PlayStation Network Discount – No Love For Vita Owners?

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Following the DDoS attack on the PlayStation Network over Christmas 2014, Sony Computer Entertainment offered gamers worldwide a compensation offer comprising of 5 days of complimentary PlayStation Plus membership along with a 10% discount on a single transaction in the PSN Store. While many felt that this was a token offering considering the widespread disruption caused to the PSN service over the festive period, for downtime that was outside of Sony’s control and of a nature that was incredibly difficult to protect against (even our hosting company has suffered these attacks which resulted in our site being offline for a few days last year), Sony’s offer was more than they needed to do.

However, once again it seems that PS Vita and PlayStation TV owners are being short-changed with the compensation package… While the PlayStation Plus offer – which is currently being rolled out – is something that is benefiting PS3, PS4 and Vita owners, it is the discount that is less than ideal. To claim this discount which is available this weekend for a limited 3-day period, the appropriate code needs to be entered into the store during the checkout period and the discount is deducted from the total price of a single transaction. Now this is where Vita owners are set to be short-changed with this discount deal. When purchasing anything through the PS Vita or PSTV’s stores each title has to be bought and paid for individually. If you buy titles using the PS3, PS4 or the web-based store, you can add up to ten items to a shopping cart before making your purchase. To make matters worse, neither the Vita or PSTV stores offers gamers the option to enter discount codes… and that’s before even looking at the limited choice offered by the PSTV store.

So what options do we have as PS Vita owners? Fortunately we can make use of the web and PS3 stores to buy games and use the discount code and take full advantage of the offer, being able to buy up to ten titles this weekend. Sounds great but we’re still missing out. PS3 and PS4 owners alike are able to access the full range of titles available to them, but when it comes to the PS Vita it’s been an ongoing frustration that PlayStation Mobile has been absent from the web-based and PS3 versions of the store. In other words, almost 400 titles available to the PS Vita are left out of this offer… and that’s a lot of content.

If Sony wants to really treat the Vita equally to its other formats then the web-based store needs to reflect that. It’s time to allow us to buy the full range of games through the same channels that other gamers can and have the same store experience that owners of other members of the PlayStation family do rather than treating us, once again, like second class citizens.

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About Simon Plumbe 1052 Articles
Husband, father and lifelong geek. Originally from the West Midlands, now spending my days in South Wales with my family and a house full of animals. Passionate about video games, especially retro gaming, the Commodore 64 and PlayStation Vita. Love pro wrestling, sci-fi and I'm an animal lover and vegetarian. Enjoyed this and my other articles? Why not buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/simonplumbe

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