Question Account sharing in household...dedicated thread?

Qactuar

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Okay so looking at a second PS4, how does the account "share" work? I know plenty on here but digital games and split the cost and use a shared login, but didn't see any surviving discussion.

My question is this:
If you sasy, split the cost of FIFA or Battlefront, can you both play at the same time? If so, I assume not against each other? Or in same game?

Ta in advance!
 
Yeah you can both play at the same time and against each other. I do game share for the Xbox with someone on here and for the PS4 with my son. Every game I buy on the PS4 he gets on his PS4 and we can play multiplayer together. The last games we did that with were BLOPS3 and SW Battlefront and it works great.
 
Good idea to keep this in one place. A question I have Cas, can you both access all digtal content on both PS4's? Online access and all..
 
Yeah you can both play at the same time and against each other. I do game share for the Xbox with someone on here and for the PS4 with my son. Every game I buy on the PS4 he gets on his PS4 and we can play multiplayer together. The last games we did that with were BLOPS3 and SW Battlefront and it works great.
What do I need to do for the second PS4 - secondary account? And I assume it won't be my PSN id in the game twice as second PS4 logs in with their own account?
 
And I presume it isn't an IP address lock etc?
 
You need to make the console you're not using the primary account for your PSN account and download your digital library to it logged in as you. Then anyone else can login and use all your content, including PS+.

You just login to the other PS4 and do the same, it's secondary, but you have access to your library. However, I don't believe anyone else's login would have access to the content on the secondary PS4, but that's my question to Cas..
 
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Whatever machine is set as your primary, everyone on that machine can play your content (signed in as their own accounts) as well as use your plus I believe (only for playing online).

You yourself would then have to sign into your own account on the second console which will not be your primary console. You will have access to all your stuff only.

Unless someone sets their account up on that too and sets that as their primary machine. Then you will be able to access everything they have.

There were threads but they would get closed down because it was thought to be breaking T&C but I believe family sharing is encouraged.
 
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What do I need to do for the second PS4 - secondary account? And I assume it won't be my PSN id in the game twice as second PS4 logs in with their own account?
Yes, my son has a sub account with his own PSN ID etc. so he just signs in on that and can download the game to his PS4 from the library. I also have a third account where I download stuff from Canada, so he also uses that account to play online for games I buy in Canada. All games I buy on my account, or my Canadian account can also be downloaded and used on my normal PSN.
 
Good idea to keep this in one place. A question I have Cas, can you both access all digtal content on both PS4's? Online access and all..
Yes, you can access everything. Any game I buy on my account, my son can access on his PS4, play online with that game and access all DLC. Makes digital distribution an absolute no brainer for me and as a result, i've not bought a physical title since the launch of the console. If I had bought say Battlefront, COD etc. on physical, then i'd have either had to buy two copies (if I wanted to play online with my son) or at best, he'd always be borrowing my discs!
 
There were threads but they would get closed down because it was thought to be breaking T&C but I believe family sharing is encouraged.

Strange that they were shut down and i'm not sure why, as it's an advertised and fully legal feature of the console. I'll certainly be leaving this one open.

I must say that i'm surprised that anyone still buys physical games these days. I guess the only situation where physical is still even an option is if you don't have another family member or a friend you trust, who plays games. You effectively get two copies of every game you buy. Yes I know that they aren't 'owned' by the other person and if the game share is severed, then access is lost, but typically older games can be picked up for peanuts in sales anyway (if you wanted to re buy them).
 
Yes, you can access everything. Any game I buy on my account, my son can access on his PS4, play online with that game and access all DLC. Makes digital distribution an absolute no brainer for me and as a result, i've not bought a physical title since the launch of the console. If I had bought say Battlefront, COD etc. on physical, then i'd have either had to buy two copies (if I wanted to play online with my son) or at best, he'd always be borrowing my discs!

Thanks Cas, that part I'm clear on, but I'm not sure if that answers my question, (it may do with your first line). Can your son access all the content on your PS4 from his sub account? TBH, this isn't so relevant for us now, but we have a scenario where if I got a second PS4, my lad may need to use both at some point, mainly his own, but may need to use mine..
 
Strange that they were shut down and i'm not sure why, as it's an advertised and fully legal feature of the console. I'll certainly be leaving this one open.
I think at the time is was more threads of people looking for a sharing partner that were closed although I do recall game sharing threads of some sort being culled but it was a while ago. There has been chat of all this in other threads that have stayed so perhaps the stance has changed. A couple of game sharing threads come up in a search that aren't closed.
 
Thanks Cas, that part I'm clear on, but I'm not sure if that answers my question, (it may do with your first line). Can your son access all the content on your PS4 from his sub account? TBH, this isn't so relevant for us now, but we have a scenario where if I got a second PS4, my lad may need to use both at some point, mainly his own, but may need to use mine..
Ah sorry, I get you. He can't directly access stuff from the other PS4, but if he signs on then his online record etc. would be there. I guess he could also download the cloud save to the other console as all saves are held in the cloud these days. I must say that it's never something that's come up with me as he just 'acquired' my old PS4 and uses that all the time and I use mine. In fact I haven't even put his account on my new one.
 
Thanks Cas, that part I'm clear on, but I'm not sure if that answers my question, (it may do with your first line). Can your son access all the content on your PS4 from his sub account? TBH, this isn't so relevant for us now, but we have a scenario where if I got a second PS4, my lad may need to use both at some point, mainly his own, but may need to use mine..

You can swap and change which PS4 is your primary at your leisure, so you can both access whatever you need as long as you have the right PS4 set up as primary at the time.

From what you are saying your son's PS4 would need to be set up as primary for when he is using your PSN games on that, but if he needs to use your PS4 for any reason you can just swap the primary over and he can use that instead...

Hope this helps
 
I did have sharing set up on PS4 for a few months, while cheaper it wasn't half as cheap as on Xbox so only gameshare on there now.

My main problem was I kept getting locked out of games all the darn time, I'd go to play a game and there would be a padlock on it stopping me from playing. Sometimes I'd be playing a game and a message would pop up saying I would be kicked out of the game in 15 minutes. I realised in coincided with whenever PSN was having issues or was down for maintenance that it couldn't verify that I had rights to play the games, drove my bonkers as PSN was having issues very regularly.

Also because my machine wasn't the primary for my account anymore I lost some plus features, like the console wasn't sending my saves to the cloud. Gameshare partner didn't have any problems but I couldn't put up with it.
 
Cheers, I don't think it would become an issue for us anymore, but good call on swapping primary.

Whenever I've had issues with locked games, a restore of licences does the trick. I've seen an increase in stability on PSN year on year to the point I don't consider it anymore, hopefully this is a sign that the PS+ investment is working..
 
You can swap and change which PS4 is your primary at your leisure, so you can both access whatever you need as long as you have the right PS4 set up as primary at the time.

From what you are saying your son's PS4 would need to be set up as primary for when he is using your PSN games on that, but if he needs to use your PS4 for any reason you can just swap the primary over and he can use that instead...

Hope this helps

You shouldn't need to swap.

In the scenario where I have two consoles in the house one for me and one for my son. Assuming I am the main account holder and PS+ subscriber.

1. Son's main console. My account is primary on this console. All other users accounts on this console get the benefits of my account

2. My main console. My account is not primary but I log on here and get all benefits from my account. No other user on this console gets the benefit of my account.

If you were doing a game share with a friend not in your house then the only difference is that they would make console 2 their primary.
 
You shouldn't need to swap.

In the scenario where I have two consoles in the house one for me and one for my son. Assuming I am the main account holder and PS+ subscriber.

1. Son's main console. My account is primary on this console. All other users accounts on this console get the benefits of my account

2. My main console. My account is not primary but I log on here and get all benefits from my account. No other user on this console gets the benefit of my account.

If you were doing a game share with a friend not in your house then the only difference is that they would make console 2 their primary.

Exactly, so for your son to play on your console you would need to make it your primary, which is how I understood his question???

He is fine while he is playing on his console (your primary) but if he wants to access your psn games on your console on his own account you would need to swap the primary console
 
Exactly, so for your son to play on your console you would need to make it your primary, which is how I understood his question???

He is fine while he is playing on his console (your primary) but if he wants to access your psn games on your console on his own account you would need to swap the primary console

Yes that's correct but given that he can already access my games on his console he can blooming well keep his stinking mitts of my console :p
 
Yes that's correct but given that he can already access my games on his console he can blooming well keep his stinking mitts of my console :p

That's fair enough, I was just responding to a scenario that was posted :thumbsup:
 
I did have sharing set up on PS4 for a few months, while cheaper it wasn't half as cheap as on Xbox so only gameshare on there now.

My main problem was I kept getting locked out of games all the darn time, I'd go to play a game and there would be a padlock on it stopping me from playing. Sometimes I'd be playing a game and a message would pop up saying I would be kicked out of the game in 15 minutes. I realised in coincided with whenever PSN was having issues or was down for maintenance that it couldn't verify that I had rights to play the games, drove my bonkers as PSN was having issues very regularly.

Also because my machine wasn't the primary for my account anymore I lost some plus features, like the console wasn't sending my saves to the cloud. Gameshare partner didn't have any problems but I couldn't put up with it.
I must say that me and my son have never had most of those issues on PS4 and have been game sharing for several months now. I game share on both consoles and don't really find one cheaper than the other if i'm honest. I tend to buy most PS4 games from Canada and my Xbox games from whichever region is cheapest but generally new releases tend to work out around £30-£35 on both platforms.

The automatic save uploading thing is one to be aware of as I got caught out on this. When I bought my new PS4, I played around 30 hours of MGS5 on it and then decided to swap the HDD. Assuming that my save was in the cloud, I wiped the old HDD and used it on my Xbox. I then realised that the MGS5 save had only been saved locally. It's therefore worth uploading saves manually every now and again.

I'd say that it is a slightly better system on the XB1, but it's certainly worth doing on the PS4 as well.
 
Cheers, I don't think it would become an issue for us anymore, but good call on swapping primary.

Whenever I've had issues with locked games, a restore of licences does the trick. I've seen an increase in stability on PSN year on year to the point I don't consider it anymore, hopefully this is a sign that the PS+ investment is working..
Agreed, I think that the days of Live being the better infrastructure are now gone. I notice zero difference between playing online on either platform now. Like you say, with the PS+ subs and the investment in servers etc. they have caught up.
 
Cheers for all the replies. I think all my questions are answered but I am 100% happy with this thread remaining open.

It certainly explains the very pricey digital games if there's almost an expectation of being used twice!
 
OK, after reading this might get a 2nd PS4 now. Tired of moving the one I have and some of the bundles look great value

Useful thread - cheers
 

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