PlayStation 5: Users getting banned for unlocking PS5-exclusive PlayStation Plus Collection to PlayStation 4 owners
With the launch of the PlayStation 5, Sony also introduced PlayStation Plus Collection which is a collection of 20 popular PlayStation 4 titles granted for free to PlayStation 5 owners who subscribe to PS Plus. However, as games from this collection are also playable on one’s PlayStation 4, folks decided to exploit Sony’s offering by selling PlayStation Plus Collection unlocks to PS4 owners but this did not end well as we’ll see in this article!
What is the PlayStation Plus Collection?
As the introduction suggests, the PlayStation Plus Collection is a set of 20 PlayStation 4 games that are granted for free to those who own a PlayStation 5 and pay a PlayStation Plus subscription (as long as they keep on paying it). This collection, which can also be played on one’s PlayStation 4 by logging into the same account used on their PS5, provides hundreds of dollars worth of noteworthy titles that include:
- Persona 5
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
Without a doubt, the PlayStation Plus Collection is pretty lucrative as it combines a good deal of great games into one package offered for free!
- God of War
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
- The Last of Us Remastered
- Mortal Kombat X
- Fallout 4
- Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
- Battlefield 1
- COD: Black Ops III – Zombies Chronicles Edition
- Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition
- Bloodborne
- Days Gone
- Detroit: Become Human
- Infamous Second Son
- Ratchet and Clank
- The Last Guardian
- Until Dawn
- Monster Hunter: World
- Batman: Arkham Knight
PS5 owners getting banned by selling PS Plus Collection unlocks to PS4 owners
Some folks though that the PS Plus Collection offered a wonderful loophole to make some easy money but that didn’t go so well
If you’re the type of person who quickly spots loopholes, you’ll quickly realise Sony’s PlayStation Plus Collection has one glaring issue in that a PlayStation 5 owner can log into the account of another PlayStation Plus subscriber who does not own a PlayStation 5 and unlock the game collection for use on a PlayStation 4… and this is exactly what some folks online did. Posting listings on eBay, some PlayStation 5 owners decided to make a quick buck by selling ‘unlocks’ for the PlayStation Plus Collection to PlayStation 4 owners who don’t have a PS5 by simply logging in to buyer’s PSN account on their own PS5 thus granting the aforementioned 20 games to the buyer without much effort.
The aforementioned practice obviously didn’t go down well with reports on Chinese forums that Sony have been banning PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 owners engaging in the practice (tweet below). Thankfully, listings on eBay for the unlocking service appear to have subdued for the most part which will surely avoid a ban or two to unknowing users.
Conclusion
All in all, let’s just hope (or not depending on your PoV) that those selling unlocks had a regular PlayStation 5 and not a digital-only version because if not, their console has now effectively become an paperweight 🙂
Video Games Chronicle was used as a source for this article: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ps5-users-are-reportedly-getting-banned-for-selling-a-ps-plus-collection-exploit/
Thousands of PSN accounts have been banned, and according to community discussions, these accounts are concentrated in HK(@PlayStationHK ), and have in common the receipt of Sony's PS Collection service for PS Plus, which contains serveral PS4 games for free. pic.twitter.com/ECWPRgVuO2
— 王之乎 (@zhihuwong) November 26, 2020
Rather than block people they should have sent a warning, this is ridiculous and is going to further anger users. Nice article by the way.
the tos is the warning lol. went through this stuff already when people were “sharing” games with ps3 accounts. selling access on ebay is just making it worse
Nobody is going to read 80 pages worth of bloat with implications of a warning, and companies know this.
They should have just left it alone. $ony needs to chill.
*** ?? dog say *** 10 usd want sell 30 :)) u look like my dog haha
Sony gave it away. It’s not their and in EU you can sold used software licences. It’s fault of Sony that it’s possible in the first place.
The reselling of used software license is already quite blurry by itself, but In this case, it’s not a resell because the original PS5 owner does not forfeit his license, he his just duplicating it onto other accounts … which is basically against the terms of service (like it was for people using the same way to share PS3 games).
music to my ears. I hope Sony adopts a more violent way with hackers this time around, just how Nintendo has been doing. Cease and desists, lawsuits, arrests… those are the kind of articles I want to read here about the ps5 <3
While I agree with this to a degree. I didn’t post this.
How about sony stop censoring anime games instead of attacking customers?
This is not attacking costumers. The Collection is an incentive for people to get a PS5. Using Sony’s incentive to make a profit is ridiculous. They are temporary banning the PS4 users and perma banning the PS5’s. This way the people who paid the money will get their account back in 2 months and the people “selling unlocks” get permanently banned.
Still not a skyrim on vita… or even ds emulator..
Are just the accounts being banned or the actual console or both?
Those paperweight PS5s sound like a great buy for hacking in the future
this really is dumb the way Sony is doing this… not everyone can currently afford a PS5, or maybe wish to wait for a newer model to release and not adopt ASAP out of the door… not to mention PLENTY of people are having a hard time getting their hands on one even with having enough money to buy it.
i mean really… who are the ebay listers hurting? are they scalping? if so, then it should be stopped. if the prices are reasonable… aren’t they actually HELPING Sony? like… you need to maintain a PS+ subscription to maintain access to these games, so… like… yeah.
i just don’t get it, Sony… *** are they doing?
i have been high on the fence on which system to get, and only been considering a PlayStation because of my already large amount of games being owned over there. but this is downright absurd.
i don’t understand why they just don’t give the offer to PlayStation 4 owners too. sounds pretty damn scandalous to me. almost as if they WANTED people to do this just so they can ban them. very very few people are going to buy a PlayStation 5 just for the sole purpose of getting this “Collection”. so, i wouldn’t consider it a marketing/selling point. but i could be wrong!
Are you surprised? Sony has been anti consumer for a long time. It statted when they censored and banned anime games
I really hope yhis s hitty company will fail someday..
Maybe this is a beginning
I was under the impression,you supply your username/password and the seller logs on to their ps5 to enable then give the buyer the thumbs up after.
now they focus on the PS5 and PS4 bans? WTH? i wish they would stop banning PS3’s…. for having CFW on them.
So are the buyer accounts also being banned or just the once that are doing the actual unlock?
so if i own a ps5 and ps4 (pro) and log in to both with the same PSN account, but decide to play the Plus Collection games on my ps4 (pro) due to limited storage space on my ps5, will i get banned?
Probably
Nah, you’re good. I did this, I play some games on my PS4 and some on my PS5 and haven’t been banned. I read somewhere else that this happens because the security measures of the PSN get activated when it detects a lot of different logins on a single console.
The seller was asking the buyer to provide their login details using it to login to the PS5 then ltring the buyer know it is ready.
Makes you wonder if it can be activated by spoofing a ps5 on a PS4 somehow.
Well, I guess they might have targeted the ones who dealt in greater numbers.
I got the collection for a -lets call it trouble-recompensation- of around 10 bucks from a guy in my country.
I haven’t been banned so far.
I also bought a ps plus membership for three month which I would never have bought otherwise.
So Sony did make a profit.
Which mean if you bought a 2nd hand PS5, you do not want to get the PS plus collection, else you will get banned too.
Sony just indirectly deny 2nd hand market for PS5.