PS5 Quietly Adds Feature We’ve Been Requesting for Years, Rejoice

Sony has finally added a feature to the PlayStation 5 that fans have been begging for since 2020, and it’s a massive step in the right direction for consumer rights.

Eagle-eyed PlayStation users have noticed that Sony stealthily dropped a little update to the PlayStation 5 over the past few days, although it seems that they’ve yet to advertise the new feature.

Of course, there might be a good reason for that; if they were to advertise it, Sony might suddenly find themselves dealing with a huge backlog of refund requests.

As spotted by one user over on the r/PlayStation subreddit, Sony has made a small change to the way refunds work on the PlayStation App.

Now, instead of having to wait god knows how long in a queue to talk to an agent, users can now simply click on their Transaction History, select any game, and request a refund.

However, it’s not just the PlayStation App that’s received this change. As stated on the official PlayStation website, the PS Store & Refunds page has been updated to reflect that these changes are also present on consoles too.

Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that Sony’s draconian refund policies will, more often than not, result in you not having your refund request approved… or does it?

Several users in the thread note that Sony has apparently “loosened” its refund policy recently.

Previously, you could only refund a game if it hadn’t been downloaded already– which is obviously a pretty stupid rule, because how would you know you need the game refunded if you haven’t played it yet?

A few users on r/PlayStation state that this is no longer the case, and that previously downloaded games can now in fact be refunded.

“I just tried it for a game I downloaded but didn’t play and it immediately accepted the refund,” commented user josh_the_jet.

“Apparently they loosened the rules. I just got a refund on a game I was actively playing at the time,” replied user TuggMaddick.

So, is this actually true?

I directly asked PlayStation support if this is now the case, and a human agent told me otherwise. Said agent outright stated that games that have previously been downloaded are not eligible for refunds, and directed me towards the PlayStation Store Refunds support page.

As stated in section 16.4.1 on the support page: “You will not be able to change your mind and cancel your digital content purchase once you begin to download the content…”

Now I’m not stating that the commenters in the thread are lying, because I think that would be an odd thing to make up, but I do wonder why they were granted refunds when Sony’s policy outright states that they wouldn’t be eligible for one.

Perhaps their refunds policy has yet to be updated following the update, or perhaps the refunds agents were simply feeling extra kind when they spoke to the folks on Reddit.

Either way, it seems like it’s worth pursuing refunds for previously downloaded games now– you just better hope that whoever looks over your request is in a good mood.