Five. Five is many things. It is a number, a time, an address, and the price of a foot long sandwich at Subway. Five is also the number of PS3s that you are allowed to have your PSN account active on at any one time. This may at first seem reasonable, but allow me to shed some (yellow) light on this subject and show just how unreasonable I believe it is.

If your prized PS3 suddenly gets the YLOD (yellow light of death). And you do not have it repaired, you lose that activation. But you still have four, no big deal right? Wrong!

What if you had two PS3s in your home, which I did for while, and then sold one. If you did not deactivate your account prior to selling it, that’s another one gone. And before you go calling me a n00b for not deleting my account, I did. But I did not deactivate it, which is different. Problem is, only the fine folks at SCEA know about this deactivation voodoo ritual, not the consumers. Sure there are instructions on how to do it on the interwebs, but if you didn’t know anything about it, you wouldn’t know to search for it.

So, I am down to three activations left. One of those is in use on my current console, another  was on my cousins PS3, and the fifth activation was at a friends house from a visit. I deleted my account before I leaving the friend’s house, but I didn’t know a damn thing about this deactivation crap.

I was able to deactivate my account on my cousins PS3, and I’m gonna have my friend re-create my account so he can deactivate it for me on his PS3. So, I am back to having two remaining activations. Hopefully that will be enough, but should I have to ration them as if they were the last two peanut M&M’s on the bus ride to the fat farm?

I called SCEA about my plight and asked them to kindly deactivate my two deceased PS3’s. The CS Rep acted as if I was trying to pull something on him, but said he would forward my request to support. I asked if this would affect my current PS3, and he said no that they only deactivate PS3s that have not shown any recent activity.

The following day I received an email from the lovely folks at SCEA stating;

“Thank you for your recent call to Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) Consumer Services.  We are unable to process your request to deactivate your system and/or process your request for Video Re-download on the PlayStation® Network.

Account holders can activate their PSN account with a maximum of: Five (5) PS3™ and PSP™ systems for Game Content and One (1) PS3 and up to Three (3) PSP's for Video Content.”

It went on to explain how to deactivate an account on a PS3. Aww, how thoughtful.

I called SCEA back the next day to inquire as to why my request was not processed. The woman I spoke with informed me that she was not authorized to provide that information. Not authorized?! I’m not asking for the secret recipe of Pepsi, so that I can make my own in the backyard! I just want to know why they won’t deactivate my consoles that failed for no good reason.

I asked The Gatekeeper if I could speak with the Gozer. She happily placed me back on hell hold. After several minutes of doo-doo-doo-doody-plop,  the phone was answered by Bubbles, SCEA’s resident script reading monkey.

I explained to Bubbles the purpose of my call. He told me that the reason my request was not processed was because, because, (he said it twice, not me) I did not send those consoles in to be serviced by them, that they don’t deactivate based on a customers word, only when they are sent in for service, and that I still had activations remaining.

I told Bubbles that I didn’t understand why I had to send my console in and pay $150 to have my account deactivated. I further explained that I had taken one console apart to get the game out, and bought a used PS3 to replace it. Sticking to his script he told me that since I had taken the PS3 apart that it would no longer be eligible for service and that they would be unable to deactivate it. Yes, he actually said [read] that to me! That’s why I didn’t send it in you JackHole, I did not say.

Bubbles continued on with his script and said that the reason they give five activations is in the event that something should happen to your console you will have remaining activations. He went on to say that in the highly unlikely event that all five were used you would have to send a console in to be deactivated. I happily pointed out that I am almost half way through my allotment already, so it isn’t all that unlikely.

Bubbles then tells me that the reason that they can’t deactivate the consoles is due to copyright agreements. I told him that I don’t gameshare, and that I leave my account on my cousins and brothers consoles so I can access my content when I use those consoles. Captain Obvious Bubbles goes on to say that my content is for my console and not their consoles. He said that if I want to access my content on another console I am to activate my account, download the content, use the content, delete the content, and then deactivate the account. How very friggin consumer friendly that is.

Allow me to take this moment to explain something to you SCEA. I didn’t design the PS3, you did. It is not my fault that when I am logged off that a user on the same machine can access the content that I paid for under their account. If you are so concerned about copyright agreements, why wouldn’t you make it so only the account that downloaded the content can access the content! Well?! Why not?! FFS!

I am not alone with this problem. There are actually PS3 owners you can’t access the Playstation Store because SCEA wont deactivate their dead,lost, and stolen consoles.

On Playstation.Blog Share there is a suggestion that consumers be able to go online and deactivate their accounts themselves. There have been over 6,000 votes in favor of this.

There is also an online petition going asking SCEA to address this issue; http://www.petitiononline.com/PS3HeLp/ , I beg you to sign it.

After several RRODs I switched to PS3 three years ago, and have never regretted it, until now. I didn’t watch the Superbowl this year, but I did leave work early so I could watch the Sony Press Conference at E3 (on TV). I have convinced almost all of my gaming friends to switch to PS3 from 360, and all but one has happily stuck with PS3. I even bought PSN Plus the day it came out. I was a loyal PS3 fan, but now I am not so sure. Please remedy this Sony, cause the new 360 is looking mighty sweet, and then I could get Crackdown 2, ooh boy.

Seriously, Supafuzz