Member-only story
TIL: Minecraft’s Microsoft Account Is Locked To Your Actual PlayStation And It’s The Dumbest Thing Ever
And Then Microsoft’s New “Captcha” Made Me Feel Pretty Dumb Myself
TL;DR
If you have ever signed in to Minecraft on a PlayStation with a Microsoft account, your account has been locked to that specific device and is non-transferable. The only recourse is to create a Microsoft account per device.
The Account / PSN Lock
Until half a year ago, we owned a PS3. Good enough for all our gaming needs. We owned a whole bunch of games, and we’d accepted the fact that if we ever upgraded we’d need to buy everything again.
Which doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the way Sony rolls. Fine.
We sold our PS3 before migrating to a different country, and before doing so I scrubbed the device thoroughly and unlinked whatever I could.
A friend has just loaned me his PS4 for a while. We owned Minecraft on the PS3, we own the Java and Bedrock editions and have them installed on my Windows and Macbook machines (that’s how my boy’s been getting his “fix” for the past few months). I’ve just shelled out to acquire the game on the PS4.
Fine.
But I cannot sign in to Minecraft with the same Microsoft account we used on the PS3, the same account we use on the Macbook and the Windows devices.
After a few minutes watching the sign-in spinner, I realized that something was wrong and pressed the cancel button, which is when an alert was displayed explaining that the account is locked to a different PlayStation Network ID*.
* Whoever decided to show the alert only when the user gives up deserves a slap upside the head. With a folding chair.
I’ve just spent a silly amount of time trying to learn how to unlink the account / PSN ID, and have finally come to the conclusion that it is literally impossible. Which is a ridiculous decision that somewhere out there, a human being actually made.
