What to Do When PlayStation Just Doesn’t Seem to Want You

This is a little different from my norm here. Consider this a “venting” article, or blog post, if you prefer.

In early May of this year, my wife managed to do the impossible: She was able to purchase a PlayStation 5.

Despite having the device in our home for almost four months now, I’ve barely touched it, even with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart — the latest entry in my favorite PlayStation franchise — loaded on it since the game launched. And it’s not due to a lack of games (between Astro’s Playroom, Ratchet & Clank, and both Spider-Man games, I’m good for now) because it lacks the array of media apps we used so much on our PlayStation 4, or because the Smart TV we got can handle our YouTube and Netflix needs on its own.

It’s because I don’t know what to do with myself.

Back in 2001, I moved to Toronto to live with my wife. At the time, there weren’t accounts for video game consoles like there are today. Sure, the PC might have had some stuff, but with consoles, things were simple: You went to the store, you bought a game, you put the disc/cartridge into your gaming machine, and you played. Any sort of personalization tended to come on the software side, in the games themselves.

It wasn’t long before things started to change, though.

Following on from SEGA’s ill-fated Dreamcast efforts, Xbox kicked things off with their Xbox Live service in 2002. Sony would eventually follow with the PlayStation Network in 2006, and Nintendo got around to it eventually the next decade.

I didn’t wind up getting a PlayStation 3 until sometime into the PlayStation 4’s life, so my introduction to the PlayStation Network came through the PlayStation Portable. I don’t remember the reason for it, but at the time, it just made more sense for me to sign up for a US account (something to do with having to use my US PayPal account and bank card tied to it). That worked for a while, until those were no longer really in use.

Regardless of the financial side of it, I continued using the account with the PlayStation 4. Since I’ve been writing about and reviewing games for several years now, that’s led to a lot being tied up in that account: PSP games, PS one Classics, PS3 games, PS4 games, themes, icons, Trophies across the board, and other things I’m probably not thinking of. I really don’t want to give up using that account. I would just keep using it as-is, but then I can’t buy anything new, as my bank information is now Canadian, and you can’t cross those streams, apparently.

Unfortunately, I may have to. At least inasmuch as regular use goes. This is because PlayStation won’t allow me to change my country from “US” to “Canada.” Never mind that we’re in the same region and get the same games. Apparently, in this world where people are more connected than ever and, if I were to guess, moving between countries more than ever, PlayStation’s policy on making such a life-changing decision is that if you want to keep however many tens, hundreds, or more dollars of games and such you purchased, then you can just go pound sand.

This article originally had a very different slant at its inception. See, despite having Canadian accounts for the other two platforms, I was ready to call out Xbox and Nintendo just the same. Then I discovered something.

In the time since I’d last looked into the matter, Xbox allows you to change your country. There are some stipulations, primarily that you can’t bring funds and potentially services signed up for with you, depending on where you’re going. But you can do it.

Nintendo? Same deal.

It would be my luck that of course the one I most need to allow me to make the change would be the very one which won’t let me.

Rather than mope about it, I weighed my options, and ultimately decided to make a new account. It would suck to effectively lose everything from the old account, but I could at least begin anew and move forward. New console, new day, new start, new me. And I could still access the stuff on the old account, just in a more awkward, detached way, right?

I couldn’t use the name on my old account, of course, so I’d need to use a new one. I decided to go with “Nytetrayn,” as at least that would match my other accounts. There was just one small problem…

It was taken.

This is extremely odd to me. There is only one “Nytetrayn,” and I am he. If you Google it, I’m pretty sure that every instance of the name that comes back is likely either me or about me in some form. It’s a name I’ve been happy to keep using for its distinction, unlike my real name, which has led to me getting the odd email intended for the vice-president of Activision Blizzard. Suffice to say, I’m rather attached to it.

This posed two possibilities: Either someone else was using my name for their PlayStation account… or I perhaps created a second account previously, but didn’t end up going through with it due to my first account.

So I decided I would try to find out.

Unfortunately, looking up the account itself did me no good — it was as though it didn’t exist, except when I tried to register it. I thought maybe if nothing else, I might be able to talk to the account holder and work something out, or at least establish that there was another account holder at all, but no such luck.

I tried to log in with other emails and old passwords. Nothing worked.

My final efforts were to try reaching out to PlayStation themselves, and get help from their support people. Unfortunately, the support forums they once had were shut down last year, as luck would have it. (I know I’m saying “luck” a lot. It’s not that I’m a strong believer in it, but I don’t rule out anything, and it just works well as an expression.)

I checked the support site for a number, or someone I could chat with, as this seemed like a rather specialized situation — more than I expect a bot to process. No dice.

I then decided to reach out to them on Twitter, @AskPlayStation. I explained the situation, and they linked me to a page for resetting my password, with a link at the end in case you “can’t remember your email address or verification info,” which would eventually lead me to chat with someone.

It didn’t go well.

They asked me a question about the account, and before I even knew what had happened, I was told for unexplained “security reasons” that I couldn’t be helped and immediately thrown out. I never even got to plead my case.

I relayed this to @AskPlayStation, and was summarily ignored. “Tweet us back anytime,” indeed. I’ll spare the jokes about their customer “support.”

And that’s where things sit at present. I exist in a perpetual state of virtual PlayStation limbo. I could go back to just using my old account, but then I can’t buy anything on it. Not without bending over backwards to get codes from the States, at least (is that still a thing people do?). Or I could just make another account under some other name, but if that “Nytetrayn” account is indeed mine, I would much rather have that. If not, at least some closure about it would be nice.

So if you’re wondering why I’ll be streaming or writing about Xbox and Nintendo games, yet seldom do so with PlayStation? This is pretty much why. If they don’t want me as a customer, I’m not sure I want to be one.

It’s a shame, too. There are some pretty neat looking games going on over there.

Oh well, at least I still have Xbox and Nintendo Switch to play!

Thanks for reading!

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.