PSN China Store visited!

As PS4 and PS Vita officially launched March 20th in Mainland China, a new PS Store has been opened as well. Apparently Chinese PS4 is only digitally region-locked, and no region lock for physical bluray games as reported by Tech in Asia. The same site also reported that all universal PS4 console is capable to access China PSN store.

And with Sony opens of a new PSN store, this mean for us cross-region gamers, a new store with completely different offering has been added as an option, but is it really worth it? Let's check it out.

First thing you need to know is that PSN China is devoid from any PS3 contents. No games, no themes, no add-ons, nothing for PS3 as the console is still, under Chinese law, illegal in China. So for PS3 gamers, you are permitted to lose interest at this moment.

Next, there are only a tiny amount of games selection. PS4 users can buy Knack, Trials Fusion and Rayman Legends for 199 Yuan each ($32.1) which is quite expensive. The only game that catches our attention and is unavailable anywhere else is the local-made Mr. Pumpkin Adventure, which is quite a beautiful game, but we don't know how it will play. It is a lot cheaper than the other 3 games at 38 Yuan ($6.1).

Vita users only have Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD (Chinese version) and Rayman Legends at around $30 each as well. The local-made game One Tap Hero is not yet available to purchase.

Only a tiny selection of PS4 and PSVita themes. At least all of them are free.

Now this is the only thing that you PS4 users can take advantage of, only if you are interested. There is a free MOBA game King of Wushu (九阳神功) weighted at 2.5GB, which we don't know how it will play. And probably it is all in Chinese. The graphic itself though, judging from the screenshot, may not be that bad.

For this moment only PS Vita has apps, Network Media Player and Skype. We are sure we won't see YouTube app for PS4 as it is blocked in China.

We quick checked the PlayStation Plus section, and there are no Instant Game Collection for China PSN members yet. The fee for membership in USD is, in the same order as the screenshot above: $33.6 / $11.1 / $4.7. These are quite cheap and on par with Asian PSN PS Plus membership fee.

At this moment, there are only three method to top-up: Visa Credit Cards (China-issued), Alipay and UnionPay Card. So unless you have one of those, you might have no chance to purchase anything from China PS Store as they have no prepaid card yet.

All in all, there are currently nothing you can gain from Chinese PSN. Unless if you want to try King of Wushu, I have no idea what other uses for you to take advantage from. Nevertheless, we will keep this PSN on our watch for interesting deals.

  

If you'd like to visit the store on your PC by yourself, click here.

If you are wondering how to create a Chinese PSN account, read our guide here.

For now, let's go back to the land of US/UK/HK/JP PSN.

Deals currently ongoing:

1. Spring Fever Week #3 in US PSN
2. Some updates in UK/HK/JP PSN.
3. WWE, Metro franchise, and God of War games sale live in UK/EU PSN.
4. PS4 game deals and Rockstar games on sale in UK PSN.
5. Get one year of PS4 online multiplayer for only US$29.99. HK PSN account required.
6. Play the addictive free game Fat Princess: Piece of Cake on your Vita or smartphone, finish level 15 and get the PS3 game Fat Princess free for life, available for US/UK/HK PSN account holder.
7. As an addition to the official IGC, Uncharted 3 is re-offered as IGC for UK PSN Plus members. Not available on US/HK/JP PSN.
8. Final Fantasy XIV (PS4/PS3) free to play for 14 days in UK and US PSN. 
9. Sing popular song in English, or perhaps even Anime/Game songs and K-POPs at affordable price. Read our guide for Joysound TV Plus. You need Japanese PSN top-ups for this service.

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GUIDE: How to create a China (CN) PSN account.

March 20th, 2015 onward, a whole new PSN Store for Mainland China has been added. The store is new so there are not a lot of contents there yet, however, probably you may have various reasons to check how to create of even creating Chinese PSN account for yourself, and now we have made this guide for you to follow, to create yourself a Chinese PSN account, that you can use on your PS4 and Vita (not available to PS3 users). Let's go!

Before you continue, you need these ingredients:

• One email address of your own (don't use other's, seriously), preferably not GMail since it is blocked in China. If you have to create one, we suggest to use the formula: username_CN. Where CN is the two letters to represent China.
• One alphanumerical password, if you already have other PSN account, just use the same password.
• A Chinese address, which you can get from our previous guide. Check it out first.

Now after you have your email and Chinese address ready. Let's go creating your CN PSN account.

Open any PSN Store or just click this link. You can create Chinese PSN account straightly from any PSN region.

You will see PSN store just like above. If you are logged in, you need to log yourself out first. If you are not logged in yet, skip this.

Click Create Account on top right part.

 Fill the essential information first, since they will be converted automatically into Chinese format to save you some headache. After that, choose China from the drop-down country/region list.

 Bam! Welcome to the land of Chinese characters. No more English. Chinese call those characters Hanzi, but we still exclusively use Kanji to refer them. Anyway, you need to click the second drop-down list, and choose the Prefecture shown above.

This is quite tricky, if you are counting-type of a person, it is 13th option from bottom. If you are visual-type of a person, look for a character looks like an upside-down L (广) and since there are two of those, you need to be careful when choosing it. Choose the first one.

 Just some mandatory requirement. Type your password and reenter again, enter captcha etc. We suggest to use the same password as your other PSN account.

 Time to name your PSN China ID. Just use your usual ID added with suffix CN, it's the country two letters code for China. This ID is permanent, so make sure you think of it carefully before thinking of creating a random name.

 It ask your name, you answers. You can use English.

 Tricky time part 2, you need to enter the address information. We already give you how to get your address for registering PSN account here in the previous guide. You may have to check it first. Anyway, follow the guide written in our perfect broken English in the picture above.

 Choose NO.

Just click finish.

You can either visit store right now, or check your email address to confirm the email from Sony. We recommend you to confirm your email though so you can receive the billing from them. Just check your email and click any blue button you see.

Welcome to the Great Wall of PSN!

Don't forget to sign out everytime you are finished. You can not check the content of the other regions is you are signed in. I suggest you to read our FAQ for any information surrounding multiple PSN region accounts.

See also our guides:

HOW TO CREATE US/UK/HK/JP PSN ACCOUNT ON PC

HOW TO TOP UP YOUR JP/US/UK/HK PSN ACCOUNT ON PC
HOW TO PURCHASE A TITLE FROM JP/US/UK/HK PSN STORE ON PC

GETTING AND USING JOYSOUND TV PLUS FROM JP PSN

  

Important notes:

1. Games are region free, but DLCs and game saves are locked into the same region with the game itself. Remember which game tied with which account.
2. Treat these accounts as wallet, they are legal payment for each store. Do not share your account or any credential information related to it to anyone else.
3. Payment with PayPal and Credit Card on PSN only works if your billing address is the same with the country you created the account with. So for cross region gamers, prepaid vouchers are your only option.
4. You should play the games under your own main account. Purchased games, including the free games from PS Plus are playable with any account on the same console. 
5. In general, only if the game is a full game trial then you should play it under the purchasing account for the first time. You can use any account the second time playing it. 
6. If the game/app is subscription-based, you can only use it under your account that have been used for purchasing.
7. Do not use your account to cheat online. Or your account will be banned.
8. Do not use your account for gamesharing. Or your account will be banned.
9. Do not use obscene or offensive word(s) as your or parts of your account name. Or your account will be banned.
10. Do not use your account for spamming others. Or your account will be banned.
11. Do not use your account to threat other players, not even as buddy jokes. Or your account will be banned.
12. Do not use a modified game saves. Or your account will be banned.
13. Do not use your account on a jailbroken or modded console. Or your account will be banned, and your console too.
14. This blog does not condone any topic related to games-piracy, please don't ask us how to get games for free. However, free games do exist and are free if they are being set as such by the publisher, which we will notice you in this blog.

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