Playstation 4 Catch-All

I liked the touch pad parts, too, along with holding the Vita up to the light to see the hidden watermark on a map. Those parts are fun!

The Touch Bar on current MacBooks is !@#%ing idiotic, though. I'm not a complete moron.

Evan E wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

How does the PS life video work? Does it create a video montage of me playing games? Because I’m not thrilled about the idea that Sony has been recording my gaming sessions without my consent.

I would be shocked if they could do that; I expect they just have stock footage from lots of games that they stitch together based on your playtime data.

I'm not going to find out, though, for the same reason I've never done any Facebook poll - I can't help but think this is somehow tied to advertising. I wonder if in the process of setting it up you're giving permission, knowingly or not, to share your data for marketing purposes.

Take a look back over the games you’ve played, the trophies you’ve earned,
and create a unique video that’s all about your PS4 life.

This will also opt you in to our marketing emails – but you can opt-out at any time by clicking ‘Unsubscribe’.

Last year they sent an email which was a summary of what you did in 2017. This sounds similar but with a wider scope than one year. I'm really looking forward to seeing mine (once it lands on the US side). PSN has been really behind Steam and Xbox in the tracking/stats regard, so it is nice to see them making at least some steps in that direction.

I'm astounded that the best usage tracking that I've seen on any platform continues to be the activity log on the 3DS.

dewalist wrote:

Last year they sent an email which was a summary of what you did in 2017.

Yeah that's the one I was thinking of, don't think we received over here.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm astounded that the best usage tracking that I've seen on any platform continues to be the activity log on the 3DS.

I forget what the 3DS one looks like but the Wii tracker was good too.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm astounded that the best usage tracking that I've seen on any platform continues to be the activity log on the 3DS.

I forget what the 3DS one looks like but the Wii tracker was good too.

The 3DS tracker is an expansion of the Wii one. It can give you an accurate-to-the-minute play time count for anything you've played on the system, but it also keeps track of when you played them per day. So you can see not only your total hour count for a game but also your time played for any given day, week, month, or year, plus the time of day when you were playing, number of sessions, average session length, etc.

I was sad that neither the Wii U nor the Switch have anything so robust.

Garth wrote:
Evan E wrote:

Just to represent the unwashed masses: I like all the Uncharted games. Even Golden Abyss.

But yes, I enjoyed Lost Legacy more than Uncharted 4, which overstayed its welcome.

Yeah, I liked pretty much all of the Uncharted games...and I thought I was the only one who played Golden Abyss! The touch pad parts were beyond silly, and its probably the only Uncharted game that I haven't platinumed

Add me as a Golden Abyss fan!

I actually think that one did a better job of keeping things tight and interesting compared to the mainline games with inevitably drag and focus too heavily on combat in the last third or so.

Santa left a PS4 under the tree so I have officially joined the ranks of the console proleteriat! Bought Spider-Man for the kiddo and Red Dead 2 for me.

Just curious - is the PS all access pass worth getting? I missed all of last generation so never played Last of Us, Uncharted, etc. That being said, the EA all-access gives you most of their newer games for $20/month. Not sure Sony offers as good a deal.

Clocky is the Playstation Now expert around here. Ask her.

jdzappa wrote:

Santa left a PS4 under the tree so I have officially joined the ranks of the console proleteriat! Bought Spider-Man for the kiddo and Red Dead 2 for me.

Just curious - is the PS all access pass worth getting? I missed all of last generation so never played Last of Us, Uncharted, etc. That being said, the EA all-access gives you most of their newer games for $20/month. Not sure Sony offers as good a deal.

I think with pretty much all of these services, just remember to subscribe when you are playing and drop it otherwise.

jdzappa wrote:

Just curious - is the PS all access pass worth getting? I missed all of last generation so never played Last of Us, Uncharted, etc. That being said, the EA all-access gives you most of their newer games for $20/month. Not sure Sony offers as good a deal.

They don't. Whether what they do offer with Playstation Now is worth it depends on what you're after.

If you want a large, all-you-can-eat buffet of PS4 games of all genres that's mostly not newer games, PS Now is great. It really is an "instant game collection", and it includes some of the best first-party games like Bloodborne and Until Dawn. The third-party offerings are about what you'd expect to get from Humble Bundles and the like.

If you're mostly after Sony's major first party releases like The Last of Us and Spider-Man and Horizon Zero Dawn, none of those are on there. (The Last of Us and Uncharted are on PS Now, but they're the PS3 versions and streaming only. It's up to you if that's good enough.)

Right now, you can get three months of PS Now for $30. I'd suggest that you grab that, then download a bunch of lesser known exclusives like Resogun and Alienation and Bloodborne and Until Dawn, and then just see what you think of it.

PS+ for January:
Amplitude (PlayStation 3)
Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion (PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita)
Portal Knights (PlayStation 4)
Steep (PlayStation 4)
Super Mutant Alien Assault (PlayStation Vita)
Zone of the Enders HD Collection (PlayStation 3)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

PS+ for January:
Zone of the Enders HD Collection (PlayStation 4)

That wasn't in their trailer. The only thing in the trailer on their YouTube channel was stinking Steep and Portal Knights.

Well crap. That's actually in my realm of interest.

Crap! Siliconera listed it for the PS4, but I double checked and Zone of the Enders HD is for PS3.

........you did that on purpose.

IMAGE(https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OGC.1ebad7ab99f7f95d6f3be100863ed95c&pid=Api&rurl=https%3a%2f%2fmedia.giphy.com%2fmedia%2fOu18ZgE49Fss0%2fgiphy.gif&ehk=kHRmS4JyTsHZpJTGq4SsoQ)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

PS+ for January:
Amplitude (PlayStation 3)
Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion (PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita)
Portal Knights (PlayStation 4)
Steep (PlayStation 4)
Super Mutant Alien Assault (PlayStation Vita)
Zone of the Enders HD Collection (PlayStation 3)

I thought they were ending PS3 support in January.

March

Man, Steep is a good drop for PS+. It ran its course (pun intended) pretty quickly with me, but it was fun while it lasted and I’m sure other people have spent countless hours on that thing.

I really enjoyed steep when it came out and it’s a great pick up

Steep has been on PS Now for a bit. There have been a few other Plus freebies that have been that way. I hope they don't make a habit of it.

I'll totally give Steep a try!

Me too, Ive almost bought it a few times.

Ah Sony... Here's a fun one... Sorry for the length. I wanted all of you to enjoy the ridiculousness.

BACKGROUND: I haven't used my PS4 for about 3 months and when I saw that God of War was available for $27 I thought that might be a good purchase. In order to make that purchase though I needed to call Sony support to update my email address because I had cancelled my cable subscription back in August or so and that took my email with it.... The last time I played a game or signed in was in September.

So I get through to support and I explain the issue, along with the fact that I don't know my online ID because it's been 3 months and I play alone and I'm told the following.

Begin the hour long saga

Sony: "Sir, we can't change your account because it's banned."
Me: "Oh, is that because I was trying to remember my password and entered it incorrectly too many times? I absolutely did that."
Sony: "No sir, it's banned because you owe us $127. If you would like to remove this ban you need to purchase Playstation cards to pay, we won't accept anything else. We can send you the form through email."
Me: "Really? That's interesting. What purchases do you see?"
Sony: "I can't tell you that unless you can tell me your online ID."
Me: "I don't remember it, can I give you another piece of information to identify myself?"
Sony: "Sorry sir, I can only look up that info if I have your online ID"
Me: "But you're looking at my account right now, right?"
Sony: "Yes, but the system won't allow me to see the purchases without your ID."
Me: "OK, so can we just update my email address so that I can log on and find out what my online id is?"
Sony: "No sir, you need to pay the balance before we can unlock your account."
Me: "But if you need to email me that form, how can you because my old email is now defunct and invalid."
Sony: "I'm sorry sir but there isn't anything we can do, you need to pay the charges."

Some more back and forth goes on...

Me: "I'm going to need to speak to your supervisor because I did not make any purchases since September and if you can't tell me what these charges are this is starting to sound a lot like a scam."
Sony: "Hold one moment and I'll get my supervisor."

HOLD MUSIC for 30 seconds

Sony: "Sir, I've got my supervisor here and I am now able to see your purchases."
Me: "Great! What are the outstanding charges from?"
Sony: "I see 150k points for MLB in July, another 100k points for MLB after that and then they were charged back."
Me: "That certainly wasn't me, I don't play sports games, I don't have that game on my account, I clearly was hacked. Can you explain the charge back?"
Sony: "You purchased these points and then the credit card you used declined the charges and it was charged back to your account. It looks like the bank declined the charges twice."
Me: "Ok, so that seems pretty obvious that that was a charge I didn't make and my bank was protecting me. I didn't get any calls though, can you tell me what CC was used?"
Sony: "Sorry sir, I can't tell you that information. If you'll just pay the money we can un-ban your account."
Me: "Look, that isn't going to happen, your'e asking me to pay for something that I didn't do and have no knowledge of. This is starting to feel like extortion."
Sony: "Sorry sir, there isn't anything else we can do."
Me: "I'd like to speak with your supervisor."
Sony: "Sure thing, hold please."

HOLD MUSIC

Sony Supervisor: "Hi sir, this is the supervisor, I understand your situation what can I help you with?"
Me: "Well, I didn't make these purchases and I'd like my account back online."
Sony Supervisor: "Sorry sir, you need to pay the charges for that to occur."
Me: "I didn't make those purchases, I'm not going to pay a bank back if they get robbed"
Sony Supervisor: "Well, let's see if the purchases match your SN from your PS. Can you tell me that info"
Me: "Sure, it's ######. "
Sony Supervisor: "Ok, well those seem to match. You'll have to pay the charges."
Me: "Again, I didn't make these purchases, and I'm telling you that this is an error. How can I escalate this to your fraud group?"
Sony Supervisor: "I'm afraid you can't, normally if something like this happens you can escalate this to our internal group but it's been too long, you'll just need to pay the charges."
Me: "So you're telling me that I'm claiming fraudulent purchases but you can't help me because it's been 5 months?"
Sony Supervisor: "Yes, there is nothing we can do."
Me: "So because I don't play my console much, and I changed my email address, I was never notified of any of these events. And because I didn't know about the fraudulent charges until just now you're telling me that I have to pay for something that I am not responsible for?"
Sony Supervisor: "Yes sir. Normally we could escalate something like this but it's been too long."
Me: "Can you tell me what Credit card was used that declined these charges? I don't remember ever being notified from them:
Sony Supervisor: "We can't tell you that for account security reasons. If I did I would lose my job."
Me: "Ok, can you tell me the last 4 digits at least?"
Sony Supervisor: "I can only tell you yes or no if you read the numbers to me."
Me: "Ummm ok, that's how we'll play this then."

I then proceed to run through my different CC info and all of them result in "No" answers.

Me: "Ok. I'm going to need to talk to your supervisor now because that is ludicrous. I'm not paying for something that I'm not responsible for."
Sony Supervisor: "Hold one second sir"

HOLD MUSIC: 30 seconds

Sony Supervisor: "Sir, I spoke with another one of my supervisors here on the floor and we are absolutely going to escalate this."
ME: "Thank you. Now what happens?"
Sony Supervisor: It's escalated to our fraud group and they usually have a decision in 3-4 business days."
Me: "How is this decision communicated?:
Sony Supervisor: "90% of the time it's through email."
Me: "Ok, so can we update my contact information please so that I can get these emails?"
Sony Supervisor: "Absolutely. Let's take care of that now."

So now I'm waiting to hear back from their fraud department.... What a farce.

That sucks, sorry it's such a fiasco.

Out of curiosity, do you use the internet account-provided email address as a primary, or as more of a throwaway one for stuff like this? Asking because I've heard similar stories from other people, and I always wonder why you'd want to use a service-specific email instead of a web-based one like gmail that doesn't go away.

Hopefully they rule in your favor and unlock your account quickly.

I love the line: "I am aware of the situation, but what do you want?"
I am so glad I own my own domain and have a non cable provider email. I've been amazed at the stuff I've been able to recover.

That is EXACTLY why I took all my CCs off my sony account and now only buy games on PSN using gift cards I first buy off Amazon, plus added 2 factor authentication.

Honestly, though, you are the first person I've heard of getting as far as you did. Generally it seems to go, "I didn't make these charges," "Sorry, you have to pay them, they're on your account." "I'll just tell my bank to issue a charge back." "You can certainly do that, but if you do, we'll permanently ban your account. Anything else I can help you with today?"

Chaz wrote:

That sucks, sorry it's such a fiasco.

Out of curiosity, do you use the internet account-provided email address as a primary, or as more of a throwaway one for stuff like this? Asking because I've heard similar stories from other people, and I always wonder why you'd want to use a service-specific email instead of a web-based one like gmail that doesn't go away.

Hopefully they rule in your favor and unlock your account quickly.

I hope so too. It was a time warner account that I have had for over 20 years. I had forgotten that when I cancelled my internet and cable that the email went with it. I’m completely Gmail now but it was a painful transition. I’ll definitely be using PS cards only at this point!

Doesn't sound like Sony has a real good system for addressing fraud.