Gran Turismo 5 DLC locked to one PSN ID

By Robert Purchese Published 19 October, 2011

"There just isn't a good solution."

You can only play the new Gran Turismo 5 DLC using the PSN ID you bought the content with - it's locked to a single account.

The Gran Turismo 5 website confirms this:

  • "The DLC released on October 18th is tied to the Account ID used to purchase the DLC. It is not possible to use the DLC with accounts other than the one that was used to make the actual purchase. Therefore, please make sure to purchase the DLC with the account that is used to play Gran Turismo 5."

Gran Turismo 5 creator Kazunori Yamauchi was inundated by fans asking why on Twitter.

"Resolving the problem with using the DLC on multiple accounts is not simple," he said.

"It would be best if we could attribute the entitlement to use the DLC items to multiple accounts in the same PS3.

"But there is nothing like that in the PSN setup, and we can only assign the entitlements per user ID.

"There just isn't a good solution for this I can think of."

The Gran Turismo 5 DLC comes either in one giant, £9.49 pack, or piecemeal.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 7 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Adge #1 7 months ago

    Soooo, every other bit of DLC works on multiple accounts but this one doesn't and he can't see a way to fix it?

  • Malek86 #2 7 months ago

    "But there is nothing like that in the PSN setup, and we can only assign the entitlements per user ID."

    Yes, that explains why other games do it just fine.
    Edited by Malek86 at 19/10/11 @ 09:01

  • sega #3 7 months ago

    Yes it is because of people file sharing but I don't think we should pin the blame for such restrictions on the people who do so. The thing is, digital content has lost its value - infact it never really had one. It's so easy to copy and gain access to that people wonder why you should pay so much for something that doesn't physical exist and has a constantly replenishing stock.

    As someone who makes a living through digital media, it is difficult but I think a solution will only be found if we stop treating it as if it's a physical product and trying to pin the same value on it. The great thing about digital media is it should be unrestricted and easily transferrable - that's what it evolved for and all we do to it is give it an old fashioned real world value and restrict its usage.
    Edited by sega at 19/10/11 @ 09:06

  • varsas #4 7 months ago

    Does this mean that potentially one can copy DLC between PS3s?

  • Beano #5 7 months ago

    A shame that users' game "sharing" (=misusing Sony's flexible approach to DRM) is now causing Sony themselves to lock DLC to a specific PSN ID.

  • Stuz359 #6 7 months ago

    I can understand console locked but user ID locked? Seems extreme. Unless, you can use your account on another's PS3 so that they can download the content for free, in which case there is a serious flaw in the system right there.

  • Loneck #7 7 months ago

    I play GT5 on one PS3 with friend (switching accounts), so buying this DLC is for me meaningless.

  • Malek86 #8 7 months ago

    @lollage: it's a poorly designed system for sure. They could have done it like on XBL: downloaded content will work on either the account used to buy it, or the console ID it was first bought on. Yeah, that has a few problems too (if you change consoles you'll need to either do a license transfer, which is only available once every four months, or accept to be always online), but it's still better than having the content only tied to one account even on the same console.

    Maybe Sony could fix it with a new firmware update and new rules? After all, like you said, gamesharing is against the rules, so they could change it and people couldn't complain.
    Edited by Malek86 at 19/10/11 @ 09:29

  • kingpin3000 #9 7 months ago

    I thought you could tie DLC to the console it was downloaded on. They do that with films and also Singstar content.

  • MarketZero #10 7 months ago

    Tight-arses.

  • Malek86 #11 7 months ago

    @kingpin3000: Singstar is actually a bit more annoying. The content is only associated to your console, not your account. If you change console for whatever reason, you can NOT redownload the songs. Maybe you can get them transfered if you contat Sony's customer service, but still, not exactly convenient.
    Edited by Malek86 at 19/10/11 @ 09:35

  • King_Edward #12 7 months ago

    I wasn't going to buy it anyway, but now I'm boycotting it.

  • jarek98 #13 7 months ago

    As far as I know, Gran Turismo Prologue was locked to one account as well, so it should not be such a big surprise. On the other hand this solution is not a welcome one for sure, but it is better than locking content to only one PS3 though. The latter would mean, that if your PS3 dies, you loose your game with it.

  • coolbritannia #14 7 months ago

    So, it's the same as xbox live?

  • uzivatel #15 7 months ago

    Why not just copy the DRM used by Microsoft. I mean, its not like they have it patented ... or do they?

  • rockavitch #16 7 months ago

    A bit of topic but anyone have any idea if they plan on fixing the problem with the 2.0 (I think that was it) patch as my friend (I don't have the game) has downloaded it 3 times and each time it doesn't allow him to load up a save from before the download? Seems he is not the only one to have this happen to him either. Personally I'd rather they (and other companies) fix their current problems before launching DLC.

  • zepekit #17 7 months ago

    @uzivatel
    Because that's even worse. If your machine dies, you have to be online ALWAYS to play whatever dlc you had before...
    Sony's is better, for people who's not online all the time. Sadly it's all those that "steal" using game sharing, just like pirates imho :S that ruin it for the rest of us.

  • duckmouth #18 7 months ago

    "So, it's the same as xbox live?".

    No. If you buy content with one profile on an Xbox 360, any other gamertag on that Xbox 360 has full access to that content. This includes Online passes, DLC, Arcade games etc.

  • uzivatel #19 7 months ago

    @zepekit: Not really, not only Microsoft automatically transfers licenses, if they replace your console, you can use the transfer tool yourself. Once you transfer the content, you can use it offline.

  • arcam #20 7 months ago

    @duckmouth

    Usually, but not always. Fact is, publishers and platform holders are still experimenting to find the best way of dealing with this.

  • Duke100 #21 7 months ago

    Video store content is looked to one PS3 already, if you buy a film and then your launch 60gb dies (as mine did) then you have to contact Sony and give them your life story to get them to activate a new PS3. My Vanquish disc is still stuck in the drive - I havn't yet gone through all the hundreds of steps to dismantle it.

  • DBLue #22 7 months ago

    @King_Edward
    "I wasn't going to buy it anyway, but now I'm boycotting it."

    Heh. If you were never going to buy it in the first place, how does you boycott hold any value to the publisher? You were never a potential customer reagardless of what they did.

  • Trinod #23 7 months ago

    There's been some progress on this:

    [link url=http://twitter.com/#!/Kaz_Yamauchi
    ]http://twitter.com/#!/Kaz_Yamauchi
    [/link]

    however still does not fix my Canadian disk, UK account issue FFS!

  • darc #24 7 months ago

    Anyway... what the hell is that THING in screen 5/7, and where can I get one??

  • TudeScud #25 7 months ago

    @Trinod Yup. "Free family upgrade," downloadable from PSN certainly resolves this. Care to update, EG?

    As far as sharing PSN credentials over the Internet goes, there's a whole bunch of risk inherent with that, so I don't think the threat of that kind of piracy should be taken very seriously.

  • trubadman #26 7 months ago

    I really don't understand, there isn a good solution, what kind of a justification is that, what the hell, every game does it so why can't yours. So basically me and each of my 3 brothers will have to pay a Tenner each, forget that, what a joke. So we wait for a game that gets delayed a million times and then you make every member of the family purchase the dlc. Not happy :(. This is a good era in gaming in terms of the games, but also in terms of getting ripped off.