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Did PlayStation Stop Game Sharing?

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If you own a PlayStation, you’ll find that your endless, insatiate desire for games is like an itch that cannot be scratched. With thousands of games waiting to be played and only limited purchases that you can afford to make, the life of a gamer is a tough call. Don’t worry though, your PlayStation has you covered.

Much like a book from the library, borrowing and lending works for games and is a useful process. While borrowing physical copies of games is an easy thing to do, digital games are much harder to peg. Physical copies of games can be bought and shared.

However, the digitalization of games is happening at an increasing rate, and the process of sharing games over the cloud can be slightly harder. This is because games bought through an account are usually unique to that account and remain inaccessible elsewhere.

However, with something called “Game sharing”, Sony enables sharing games with your friends and family, from console to console. You need not purchase different copies of the same game for everyone to play.

Now, instead of buying multiple copies of the same game for everyone to play, you can choose to simply share and enjoy it. You and your friend can now lend each other games that you own. It is a mutually beneficial process that lets you both in on the fun.

Game sharing is an easy to use process; it conveniently allows you to use games that don’t necessarily belong to you. The only prerequisite, of course, is that both the users who want to share the game must own the Playstation console. 

However, there have been rumors swirling that Playstation is going to stop or has stopped the game sharing, is that true? 

Game sharing is still allowed on Playstation consoles as of now but since the release of the PS4 they have reduced the number of Playstations that can share a game from five consoles down to two. This significant restriction is solely aimed at people who share their games with a bunch of friends which of course cuts down on the sale of the games. 

In the future Playstation could certainly remove the sharing of games entirely but as of now they haven’t done so. If game sales continue to suffer because of the sharing then Sony could certainly remove the sharing entirely in the future. 

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DID PLAYSTATION REMOVE ALL GAME SHARING?

Game sharing has been passed down on many different models. From Playstation 3 to PS4, by quickly authorizing your friend’s Playstation as your secondary console, you could share your games with them easily.

However, recent developments show that Sony has disabled blatant game sharing with large amounts of people

Previously, game sharing was offered by Sony as a feature that could help share games with family and friends- where buying multiple copies would be, frankly, ridiculous. However, with reports of misuse, an investigation proved that people were taking advantage of this feature. 

Because they had a cheaper option, the number of people who used the download store to buy games was reduced drastically. This had a hugely negative impact on the company’s sales of the games.

When game sharing was actively allowed, you could share games with up to 5 consoles without a problem. This meant that five different people could use your account on their consoles and download the same game that you had already purchased for free.

However, with the Playstation 4, you can only use your account on two consoles- your primary and non-primary. This feature is intended for you to access your games on another console by logging in, rather than to game share.

Technically, the game sharing feature is removed since according to Sony’s Terms of Services, game sharing is no longer allowed as it was clearly stated that users were not to exploit any vulnerabilities present in the game mechanics to obtain an unfair advantage.

It is also against Sony’s ToS to go around sharing your games with anyone and everyone. However, with its console activation feature, you can let someone else use your account to play your games or even download them onto their console without being considered in violation of the terms of service. 

So, can you still game share?

Yes, you can still game share. The removal of game sharing has barely squashed the spirits of gamers. People game share every day without it turning into a big deal. Here’s how:

To game share on your PS4, you have to determine which console you activate using your account. If you log into your friend’s account on your PS4, you can download all their games into your console. You can continue to play his/her games on your console after downloading, as long as you are logged into his account. The idea here is that the console your friend typically has his account on is his “primary console”. He can play his games without logging in every time, while you can log in to play them. This is because you can’t be logged into both your primary and non-primary console at the same time.

Note that you can enable only one other PS4 to use your account on. This means you can’t game share with more than one person at a time. If you do try to share with more than one account, yours could get banned.

If a user is caught using someone else’s account, with their login details, that would call for an account or console ban. So make sure that you don’t announce your doings in public, and you are good to go.

Many people game share so that they don’t have to spend tons of money on buying games. This isn’t ideally beneficial to Sony, so you must realize that Sony could ban your account  or permanently suspend you if they think it is necessary. As long as you use it sparingly, and restrict your account to only two systems, you’re not crossing the line.

HOW CAN YOU GAME SHARE?

As already highlighted, to borrow a friend’s game, you will need to login to your friend’s account on your console. After logging in, you will have to activate his/her account to use it. Thereafter, download the desired game from the Playstation Store. This game should have already been purchased by your friend.

Save the game into your console and now you can play it! Make sure that your friend’s user account stays on your Playstation. Without it, you will lose access to the games.

SHARE PLAY

It’s possible to share a gaming experience even without sharing your account details. However, this feature is exclusive to the PS4. Share play can’t be used to lend the game completely to your friend. However, it does let both of you play together regardless of whether your friend owns a copy or not. As long as the two of you own consoles, with Share play, you can let your friend watch you play, or even hand over the game controls to him. Share play also allows for a multi-player view and lets you play together.

It is required that you both have a PlayStation plus if you decide to go head-to-head with each other and utilize the multiplayer feature.

Conclusion

Game sharing is an incredibly useful technique and feature of the PSN that lets you and your friends have fun together without spending a fortune on games. Once again, the PlayStation’s remarkable features are brought to light. With game sharing, you can save yourself a little bit of money and also play some games that you might not have been able to before. 

With the updated version of game sharing you can only share your games with one other console but this will still allow two friends of family members to split the cost of the game ownership in half. 

In the future Sony could certainly change game sharing again or remove it entirely but as for now you can still game share although it is significantly limited compared to what it used to be.