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PSN is the worst major digital store

What is the worst mainline digital store?

  • Total voters
    100
LakeOf9

LakeOf9

Member
It's shocking how bad the PSN Store is – I saw some comparisons online, and apparently this is now the worst digital storefront for games available, worse than Steam, obviously, worse than Xbox, yes, and worse than even eShop, somehow:
  • Lacks refunds (Steam, Xbox both have this)
  • Lacks gifting (Steam, Xbox both have this)
  • Lacks the ability to change regions (Steam, Xbox, eShop all have this)
  • Lacks support for 130+ countries (Lower than Steam, Xbox, eShop)
  • Lacks region pricing (Worse than Steam, Xbox, eShop)
  • Lacks developer side controls for setting and managing discounts (Worse than Steam, Xbox, eShop)
  • Lacks game lending (Steam, eShop both have this)
  • Only store with per-user dynamic pricing (Steam, Xbox, eShop all lack this)
  • Extremely buggy with multiple features broken and going unaddressed for months or often years (the wishlist has been broken for months; PS+ redemptions overwriting purchases has been a problem for years)
  • Extremely poor security – reports of accounts being hacked through simple social engineering via customer support, with no ability to regain them once lost (much worse than Steam, Xbox, eShop)
Is PSN the worst major digital store?
 
When you compare it to Steam it is shockingly bad. And somehow still the only store where you can't change regions. Even Nintendo of all companies have that.
 
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You can add poor performance as game tiles can take ages to load which is very reminiscent of the Switch 1 eShop prior to its' very recent update. On the plus side, they finally added the ability to self cancel pre-orders.
 
If I want to search for something on PSN I use a fan created search website. Trying to find something using my PlayStation is slow and does not have great results.
 
bender said:
You can add poor performance as game tiles can take ages to load which is very reminiscent of the Switch 1 eShop prior to its' very recent update. On the plus side, they finally added the ability to self cancel pre-orders.
Click to expand...
You couldn't cancel pre-orders on PSN?
Ryan Reynolds Ugh GIF by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
 
My only complaint is the search function sucks.

Do they sell search function priority to publishers for extra money or something? I will type a games SPECIFIC NAME in the search function and there's still several games ahead of it and I have to click on "view more" to see what I actually want.
 
Magic Carpet said:
I'm waiting for reports of some people paying more than others for the same thing before deciding.
Click to expand...

I've seen claims of getting worse discounts than logged out, but not sure if that is actually true or not.

And yeah I've had problems with signing into PSN from my laptop.
 
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Dude, they took YEARS before putting screenshots or trailers for the games when they updated the store. And the online store is still lacking. They are trash.
 
I thought Sony allowed an 8 hour grace period for digital returns like Steam?
Edit: It might be 2 hours (sounds more reasonable)
 
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Never had an issue with PSN myself. It's the Nintendo E shop that grinds my gears. Shit to navigate and looks like ass, as well as being slow AF.
 
winjer said:
Steam is the best by far.
Worse, EA store or the Ubisoft store.
Click to expand...

Xbox PC app takes the cake from what I've seen. It would sometimes refuse to even install gamepass games. And you have to update it through the windows app client. Just an absolutely dreadful piece of software.

EGS, Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar clients are at least functional just barebones.

But I haven't had gamepass in like 2 or 3 years so maybe it's changed.
 
Yup... it sucks. I have been on PSN forever, and to this day I cannot tell anyone where anything is or how to find anything. Every single time I go on there, it seems alien to me, never familiar, and that is the first clear sign of a badly designed interface/storefront, and its hyper unintuitive; nothing seems to be where you would think it would be.
 
It's lacked a lot of those since the PS3 days. It's also built on loose sand. Like I pointed out last week, it took years to implement PSN ID change.

I'm curious about your own personal experience with these - not just a feature comparison table you saw online. Because if you've spent any time trying to buy anything on the e-shop and still come away thinking the PS Store is worse, then... I don't want to say you're crazy, but I'd like to hear what about the UX of browsing, inspecting, purchasing is better on e-shop.
 
the switch and switch 2 eshop is absolute horseshit and worse by a large country mile.

I Get we are all mad now because they took mah discs...

but boy people are being a bit silly here.

all of the online stores besides steam are utter wank.
 
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what can you do when you agree to the terms and agreements on a digital purchase that all sales are final, no refunds/exchanges allowed, and we(Sony) can remove/revoke access at anytime
 
PSN is the worst

I would argue that Nintendo is better than Xbox - it is faster and less annoying to use at least

Steam is the gold standard
 
IDKFA said:
Never had an issue with PSN myself. It's the Nintendo E shop that grinds my gears. Shit to navigate and looks like ass, as well as being slow AF.
Click to expand...
E-shop on Switch 2 is great. Starts up fast loads images pretty quickly as well. Gone are the Switch 1 slow webpage days.
 
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StueyDuck said:
the switch and switch 2 eshop is absolute horseshit and worse by a large country mile.

I Get we are all mad now because they took mah discs...

but boy people are being a bit silly here.

all of the online stores besides steam are utter wank.
Click to expand...
There is literally an objective list of features supported right there in the OP. PSN is the worst. Without question.
 
Wtf, I voted Steam accidentally when it is the best one. Ofc it is PSN. At least Steam and Nintendo know where my region is.
 
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You need to be a PS Plus subscriber to get many of the launch / preorder discounts that are available on all the other platforms to everyone.

It's a small one sure, but another on a long list.
 
Xbox console store is 'ok' but woe unto you if you buy something on the Xbox Windows store on PC. Updates get updated through a different app that you can't see on the xbox page.
MS Windows still has not changed that. Fix it Helix.
 
Its the microsoft store for windows. I dont know how MS fucked this so bad to the point a 100mb app one time took me more than 30 mins to download.
 
LakeOf9 said:
There is literally an objective list of features supported right there in the OP. PSN is the worst. Without question.
Click to expand...
A list of features is just a list of features.

I could show you a list of features for 2 similar cars, and still come away thinking the one with missing features in comparison drives better.

It's why I'm asking about your own experience instead of a random comparison table.
 
Loomy said:
A list of features is just a list of features.

I could show you a list of features for 2 similar cars, and still come away thinking the one with missing features in comparison drives better.

It's why I'm asking about your own experience instead of a random comparison table.
Click to expand...
My personal experience is that all the console stores suck and are miserable to use, at which point support for basic functionality is how I judge and differentiate them, which was why i was focusing on those.

But if you ask me the experience of using the stores, I would say Steam>Xbox>Switch 2 eShop>PSN>Switch 1 eShop
 
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