PlayStation Network's 'Welcome Back' content now available

by Ben Gilbert on Jun 3rd 2011 12:55PM

Sony is currently rolling out the content previously detailed in its "Welcome Back" package in North America. A post on the US PlayStation Blog details as much, and dishes out a lengthy FAQ on the offerings. First and foremost, if you weren't a PlayStation Network user before April 20, 2011, you're out of luck.

For the rest of us, PS3 owners can choose two free games from a list of five, while PSP owners can choose two free games from a list of four. To do so, head to the PlayStation Store and then to the "Welcome Back" area where you'll see the selection of titles (seen above).

There's also a new free version of PlayStation Plus, which is the one free month everyone gets as part of the "Welcome Back" program. And finally, the promised free "On Us" films are also currently being offered, and will remain so throughout the coming weekend. You'll have one month to grab your free games and other content, as the Welcome Back tab will disappear after July 3, 2011.

PlayStation Plus users will automatically have 60 extra days added to their subscriptions, Sony says. And though no details have yet been provided, "posts over the coming days" will apparently explain how the past month of missing content will be added to PSN.

Update: The European "Welcome Back" content is now also rolling out, according to the EU PlayStation Blog.

Update 2: As you might expect, things are a tad bumpy (especially on the PSP side of things, which isn't even showing a "Welcome Back" option for us), so maybe waiting an hour or two would be a good idea.

Update 3: If you can't get your free games even though you used to be able to see them, we've got the fix from the EU PS Blog after the break!

I no longer have the option to choose my free Welcome Back games. What can I do?

If you navigate away from the Welcome Back section of the store without choosing your free games or exit the store completely you may need to follow the below in order to choose and download your free games. On your PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable navigate to the PlayStation Network icon on the XMB Log into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List Choose "PlayStation Network Promotions" from the list of services displayed Select either "PS3 Free Games" or "PSP Free Games" and then choose "Select Content"

You will be taken to the store to choose your remaining free games.

Source: US PlayStation Blog, EU PlayStation Blog

Tags: europe, european-union, north-america, playstation, playstation-store, ps3, psn, psn-outage-2011, psp, sony, welcome-back

Reader Comments (251)

Curses.. Fridays at work just Draaaag on and on...

@wookiehole It only gets worse after lunch. I haven't hit lunchtime yet.

@Faceless Troll

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

British dude here, our welcome package is up too.

@wookiehole is it 4pm yet?

@wookiehole

A heads up for anyone who might have had problems with the store kicking out out before you ha a chance to choose a game...

"If this happened, go to the XMB and under the PlayStation Network column, go to Account Management>Transaction Management>Services List>SCEA Promotions to download the game for that first slot."

Taken from a reply on the PSBlog.

I tried downloading and got nothing but errors and lock-ups.

If you can get through to the redemption part it just says something about the item not being available and throws more errors.

Good old Sony, everything I expected and more.

@jsx
I take it you never download anything from Steam when they have a crazy good sale?

@PointlessPuppies Sorry, but I don't consider Steam a beacon of excellence to compare quality of service to. There's plenty of higher-demand material on the internet and cloud scaling solves those issues when competent IT staff are present.

How many people do you think stream Netflix without issue? This is unacceptable from a technical and technological standpoint, and it's caused by the same problems that lead to Sony getting hacked in the first place.

As a consumer, I don't mind having to hit X a thousand times before Infamous finally downloads, and I did, but if I was CTO of Sony I'd feel embarrassed and ashamed.

@wookiehole
This should help you get threw work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

@Faceless Troll

food coma is the worst

@jsx

Funny, i think you should feel embarrassed and ashamed anyway. Go figure.

@jsx

I'm sure if everyone on Netflix streamed the same 4-5 movies it would cause problems.

@jsx

"Sorry, but I don't consider Steam a beacon of excellence to compare quality of service to. There's plenty of higher-demand material on the internet and cloud scaling solves those issues when competent IT staff are present.

How many people do you think stream Netflix without issue? This is unacceptable from a technical and technological standpoint, and it's caused by the same problems that lead to Sony getting hacked in the first place."

Why would you not consider Steam to be a "beacon of excellence"? Their whole business model relies on digital downloads and they have millions of global customers.

As for Netflix, imagine if they offered a choice of 5 movies and you got to KEEP 2 of those movies for free? It would probably suffer more than PSN, as Netflix relies much more heavily on streaming.

And I have no idea what you are trying to do by linking these errors with the PSN hacking. They are not caused by the same problem: one was caused by too many people trying to access a service all at once, whereas the other was caused by hackers who were allegedly unhappy about the removal of a feature and/or the treatment of Geohotz.

YES!

@ShokLoc Does any one know if media go is set for an update soon? Id rather not attempt to get 2 games and a movie off of a psp that uses a wireless "B" card when I have my PC running an "N" card on my LAN. Besides the matter of before the hacker thing happened, It would reset my connection because it took too long to download god of war (1.2gb).

@ShokLoc

What are the 5 free games? i can only see 2 of them in the picture.

@HedonisticKai Wipeout HD( and Fury DLC), inFamos, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Nation and Super Stardust HD are the games for the US.

@ShokLoc

ahh thanks, at work, cant access my PS3 right now =)

Damnit. I just left the house.

Yah, lets hope I can get all the games using the multiple accounts I have!

@DericLee

you have multiple US accounts? Why?

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi

Multiple personality disorder?

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi
Some people have more than one user in their place

@DericLee I bet its only per console.

@LEONLEONLEON

It better not be. Both me and my wife lost our personal information (and possibly credit card info) so I think it would be fair that we get 2 games each.

@harusame
I just got my 4 games. I own a ps3 and pspGo, so I downloaded LBP & Wipeout HD for the ps3 and LBP & Modnation Racers for the pspGo.It took some time though , multiple psn timeouts, but all in all, I got what I needed.
Thank you sony.

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi
You don't!? You have a wife and kids, I would expect you of all people to have more than one account.

@harusame

I can now confirm that it's two PS3 and/or PSP games per account. The Store is a real pain to use right now but after a bucketload of errors we finally managed to get the free games for both of our accounts. I think I'll wait until next week before downloading them though.

DAMN YOU PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT!!!

I probably shouldn't even bother trying to download today. The network is probably already clogged.

@MLS

Yeah, I'm waiting until after the weekend to download anything.
Free InFamous! Niiiiice.

@Uncle Jesse

exactly! i missed out on it being $10 at Best Buy. but free is even better. and just in time for the sequel on Tuesday too!

@MLS

amen brother...

... Downloading my games come monday prob when all kids are in school and all grown ups are at work.

@MLS I can't even login. Still getting the damn "down for maintenance" message.

Getting errors. I'd wait a bit, for after the rush.

@LivingDream

you will be waiting until Monday...maybe longer with the constant updates next week

Assuming it's not hacked before then and taken down (again). Ugh I hope not.....damn hackers, leave us alone. Take your plight elsewhere, I just want to play my games!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just in time for the weekend. Well done, Sony. Let's hope their servers can handle the load...

@ilduce620 No they can't.. already back down for maintenance in the EU

I'm in California. It's pretty bad. I have trouble logging into PSN at all. Then the PS Store is more difficult. Going to wait

Persistance. I fought my way through a small army of 87020002 errors to get my Dead Nation and Fury.

I live in europe and it was available, then it went down :/ managed to download killzone and then it errored out

Well...Dead nation and the 2 PSP games I dont have are getting downloaded in a few hours....

hopefully it doesnt take all day...

Live in Europe too

@Shadow Hog

I'd rather have that then them releasing articles like they did before stating "available when the PSN Store is back up and running", 2 articles AFTER the one stating the PSN Store was back up and running.

maybe it was just user error, but the method of choosing the free games is not very good or something. I clicked on "Free PS3 Game 1", and clicked 'get now' and never was able to pick a game and now the "Free PS3 Game 1" is not listed anymore as if I downloaded a game, but it never did... nothing in my download list either. wtf

@Mickfo I'm having the same problem, you're not the only one. This is BS

@konicki829

Wow, good thing SONY did all that "final testing" yesterday. The "Free PS3 Game 2" worked fine though. I got infamous downloaded.

@Mickfo

Same here. I now have no options to get anything at all because it disappeared.

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PlayStation Network's 'Welcome Back' content now available

Reader Comments (251)

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:57PM wookiehole said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:00PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:03PM Jon Anderson said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:08PM Rob Liv said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:20PM SAVL said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:50PM NinjaJesus said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:53PM jsx said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:55PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:43PM jsx said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:45PM mcnichoj said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:48PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:49PM Juelz345 said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 3:34PM draknahr said

Posted: Jun 4th 2011 12:04PM brotherfranciz said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:59PM ShokLoc said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:30PM JackAttacKania said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 3:27PM HedonisticKai said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 3:31PM ShokLoc said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 4:20PM HedonisticKai said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:59PM InDurdenWeTrust said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:59PM DericLee said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:01PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:12PM ceetheman said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:16PM Prince David said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:27PM LEONLEONLEON said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:52PM harusame said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 5:02PM onslaughtree said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 6:15PM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 6:54PM harusame said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 12:59PM Shockwave said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:00PM MLS said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:21PM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:55PM Gashlycrumb said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:03PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 2:26PM xkaosu9x said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:00PM LivingDream said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:03PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:08PM zero2dash said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:01PM ilduce620 said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:31PM Mazrael said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:40PM syrik zero said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:57PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:01PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:02PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:02PM Helghast102 said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:03PM Shockwave said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:05PM Mickfo said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:06PM konicki829 said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:10PM Mickfo said

Posted: Jun 3rd 2011 1:13PM InkSix said

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