Both Nintendo and Sony have been told by the Competition and Markets Authority to update their subscription guidelines for their online services. Nintendo has now agreed to alter its business practises for the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service. The auto-renew option used to be set to on when a user subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online, now the auto-renewal option is not on by default and it will have to be activated by the user if they wish to automatically keep subscribing. Microsoft agreed to the terms back in January which now means that subscribers to Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass have more information on a membership including how to cancel it, and how to get a refund.
“As a result of our investigations, a number of changes have been made across this sector to protect customers and help tackle concerns about auto-renewing subscriptions,” said Michael Grenfell, executive director of enforcement at the CMA.
“Today’s announcement therefore concludes our investigations into the online video gaming sector. Companies in other sectors which offer subscriptions that auto-renew should review their practices to ensure they comply with consumer protection law.”
PSN PlayStation Plus has an option if it automatically renew your PlayStation Plus membership. PlayStation Plus memberships stack, meaning you can purchase multiple memberships and it adds the combined amout of time. I.e if you purchased a one year membership and then a 6 month membership you’d have 1½ years.
I think it’s great that it’s not on by default and has to be selected by the user, because if you have the funds on your acc it’ll automatically subtract the funds to renew your membership. If you have a credit card associated with your acc it’ll automatically subtract the funds and you might not realize it.
Not sure why sony has to update their subscription guidelines, they already give the option of turning on auto renewal. On PS3 PlayStation Plus memberships didn’t stack and i read numerous times how gamers had the funds automatically subtracted from their acc. to renew their PlayStation Plus membership from a credit card and they thought it was fraudulent activity.
I thought Sony already updated their online subscription guidelines.
I might be ignorant, but i know from the end of the PS3 life cycle to PS4 Sony updated their online subscription guidelines. But, im sure someone on these fourms can correct me :)
This should have always been standard. For gamers this is a win.
F=ma.
It was, they’re apparently complying with a judges ruling that this was already what they should’ve been doing by law, affected play station too I think
I had an issue with XBL back in the day where my card was expired so I did not remove it from my account and it auto renewed anyways (no idea how). The same with my switch online service. After it renewed this year, I was wondering why I was paying for it so I went in and removed the card completely this time and took it off auto renewal.
Companies previously made this rather challenging, even with knowing if you were on auto subscribe or not.
Agree this is a huge win for the consumer
Did you try blocking your card? That’s what I get the bank to do when renewing my cards because I’m afraid of things somehow getting through the cracks when it’s supposed to be expired, but never really faced an issue since that’s what I’ve always done.