One disaster to another
by Sammy Barker
It has not been a good week for Sony, and things just keep getting worse and worse.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls fans have been complaining this weekend that the Japanese company has blocked the fighter’s PC release from a whopping 132 countries.
This is the same issue which has reared its ugly head before: the PSN is technically only supported in a handful of countries, and as an account is required for the ArcSys fighter, anyone from said nations is out of luck.
On the PS5, players from unsupported regions can get around the restrictions by making an account from another country – it’s technically against the terms of service, but it’s a grey area on consoles which has been recognised as a workaround since the inception of the PSN.
This isn’t possible on storefronts like Steam, however, as the game is simply not available in the unsupported countries, and using a VPN is a quick route to getting your account banned.
Various PC games from Sony have suffered the same setbacks over the years, including Stellar Blade, but dev Shift Up was able to use its clout to get the publisher to change its mind.
As the Korean studio owned the IP, though, it was probably a bit easier for it to throw its weight around. While ArcSys is the developer of Marvel Tokon, Sony owns the franchise.
So will this be resolved? Well, to be fair, the platform holder has eased its PSN restrictions in previous titles, so it’s possible. Given the emphasis on online multiplayer here, though, I do wonder if Marvel Tokon may just become a victim of the creaky and dated nature of PlayStation’s online infrastructure.
It’s just another reminder of how poorly Sony’s executing right now. Sure, it’s transitioning away from PC, but it still wants to flog as many copies of its live service games as possible.
The fact that over a hundred countries are still being blocked from buying the game beggars belief.
[source steamdb.info, via youtube.com]
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.