PlayStation®Network General

[Kogia_breviceps]

This is a copy of a letter I have sent to Sony, but haven't heard anything back so far. I just want to know what is expected of those of us who sometimes have to move countries temporarily.

Last year I was bought my first ever PS3 and re-discovered a love for gaming, I have immensely enjoyed several games, many of them online, have bought more than 20 titles to date from the PSN store and hope to continue to be able to do so, however I am hearing that apparently Sony as a company may not want me as a customer.
 
In January of this year my partner's job moved us to Hong Kong, so I am now here in Hong Kong, with my PS3, my younger brother (back in the UK) has even bought a PS3 so that we could fight together online and re-live some childhood memories. I have been informed however that there are plans to region lock IP addresses and that this will mean I won't be able to access my account from here in Hong Kong. Can you confirm whether this is true or not?
 
I am not a permanent resident here in Hong Kong, I have no legal resident rights here, I do not have any credit cards here, my UK credit and debit cards all still work here, I still have a UK permanent address, I own a house there and all my mail still goes there. As far as the Hong Kong government is concerned I am a temporary visitor here, but from what I hear Sony says I should be using a Hong Kong PSN account? Last year I lived in France for 4 months, if the IP locking occurs is Sony suggesting I should have sorted out a French PSN for 4 months?
 
If you are going to region lock accounts, are you going to allow people to change the country on their account? After all we do live in an international age, people move countries all the time, sometimes temporarily (eg. many armed forces personel), sometimes permanently, everything I own or want can move and change with me, except my Plastation account.
 
IP locking of accounts will not stop people trying to trick or cheat their way into things, they will always find a way, all it will do is push legitimate paying customers like myself away. If you are intent on preventing people accessing accounts from outside of the country they registered it in, then provide the many millions of us 'international' people an alternative, I would much rather connect with local gamers for lag free gaming, but creating a local account is quite often impossible.

[ukluv]

Hi 

You got a point that I agree with you in them.. But to be honest I don't know that Sony going to IP lock. What I do know however, that there are many countries have the right to use PSN online game servers, but not privilege to access the Playstation Store. Like South America countries, Middle East countries, some of Europe East countries.

Hope sony responds to your peoples and ours too.

Good luck mate

[Evil_Wasp]

There is no point in locking the ip address to a specific country as its far to easy to use

a proxyserver to access the that account, especially as there is even a proxy option in the PS3 wifi options.

I just think the ip locking a rumour and nothing else.