my Uk account.

[LeCreuset]

Does Amazon have a PS store for Japan or any country that would receive the Asian version of Japanese games? This could be a way to avoid foreign PSN cards where the prices have been inflated to sell to importers.

[HollywoodShowbiz]

Why are UK prices higher? You poor bastards lived through years of failed austerity, AND you still have to pay more?

[njitram2000]

The main reason they are higher is because of VAT. The product has not been made in Europe and did not produce taxes for the government so they tax the product itself.
The prices in the other EU countries are even worse.

[Mr_Butata]

YES!! A lot worse! In Portugal we pay around 70 euro (96 $ or 60 pound) for a new game... And the prices only drop after about a year, or more.

For exemple, a year old game like COD:BO2 is still taged at 70 eur :S Wich is ridiculous... Thats why i buy all my games in amazon uk (:

[HollywoodShowbiz]

So it's similar to a tariff on imported goods? Well, at least you have universal healthcare.

[CannonB8]

Surely an easier and even cheaper way is to but US PSN Cards on eBay? I've done this and save even more money.

[njitram2000]

So, I took one for the team and tried this with FlOw (PS4+PS3+Vita cross-buy)

Buying from Amazon.com worked without a problem and the code was immediately shown.
Creating a US account on the PS4 is easy and entering the code also did not give me any problems. I then tested it on all three consoles:

PS4: Download the game with your US account and activate the PS4 as your primary console on that account. It just links the account to that PS4; it does not unlink the other account. You can link multiple accounts to one PS4 but not multiple PS4's to one account. You only need to do that once and after that you can play all US games on both accounts.

PS3: Same as for PS4 but you do not need to active the console for the new account (doesn't work that way).

Vita: DOES NOT WORK. The vita is a lot more strict. IGN has a video that explains how to use multiple accounts with multiple memory sticks but you need to have the US account on the Vita to get the game on there and you can only use one account per memory stick.

Hope this helps fellow Europeans that feel ripped off.