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PlayStation (Games) Sony

Sony Mass-Bans Russian PlayStation Accounts (pravda.com.ua) 165

Sony has begun mass suspensions of PlayStation accounts linked to Russian users, including those registered in other countries like Turkiye and Kazakhstan, in an effort to crack down on circumvention of regional restrictions like PS Plus access. This move follows Sony's 2022 exit from the Russian market due to the war in Ukraine. Ukrainska Pravda reports: Russians are trying to bypass the blocks and are contacting PlayStation support, but these attempts are to no avail. Users with purchased accounts encounter the most problems -- Sony checks IP addresses for verification. There are already many similar reports. In some cases, accounts with thousands of roubles worth of games purchased have been blocked. Russian media outlets like RT are reporting the news.

Sony Mass-Bans Russian PlayStation Accounts

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  • And? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Monday May 19, 2025 @08:15PM (#65389011)
    Maybe Russia's gamers should tell their shit-eating KGB Pedophile President to get his dirty shitass troops out of the Sovereign Nation of Ukraine then. Fucking terrorist warmongering shitass country with an ego problem.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Bradac_55 ( 729235 )

      Sure they could, and then he would have them dig a pit, line them up in front if it and have his troops shoot them in the head just like China or Iran, or Saudi, or anywhere in Africa. Someone would come a few days later with a tractor and push them into the pit and cover it.

      You just happen to live in one of the few countries that isn't allowed to happen in or you would already be in the pit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Maybe Russia's gamers should

      Russian gamers — similar to most Russians — won't tell Putin any such thing. Not because they're afraid of Putin et al., but because they're in perfect alignment with Putin: they were bred on Russian propaganda and their heads are filled with the glory of Russia. When Putin took his shirt off and rode around on horse back, they all got moist down there and they're still rubbing themselves thinking about it. The fact that Russia can no longer imagine itself as the world power it once pretende

      • most Russians â" won't tell Putin any such thing. Not because they're afraid of Putin et al., but because they're in perfect alignment with Putin

        Hate to be the one to tell you, but the reign of fear is a real thing - just not in the comfortable, safe little world you inhabit

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      I understand the righteous outrage, but is there a lot of difference between the average ruzzkie who voted for putin because he "returned Crimea to the homeland" and the average Amurikhan who chose trump who wants to "return" to the "homeland" pieces of Panama and Greenland?

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        lol, the 'murrikan butthurt is so much like the butthurt of a ruzzkie when you ask them why they kept electing putin back when elections mattered.

        • lol, the 'murrikan butthurt is so much like the butthurt of a ruzzkie when you ask them why they kept electing putin back when elections mattered.

          America elected trump. I doubt russia has ever "elected" putin.

          • America elected trump.

            Allegedly. I believe that election was fair about as much as I believe Trump's doctor saying he had a 2cm hole in his ear.

    • Eat shit Russians.

  • Sony has never heard of VPNs?
    VPNs can only work by VPN having servers available in target countries, like the US or in Europe.
    Countries should simply block Russian IPs, thereby preventing VPN access in the process.
  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Monday May 19, 2025 @08:45PM (#65389073)

    Sony doing something I approve of is very disturbing...

  • Everyone in China have been watching all these sanctions applied to Russia, well aware that one day, the same and worse will be done to them.

    Hence the Chinese have been building their own version of everything that used to rely on other countries, most recently being their own PC OS, and the most notably their own chips.

    I guess we will be seeing their own gaming console in the next few years, and then Sony can say goodbye to the Chinese market.

    • This is a silly conclusion. A walled garden is the last thing they want in many areas. Instead they want their artistic works to be competitive international. Overall the gaming market in China is low value. They sell ripped games on Taobao and knockoff emulators of many old consoles. They have a few titles that are first class and they want those to sell overseas because they can be sold for 6 to 8x the market value price in China.

      China isn't worried you are going to take their vidya games...

      • by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Monday May 19, 2025 @10:15PM (#65389195)
        The last time the CCP paid a shit-ton of money to market a game as "first class" it was that giant steaming turd Black Myth Wukong. And then the CCP troll they sent to "get awards" had a hissy fit when it rightly didn't win any.
        • The last time the CCP paid a shit-ton of money to market a game as "first class" it was that giant steaming turd Black Myth Wukong. And then the CCP troll they sent to "get awards" had a hissy fit when it rightly didn't win any.

          I can't say whether it deserved GOTY, but the handful of people I personally know who played Wukong had good things to say about it (and I'm reasonably sure they weren't paid off by the CCP).

    • by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Monday May 19, 2025 @09:55PM (#65389175)
      The Soviet Union had its own computers too. They were super awesome- if you like piles of shit that were far, far, behind Western computers.

      Chinese CPUs are fucking lightyears away from Western parts.
      Their OS is a pile of shit- try it, though I bet the one that is a Ubuntu fork is decent, if you don't mind the fact that it's likely rooted to all fuck.

      China will definitely have its own game console running on all domestic parts. And it will fucking suck.
      They will also have one that kicks ass, but it'll be running Intel or AMD parts with RAM manufactured in Korea, and software that was 99% written everywhere except for China.
      It's not even that the Chinese aren't capable engineers. They are. Get them out of that country, and they're brilliant. There's just too much fucking corruption in anything that touches so many of its citizens, and a quasi-communist culture of swindling, cutting corners, and copying rather than innovating.
      It's tragic, really.
      So ya, it will suck for Sony to lose the Chinese market- but it'll suck for the Chinese even more.
      • There are several chinese linux distributions, being open source they can't be cut off by sanctions. Linux also provides support for several chinese processors. These distros are no worse than western ones - most of them are based on western ones with a few tweaks for the chinese language and defaulting to local search engines etc.

        The processors currently being produced in china may well be behind the cutting edge, but processors have been adequate for day to day use for years. The vast majority of users don't buy cutting edge equipment, they buy stuff slightly less powerful that's a lot cheaper. China is already more than capable of producing equipment of this level at a competitive price.

        Games consoles are not cutting edge hardware, they're a static target for several years. The chinese could easily produce something performance and pricing equivalent to a ps5.

        • Games consoles are not cutting edge hardware, they're a static target for several years.

          Consoles are supposed to be cutting edge when they come out. If your performance is worse than a used PC, guess what? There's a lot of games out for that PC.

          The chinese could easily produce something performance and pricing equivalent to a ps5.

          They might be able to do so, but it would be bigger and the fans would be louder. And if it's so easy, why haven't they done it already?

          • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Bigger and noisier fans won't deter people, especially if it's cheaper.

            The wii was not cutting edge when it came out, it still sold well.

            No recent consoles have been cutting edge on release, it's always been possible to build a more powerful computer. The console just packages things up into a convenient form with guaranteed compatibility and possibly a subsidised price because they expect to profit from the games rather than the hardware.

            • "The wii was not cutting edge when it came out, it still sold well."

              That's because the market consists of first place, second place, and Nintendo.

              The other consoles offer better price performance ratio than anything else the same price, so they are cutting edge for a budget device.

    • "their own gaming console"

      A chinese gaming console that is a PC is nothing new...
      If they can actually produce exclusive games and hardware worth playing on is something else, but then there is the issue of piracy.

  • Cutting off all connection points with the Russian population seems like a good way to make bridges more difficult to build in the future. I wonder if turning a blind eye to this wouldn't be a good strategy in the long term.

    • by robi5 ( 1261542 )

      Would you have supported Western companies selling entertainment products to the population of nazi Germany just to avoid burning bridges? Lol.

      • Do I think that every German during the war was a Nazi? No. Nor do I think that every Russian supports Putin. Leaders come and go.

  • So clever (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pele ( 151312 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @01:56AM (#65389497) Homepage

    What I see lately on here is loads of political commentators, keyboard warriors and social stuties graduates flaunting their "knowledge" of political situation around the world. I wonder what your mums and dads say about your constant internet use?

    Back to topic at hand.
    If Sony decided to flat out ban US gamers - who I assume paid for some subscription - we'd be seeing class action lawsuits left, right and center. What gives Sony the right to punish gamers for their presidents actions? From what I can see, it's the same logic as our friend Bibi saying "let's bomb palestinian kids to kingdom come because hamas!".

    • Re:So clever (Score:4, Informative)

      by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @04:58AM (#65389657)

      Well, first of all class action lawsuits don't exist in many jurisdictions. Second, russian gamers are unable to pay for the subscriptions anyway due to sanctions.

    • well its a murika throwing it's weight around insisting on world wide sanctions , secondly it would all be "but muh constipational rights - I'm a merkin' Im entitled to play\use that product!!"
    • What gives Sony the right to punish gamers for their presidents actions?

      The license agreement.

      From what I can see, it's the same logic as our friend Bibi saying "let's bomb palestinian kids to kingdom come because hamas!".

      Yes, cutting Russians off from games is just like blowing up children.

      • I didn't say it's the same, I said it's the same logic - i.e. kids have fsck all to do witg it. Literacy and logic are expensive these days...

        • I didn't say it's the same, I said it's the same logic

          The two situations are far enough removed from one another that this is nonsense. Sony removed itself from Russia because of sanctions due to Russian hostility. Israel's American-Citizen PM has bragged repeatedly about making sure that Hamas gets funded, the one situation is the opposite of the other — Sony is refusing to do business with Russia, Israel deliberately worked with Hamas to justify destruction of Palestine.

  • In 2022, Wargaming (originally based in Russia / Belarus) relocated to Cyprus avoid sanctions and relinquished all of the Russian servers & game client to original developers Lesta who remain in Russia. Games like World of Tanks/Warships/Airplanes basically forked and began running independently and have done so for 2 years. Unfortunately for Lesta, Wargaming ran some fundraising event for Ukrainian ambulances and the Russian government decided to seize Lesta's assets and prosecute the owner even though
    • It's kind of sad because the virtual tanks in World of Tanks are probably the only tanks Russia had left at this point.

      Nah. They have some WWII tanks so old and decrepit they don't even have reactive armor. They have the advantage that they function as a coffin for the entire crew when they are so much as sneezed on.

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @10:38AM (#65390381)

    Just ship the Russian accounts versions of the games where Putin is assasinated by his ogliarch buddies. And Russia gets their ass kicked by Ukraine.

What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth. -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics

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