[UPDATE] Sony: The Death of Consumer Loyalty

Updated: It’s amazing what an article on a website can achieve for you when it receives tens of thousands of hits and a ton of link-ins from around the country/world. It’s also amazing to know exactly how full of crap the customer service representatives at Sony truly are. They went from not being able to do it without the console unit or my “private” information, to being able to randomly do it out of no where and sending me an email to let me know.

The power of word is obviously strong. It’s ridiculous that I had to go to this length to get it done, but whatever. It’s done.

Dear DAVE,

Recently you requested assistance with your PlayStation® Network account and the Video Download Service.  Per your request, we have deactivated your original console from your account.

To activate your new console, please click the link below and follow the instructions in the article.

http://playstation.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/playstation.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=796

If you have questions or require further assistance, please call SCEA Consumer Services directly at (866) 286-5123.

We are available Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., Pacific Time.

Your Service Request Number is 1-237200801. Please reference this number when calling us.

Sincerely,
The PlayStation® Consumer Services Team

Original: This generation of consoles has brought forth something that the gaming industry has never seen the likes of and that is the console wars. Sure, Nintendo and Sega had a rift back in the 90s, but it was never quite at the level it is today. It seems you’re either a member of the Microsoft camp or you’re taking refuge at Sony’s headquarters. Regardless of which side you choose to represent, without including the neutrals, the reasoning behind these console wars always falls back onto one factor – brand loyalty.

I remember a time when brand loyalty meant something. Supporting a product used to mean that that company would appreciate your business and would enjoy keeping it. A company would do what it could to satisfy its consumers in order to keep that consumer base from dwindling, but growing through consumer loyalty and treating the consumer right. However, ever since the launch of this generation of consoles, consumer loyalty has been thrown out the window in exchange for greed and profitability. Of course, you can make your argument for which of the two empires you feel carries the most evil, but when it’s truly broken down to it, Microsoft is willing to go further to keep you as a customer than Sony is.

The Red Ring of Death fiasco isn’t exactly a secret, but it’s an epidemic that helps provide a realistic look into the blatancy of disrespect these companies have for the consumer. While Microsoft may have chosen to release a shoddy product to the market in order to gain market share, they were willing to save face and take a loss by offering a billion dollar warranty program expanding their coverage to three years for the console’s biggest weakness. Sure – it can be debated that this also helped prevent civil lawsuits from cropping up, but when push comes to shove, this maneuver resulted in Microsoft’s consumers continually returning to the brand despite the break downs and many replacement boxes they’ve ended up going through.

When we flip the table and watch how Sony has handled their entire console this generation, all you ultimately see from the consumer loyalty perspective is utter failure and death. One of the key components to the lack of consumer loyalty is the way that Sony conducts their warranty process in general. Not only is the consumer expected to keep their receipt for the entire year, but if they happen to misplace it, they’ll be hit with a $160 repair fee just to get their console fixed. I realize this is a precaution and a verification process to make sure the consoles being sent in are legitimately under warranty, however, this same practice and requirement was required when the console had only been launched for six months. That’s correct, if your console broke in March 2007, Sony would still require a receipt to prove you bought the console within the last year. Ridiculous? I agree.

Furthering this atrocity is the console activation process that Sony utilizes for both its PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 platforms. As many of you know, Sony pushed the ability to GameShare at its 2006 E3 Press Conference. They lauded the ability to share games with your friends on up to five different consoles. This was a huge pull for consumers and it definitely got a lot of people coming on board to purchase their console. However, fast-forward three years and people have been banned from the network for gamesharing and Sony’s customer service pulls the “how do we know you’re not gamesharing card,” if you happen to request a deactivation on a console.

You see, that’s the funny part. Sony allows five consoles and handhelds to access a single account at any given time. This means, if your console breaks or you have to sell it in order to make a bill payment and you forget to deactivate it, you’ve permanently lost that one console activation forever. So what happens to the people who prefer to upgrade their products like the PSP? Let’s say someone purchases a PSP 1000, trades it in to purchase a PSP 2000. That PSP 2000 is sold to pay some bills and then another PSP 2000 is bought. That PSP 2000 is traded in to purchase a PSP 3000 and you end up game sharing with a buddy. Now, what happens if you’re not away of the activation/deactivation process or how limited the limited number of handhelds you can activate on one account is? You just used all 5 slots – So when you go to continue to support Sony and you purchase a PSPgo by trading in your PSP 3000, you’re f***ed. That’s right. Now that you’ve purchased their overpriced $250 PSPgo in show of brand loyalty and support, Sony is repaying your continued efforts by letting you know your old PSP content that you owned is completely and utterly useless – pretty much like their customer service.

I decided to put this entire “consumer loyalty” to the test recently because I was put into a similar situation as described above. The only difference is, instead of game sharing with a friend, someone had actually stolen two PSPs from me in the past. This rendered those two activations permanently lost and my support of purchasing a 1000 (third time), 2000, 3000 and then PSPgo did not matter one bit when consumer loyalty comes into play. This is where it gets interesting. I decided to call up Sony’s costumer service to find out what they could do for me, since I had just purchased $150 worth of PSPgo content from the PlayStation Store and when I went to transfer it to my PSPgo, it told me I had too many PSPs activated.

So – I call up Sony and the first representative tries to tell me that they cannot do it because I have to manually deactivate each system despite them not being in my possession any longer. Of course, like any normal consumer who isn’t getting the answer he’s looking for, I asked to speak to their supervisor. I was put on hold for 10 minutes until this guy was placed on the phone, who, by the way, was one of the biggest ***** I’d ever had to deal with from a CSR standpoint. Not only did he shoot me down at every turn, but he tried to read off the Terms of Service to me where it never specifically states how many consoles or handhelds I can activate nor does it state that you’ll lose complete access to any and all of your content if you happen to reach the 6th product in the line of their hardware.

By the time I was done talking to this guy, I was 47 minutes in and requested to speak to his supervisor. This next representative was the one who left me facepalmed on my couch in disbelief. Not only did this lady have absolutely no clue what I was talking about (this is sad from a company perspective let alone a consumer perspective), but she was trying to give me solutions that didn’t even exist – like logging into my account on their website and deactivating my products from there (impossible). So – I asked the lady to take a look at my account and check that I’ve spent well over $1,500 on their downloadable content since launch and that all I was looking for was a little consumer loyalty in having my account release ALL PSP activations entirely. This is where things turned completely illogical.

This supervisor tried to tell me that they don’t have the ability or the power to deactivate consoles from their end of the process because they don’t have our login details or sensitive information. Then she proceeded to tell me that the only way they can deactivate consoles or handhelds is if we send them in for repair. This is where she started to lose me, because even if I sent my PSP in for repair, I would not be including my memory card, which would have the saved user data to begin with that would enable them to access my account to deactivate, the same goes for my PlayStation 3 and my HDD. So – How would they be able to deactivate my product that way? The icing on the cake in this situation is that I had sent in TWO PS3s in the span of three months between March and May of 2009. When I called back then to have those two PlayStation 3’s deactivated from my account, the representatives and supervisors told me at that time that they can’t deactivate the PS3s without me mailing them a copy of my receipt to prove I owned them (despite just paying $160 for them to repair the piece of faulty hardware to begin with).

Let me recap. Basically, everything I’ve been told thus far has been contradictory to everything I was previously told a couple of months ago as well as completely false in the capabilities as to what they could do. When the phone call finally started to boil over and I was reaching my limit of garbage from the customer service department, I had to ask…

“So, can you guys remove the access to that content from my account or provide me with download vouchers so that I can create a new account to use the content I just bought or am I stuck with unusable content? Is it possible to just have the transaction voiced in order to re-purchase the items under a new account?”

I knew the answer before she even opened her mouth. Guess what her solution was to my problem?

“Sir, the only solution I can offer you is to create a new account and then re-purchase the $150 worth of content in order to play it on your PSPgo.”

Once I got off the phone, I decided to google around a bit to see if any other users had ever had Sony deactivate consoles or handhelds for them in the past. I found numerous reports where people indicated Sony had helped them out in deactivating their consoles with a little “persuasion.” Are these reports accurate? I have no clue. However, if they are, that makes my situation that much worse. But, it didn’t matter anymore, the situation was over.

That was it. That’s the limit to their customer service. After $1,500 in DLC, 6 PlayStation Portables, 4 PlayStation 3s, 3 PlayStation 2s, 1 PlayStation and two years of reviews and promoting their products for their consumer base as a journalist — that was the consumer loyalty I was afforded by Sony Computer Entertainment America. I wasn’t even offered lubricant first.

This entire experience and ordeal has lead to what I believe as a true, undeniable indicator that Sony has entirely killed any semblance of consumer loyalty in favor of profit margins, crude business tactics, unprofessional customer service and pure greed.

All I have left to ask is, where is the love Sony?

Readers Comments (51)

  1. Microsoft has the best customer service?! You call releasing a console with a glaring defect, lying about the fail rate, and having to be threatened with being forced to recall said console to make them acknowledge to problem and extend their warranty great customer service?!

  2. thisarticleblows October 10, 2009 @ 13:30

    I obviously didn’t read this article, so my comment was edited for stupidity.

  3. @Jason: Everyone has problems. The fact that Microsoft paid over $2 billion to cover that defect another 2 years is customer loyalty. Sony sends firmware updates that brick people’s PlayStation 3’s and the people are asked to fork over $150 to repair Sony’s mistake? Seriously, that’s sad.

    I just sit back and enjoy the irony that a software company has hardware issues, and a hardware company has software issues.

  4. screw this site

  5. “but when it’s truly broken down to it, Microsoft is willing to go further to keep you as a customer than Sony is”. you mean by having a 50% failrate on their system? thats not cool.

  6. Brian those bricked unites were replaced and there was only 1 firmware that bricked a very small amount of ps3…. on the other hand NXE raped millions of 360s.

    Then you have what Jason brought out..

    I INSTANTLY lose interest when a site/youtube channel etc. tries to sound like its being all fair and just and non bias by making up bs articles like this.

    Sony made a console with a low failure rate, packed with technology, better OS, but with little games at launch… just like the PS2 had low amount of games at launch, look how that turned out.

    Then Sony stuck around and didn’t give up and continued to provide great software to backup their console.

    They replace the unit if it was their fault and who the hell doesn’t keep their receipt or at the very least make a couple copies of it? Its your fault if you are stupid enough to lose it.

    Want to talk about consumer loyalty?

    Well my 360 RROD then was replaced by MS after 4 months.. then after 3 years it RROD. At this point MS pretty much told me “I’m Rick James Bitch! pay me $100 to fix yo shit”

    Now I have no 360 while my PS3 is still going strong since launch.

    So I ask, WTF has better consumer loyalty there?

    Again, screw this site.

  7. You can’t really blame sony for not refunding you. Truthfully it’s your own fault for making stupid decisions. I understand trading in and selling your systems for money to pay bills, but it doesn’t take a genius to deactivate and clear everything from their hard drive before doing so. I know when gamesharing was announced the wording was confusing. I wouldn’t have thought that you were only allowed to have your account and info only on 5 systems even when not gamesharing, but still it’s common sense to clear everything so whoever does get your system doesn’t have your info right? It’s not like sony tried to hide anything either. Confusing wording or not, they did say you could only have your account on 5 systems at any given time. You shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to trade in your systems for newer upgraded ones (especially when the only real new thing about the newer models was size and power consumption). Sony may not have the best customer service plan, but it’s not the worse either.

  8. When it comes to disrespecting the consumer Microsoft takes the cake. They’ve been doing it with software products since several years now. It’s probably the company who disrespects the consumer more that I know of. I stopped buying M$ products because they usually are bad quality. Sony on the other hand has always given me top quality hardware. It is a company I trust. I’ve had my PS3 since 2007 and I’ve never had problems with it. Sure now that M$ is required to give extended warranty every other company is expected to do the same? For those same $150 you can get 3 years worth of online play in the Xbox while you get it for free on the PS3. Personally, I prefer that the company I support is not constantly trying to milk me than they giving me a piece of crap that breaks but they do me the “favor” to fix it. The death of consumer loyalty is due to many stupid consumers that keep supporting a company that releases subpar, broken products.

  9. Also about microsoft’s customer service plan. That free repair thing only started happening because microsoft was getting sued. My system got the RROD litterally 4 days after the extended warranty had ended and i couldn’t get a free repair. Good thing i have a friend on xbl that knows how to fix the RROD, and it only cost me $12-$13 to send it to him. Another thing people don’t realize is microsoft didn’t lose billions of dollars over the RROD extended warranty fiasco. That is just an estimate when you take into account how many systems were sold by that point and how much repairs cost. For instance: between 10-15 million consoles were out during the fiasco and repairs cost $100-$150 each, if you do the math you get a little over $1 billion. There were a lot of repairs, but nowhere near a full 10-15 million consoles. Funny how math works right?

  10. You Sony fanboys are just really really sad..
    The author evidently loves Sony, as he made some major purchases, but Sony’s customer service screwed him over. Rather than accept Sony needs to fix their deactivation process, you dismiss it as it doesnt glorify Sony.
    Is it hard to speak with Sony’s teats in your mouth 24×7?

    and before I get accused of being an MS fanboy, I own both consoles, and enjoy them both.

    I’ll say this however, I had two rrod on the same Xbox 360, one was fixed for free, the other I paid $120 to fix. A few weeks later, I recieved a check for that money back from MS. We all know Sony would never do that. they had the PS2 drive issues, which i had a problem with too. I had to pay to fix it, one year after purchase. MS fixed my regular Xbox for free, also a drive issue due to the thompson drive issues, one year after purchase.
    My PS3 has been acting somewhat odd lately, and Im afraid its going to need repairs.
    Ill ave to pay im sure.

    Sony needs to up the warranty, and take responsibility.

  11. lol
    ps3 fanboys are getting mad?

  12. I’m not a fanboy and i actually have all 3 of the next gen systems which i play. Don’t just assume things about people kid. And if you read my posts nobody is dismissing the deactivation problems. It’s common sense however that if you are not able to deactivate your first two systems, then you would remember to do it on the next 3. It’s completely retarded to go through 5 systems and not deactivate even ONE of his accounts on a console. Yes sometimes you get the shaft with any customer service plan, but it’s our job as consumers to learn as much about our products and take the best care of them that we can to avoid these issues. Sometimes your system dies and sometimes it doesn’t. As far as this “editorial not article” goes it is ultimately his own fault for upgrading his systems without deactivating his account. I feel for him and it’s great he put this out so other people don’t have this happen to them, but best thing to do is call again and get a better/different rep to help or learn and move on.

  13. All you Sony fanboys are unbeleivable. You’re blaming HIM for not deactivating the PSPs (including stolen ones)? Sony can push a button and fix this, but they won’t. And that is his point.

    Sony has offered NOTHING to him to help solve his situation (other than the brilliant “buy it all again”). That is the definition of horrible customer service. Not offering a solution to a customer’s problem is the worst kind of business.

    If you wanna hate Microsoft (which is fine), keep that separate from this. There is no logic in saying that “well MS if bad too” to justify Sony’s apparently obvious lack of customer service. MS might ALSO be bad, but arguing MS is worse doesn’t negate Sony’s suckiness. That’s what we call logic, and most of the people replying on here don’t understand it.

  14. @doombady.

    You idiot. this isn’t an article about Sonys warrenty. Most people havn’t had a problem with Sonys warrenty at all. In fact I bought my PS3 on march the 28th 2007. 2 and a half years later and its still working perfectly today and thats with about 8 hours of play per day. Most people don’t need the warrenty because the PS3 is solid. Everyone I know including my nephew and brother have had to return there xbox 360 at least twice and my stupid f”cking brother bought 2 360’s and had both of them rrod more than once. Oh and my brothers first Xbox 360 was one of the first to RROD and he stupidly had to pay to get it fixed. He never recieved a check of Microsoft to cover it later on

  15. Also doombaby, yes microsoft will pay you back, but only if you are still under the 3yr warranty. Otherwise you are SOL. The extended warranty on their part is great, but if you buy a console now you have to pay $90 for it. And if your 360 lasts 3 years with no RROD then you payed for nothing. However, that doesn’t mean your 360 won’t get the RROD though. Like how mine came 4 days after the warranty and microsoft wanted me to pay because it was out of warranty. Every company has pros and cons with customer service and warranties, but what the author is talking about is both a problem with customer service and his own fault.

  16. @ ferd burfel

    You obviously havn’t got a clue about the 5 ps3’s thing. They not only tell you every time you buy something off the store about it but they also allow people to share accounts and game share. Thats the whole issue here because people have been game sharing but when something happens like in the article and they can’t download the games they got because they allowed there friends to get a free game, they get screwed. Thats not fucking sonys fault

  17. lol
    ps3 fanboys still mad?

  18. @ Ferd Burfel: I’m not saying it’s his fault for not deactivating the stolen systems. I’m saying it’s his fault for not deactivating his systems that he willingly traded in and sold. Yes the 2 stolen psps are going to stay activated (should have called sony right when they got stolen). But to not deactivate the systems he sold is idiotic. And it’s just lazy/retarded to say “well sony can deactivate the systems for me with the press of a button.” Sony probably says the same thing about customers to themselves. Besides if you know about deactivating your systems why would you not just do it instead of going through the hassle of calling customer service?

  19. Simply put, every other customer service story of this generation pales next to the atrocity of RRoD. Even talking about anything else is relation to customer service seems silly in contrast. If there were no RRoD story, yes blogging about this stuff would have some merit. As it is, Microsoft has committed the greatest customer service, brand loyalty CRIME in gaming history and for some reason I can’t exactly fathom, have gotten away with it. When 1 out of every 4 systems (at least) that roll off the line end up coming right back for repairs after massive failures, there is only one thing to do and that is RECALL THE CONSOLE AND GIVE EVERYONE THEIR MONEY BACK. Period. End of fucking story. It’s the only thing that would be tolerated with other products. If 1 out of every 4 Toyotas melted down, the public relations backlash would threaten to drive the company out of business. That is indisputible fact. Yet, somehow Microsoft has managed to dodge having to do that. I blame blind Xbots who have no idea what money actually is and keep lining up to get robbed.

    I really don’t want to hear about Sony in relation to brand loyalty. Even if you do have a point about Sony’s issues, it makes no sense to complain about Sony, when Microsoft has so heinously trumped them by delivering to their loyal customers (of which I used to be one) a game console that only works sometimes. THAT is the death of brand loyalty. So they extended the warranty. Big deal. They didn’t want to get their asses sued off so they threw everyone a bone. The only thing the warranty does in the end is prevent YOU, the Microsoft consumer, from adequately defending yourself against these near-criminal business practices. This article is laughable in it’s naivete and serves only to prove that Microsoft TRULY HAS gotten away with snowing over the public. I guaranty this: one look by the public at Microsoft’s real numbers and internal operations on the RRoD problem would sink the Xbox into oblivion just by the sheer outrage it would generate. And here you are complaining about Sony’s brand loyalty. Total frickin’ joke.

  20. They should make a website XBOX university. This will go nicely in it. I am slowly losing interest in this site.

  21. Can’t you deactivate a psp or ps3 from your ps3 in account management? I just checked that it was there 2 seconds ago.

  22. Really? This guy has no clue what customer service is…this site fails… and i agree @jim it should be called XBOX university….I’m sorry but wow…

  23. I noticed you said one of the supervisors said they can’t deactivate any of your systems because they don’t have your informantion (email and password). My question is why didn’t you just give them that information so they could then deactivate it? This and the fact that you continously go from having $150 of content to $1,500 (yes you did put the comma in there so it wasn’t a typo) leads me to believe that you are either lying about the whole thing or you’re telling half-truths.

    I’ve heard of a similar story in where this person’s ps3 got YYOD and sony made them pay because they couldn’t track the system. Now the only way they couldn’t track it is if they didn’t have their receipt or they bought a stolen system (especially if it’s from one of the production factories) off of ebay or something. Do you think the person told me that they didn’t have their receipt and that was why they had to pay? No. They just made it look like it was all of Sony’s fault, in which most people would do out of anger at themselves for their stupidity, and anger at sony for not being just as dumb.

    Now I’m not saying Sony has perfect customer service, no company does, but I do give it more credit in comparrison to others. Your story does have much ‘sap’ appeal, but as stated before I can’t truely believe it for you do keep changing the price of all the content bought, and you didn’t state that you gave them your information after the supervisor told you it was needed to help you (which any person in your position would’ve gladly done). This leads me to believe that either the system and account wasn’t yours, or you were too dumb to just give them your information, but I strongly believe it’s the first.

  24. @Extra

    I bought $150 worth of content for my PSPgo. I’ve purchased over $1,500 worth of content as a WHOLE since the Store has launched.

    And I offered to give them my information as well as the Debit Card information that I purchased ALL of my content with, lol. She said, “No.”

    Hopefully that clears it up for you.

  25. Microsoft have excellent customer service. They admittted to having a fault and they backed that up with MONEY. They openly stated the Xbox360 has a problem and totally supported the customer at thier expense for THREE years.

    sonys response to the ever growing problem of the YLOD…. ‘ Go screw yourselves customers… we’re NEVER going to admit that a sony product has a HUGE problem as well. It’s your problem, the customer, YOU are going to pay for the fix! ‘

    Seriously… sonys complete arrogance and disrespect for the customer is really showing this generation.

  26. Ah ok then nevermind.

  27. i can understand why sony wouldnt jus eactivate a system because what if u gameshare with a friend u metonline and then jus keep deactivating ur stuff? so u gt hirgames while they get 0? u cant prove consoles wer stolen unlessu hve a police file so i mean i can see hy they wouldnt take your word for it

  28. @I agree
    The YLOD isn’t as big as you believe it is and if your ps3 breaks down within warranty they’ll fix it. Grant it if you don’t have the receipt on you I’m sure they’ll charge you for it for they don’t know when you bought it and they won’t take your word alone for it, no company will, at least not on a product that costs $300. Also just so you know, the warranty of any hardware device that is worth at least $100 is 1 year. I do believe they should offer an extended warranty just for more protection but as I stated before the YLOD is not as big as you believe.

    Most launched PS3s still work perfectly fine. Yes there are like 1 million PS3s with the YLOD but not all of them are caused by the manufactor. For example, my friend bought a PS3 that had YLOD, for like $80 because he knows how to fix it. Before he got it we expected it to fine, just YLOD, but when he got it we saw it was just F@#$ed up. The system was basically covered in dust, internally and externally, with scratches on it, the controller was totally banged up (the right analog was permenately stuck in the downward position), and some other minor things were wrong. He still got it to work perfectly after messing with it for about a day, but the point is out of the million YLOD probably 50% is actually Sony’s fault. While the other half are from people who don’t know how to take care of their system. I’m not saying they all bang up their console like the previous owner of my friend’s PS3 did, but I will say they probably keep it in a pocket sized space, and/or don’t dust it and/or don’t keep it in a cool enough environment. This goes for the xbox as well, though in their case it’s well over a few million consoles that are defective.

    In my personal opinion I believe Microsoft is by far worst simply because they knew their system was defective and released it anywas just to gain market share. Also they charge you if you want to extend the warranty 2 additional years, when it should be free. I mean come on, they admitted it themselves that their failure rate is above 50% and yet they still charge you for the service you should get for free (the extended warranty and LIVE).

    In a nutshell, to me it seems Sony is saying “well you should’ve been more careful or you wouldn’t have to pay up” while Microsoft is saying “yeah how do you like this D@#K, you f@#$ing whore, we’ve been screwing you from the start!!!”. Both statements are more than messed up but at least with sony you know to be on your toes or you’ll get hustled, while with microsoft you’re simply getting pimped.

  29. i agree 100 percent with comment number 7 total win

  30. Your definitely not alone. When i bought my copy of LBP:GOTY edition, i tried to put in my mod nation racer beta code.

    it said it had already been used.The copy of the game i bought was a fresh copy, complete with wrapping, unnecessary manuals, and the beta code.

    After spend 30min on the phone (note that i heard that they deal “with all software and hardware malfunctions”), i got on the line with a guy who sounded like he was getting tested or monitored or something. he said that i would have to somehow get in touch with the makers of mod nation racer. the beta card says “For assistance, contact SCE consumer services at 1-800-345-7669” which meant that it was them who i had to talk to. I told him that, and he said “just return the game; good day” and hung up.

    The catch is that i bought it from EB games, and i haddn’t bout a warenty on the game because i knew it was very unlikely that the disc would break (BlueRay discs FTW!) When i went there, the guy at the counter said “sorry, but if you don’t have a warranty, you can’t return the game.” I asked him for a new beta code, but they said “if we were to give you a new code, then we would have to take it out of a fresh game, and we would lose money”.

    So now, thanks to EB games and bad SCE relations, i’m royally screwed, and i can’t try the beta of Mod Nation Racers.

  31. I think what you mean to say is that we’re in a generation of gaming where nobody doesn’t just own 1 console anymore everybody owns multiple consoles.
    I’m considering picking up the 360 to play the exclusives, experience Net Flix, and XBL.
    PS3 or Playstation in general will always be my main console brand of preference but I’ll never abandon a console just because some games aren’t on my console.

  32. itunes does the activation right, allows you to deactive all machines from a single login, then you can reactivate, really not all that hard of thing to do, something sony needs to look at apple and follow suit.

  33. I purchased a launch 60 gb model from future shop. I also paid for a 3 yr warranty.
    After sending it in for repair 4 times, it was replaced under warranty with a slim.

    Of course I didn’t deactivate any of them.

    I had to send in my reciepts, but they deactivated mine that day.

    Everyone I spoke to was polite and helpful. Of course I am sickenly polite to people in this ditch so I think that helps.

    I have good experiences with sony cs, although I can see how it be a problem with all those psps

    ps – u totally love u some psp!!

  34. M1MB, up until this point. I’ve never had a bad experience with their CSR, but after dealing with this many people, all with the same demeanor, I just couldn’t believe it.

  35. @# I agree

    You’re exactly the king of idiot Microsoft loves to rip off and are indicative of the kind of soulless, compromising, weakminded consumer who is assisting in the slow ruin of the video game industry. Hope you enjoy gaming when EVERY console has ridiculous failure rates and CYA warranties. Microsoft has set a horrible precedent with it’s products. And it has already had effects on the business and will continue to do so.

  36. @permafry42

    the reason why u cant get into modnation racers is because the beta starts in december! (happened to me too)

  37. Man people are expecting a lot from Sony

    @ the dean

    I call bullshit on your whole store. Yeah I do believe the 5 account thing happened to you but what I don’t believe is you had 2 PSP’s stolen and you have bought 4 different PSP’s making the total 6 psp’s. What I do believe is you were game sharing and when and after a few years of doing it with a few friends, it came back and bit you in the ass. The reason why Sony is giving people hard times over deactivation is because of people game sharing, robbing other peoples accounts and stolen systems. How the hell do you expect something that was stolen, that you don’t have a reciept for and you don’t have the serial number for to be de-activated. Emails and passwords arn’t a valid security measure because most people use the same passwords and emails for everthing and I talked to someone last night about Sony deactivating systems and they got there system deactivated by sony after giving there personal security information. Where they live, were they were born there mothers maiden name,date of birh. All that shit.

  38. Wow what a nightmare. Very informative concerning all of the deactivation drama. And I dont understand the anger from these fanboys directed at The Dean. Its very obvious The Dean loves the Playstation brand, hell he bought 1500 dollars worth of content. This was a very unbiased, honest and informative article. Sorry you hat to endure all that.

  39. Marlon Jameson October 11, 2009 @ 06:49

    It’s truly sad that Sony have become a former shadow of themselves.

  40. wat the hell is this form i came on ps university & now i am being told ps is crap by you guys. Sadly u forgot to say wat a utter crap system xbox is

  41. yeah ive spent about 600$ on the store… when i called to have all ps3’s deactivated with my account… they said that they could not bother with it, as it was not worth there time…
    it took me about 2 hours of bitching to get it done…

    really annoying on sony’s end

  42. No offence but seriously dude 6 psps’s???
    I mean unless someone physically hurt you and robbed you for ur Psp it probably was your fault for leaving it somewhere….and you probably should have never sold your Psp with ur account activated on it. An easy way to solve the activation problem is to tell 1 of your friends who u shared it with to effing deactivate your account. And for customer service it always sucked. I never had to call Sony so i wouldnt know first hand but in general customer service has always sucked.

    Now for Microsoft…People keep saying “Oh MS cares cuz they gave us a 3 yr warrenty.” Quite frankly i would not want a 3 yr warrenty because i expect my console to effing work wen i bought it…by giving a 3 yr warrent MS is saying “Heres your Xbox, it will break at least once in the next 3 yrs so we will fix it for you then ur on ur own wen it breaks again.
    On the Ps3 theres no long ass warenty becaUSE YOU DONT F*&CKING NEED ONE. Your Ps3 should work like its supposed 2 unlike the Xbox where ur just waiting for the RROD to appear.

    • I didn’t game share on any of my PSPs, so what’re you talking about? Also — Idiot teenagers stealing my PSP out of my backpack in High School is hardly my fault. I put it somewhere it should be, not somewhere it shouldn’t be. The second PSP was stolen by a friend, who then spray painted it like a tool for some unknown reason (last time I ever hung out with that guy).

  43. wii60fan_reaching_out October 13, 2009 @ 01:28

    i feel sorry for you, Dean. It’s a shame how stuffy headed and attached the angry fanboys here are to the sony brand in the comment section to actually give a damn reading the article.

    they aren’t even addressing the article, just stereotypical ps3 fanboy responses of “lolz RROD. see that? sony has no problems”.

    you ought to post this article more publicly and hopefully that will push pressure on sony to change their practices. it worked for the consumers against microsoft – that’s why i’m satisfied with my 360 because i know it has “console health insurance”

  44. Super Smash Bros. Fan October 13, 2009 @ 18:16

    What’s even sadder is that the long-time fans of Nintendo has called quits on Nintendo and I can’t see why. This is why I’m a Wii-only owner for now, althought I will get an Playstation 3 next year.

    Sony on the other hand made terrible fiancial decisions, which as a result, ruined their reputation with their fans. Good thing it’s only $300 now, maybe I can finally get the system.

  45. I am so tired of this fanboy crap about which system is better, this crap is old! u either have one or the other. But somehow, if u have one system, something must be wrong with the other. I am a peoud PS3 owner, and thats the system that I love. I’m sure xbox has it’s goodies, but I’m with the Ps3. Let that fan boy crap go, its done, u have one or u have the other. I wont even bring Nintendo in this because their system is for kids, and xbox and PS3 are for the nature crowd. The xbox may have more owners, but the PS3 is a beast! FlatOut!

  46. sorry thats proud owner, and mature crowd!

  47. Looks like Sony was afraid of lookin bad…good job getting your s*** back.

  48. Sony is the best company in the world.

  49. Hm, sony took my ps3 and sent it back in a week, ha, no pains their, i can’t send my psp back because i had it hacked to play gba games, but sony hasn’t give us bad customer support, we had to get our defective tv fixeds and they did it even without the receipt. they extended their warranty over a proctucted they knew was defective so we were happy they knew it was going to break.

  50. this one long ass article i stopped readin after the second sentence

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