Lucas McCain

I've had a PS4 that's been my "primary" PS4 according to Sony for quite a while and yesterday I bought a 2nd one for my kids to use downstairs while my new one stays in the man cave. I bought the Star Wars limited bundle that has Darth Vader on it and I was going to put that where the original ps4 was and put the original one downstairs for the kids to use and I was planning on deactivating the old one from primary status and making the new Darth Vader one my primary PS4.

My question is should I even try to change which PS4 is the primary? I've read online that some folks deactivated one as their primary and then were unable to activate either one after that? Should I just let the kids play with the new one instead and keep my original ps4 as the primary? I liked the Darth Vader PS4 to decorate the Man Cave but I don't want to be locked out of both PS4s because I can't reactivate them.

Thoughts?

cruzness

I don't think it makes a difference which ps4 is your primary since they are both in your house. Only issue becomes as your children age whether you care if they have access to the primary account.

19K

I just bought a second PS4 as well and deactivated my original one. I never heard there might be potential issues with re-activating it. I'm not sure why there would be. I was able to activate the newer PS4 as a primary with no problems.

The only reason to activate a PS4 as a primary is so that all users on the PS4 will be able to access any of the games downloaded by the designated primary user. If your kids have their own usernames, they will not be able to play any games that you downloaded under your account unless that PS4 is activated as your primary.

If you're the only person that will be using the PS4 in your man-cave, then I would definitely designate the other one (the kids PS4) as your primary. That way YOU will still have access to everything on both PS4's.

It's confusing as hell, but that seems to be how they eliminated the game sharing.

Lucas McCain

Thanks for that explanation. It helps. So when I download the 4 older Star Wars games that came with it, I can only download them on the primary PS4, correct? Can I then download them on the new PS4 also? I wanted both PS4s to be able to have them so we can both play them. And if I can download them to both, does that mean my kid can't play it under his username but only with my username since that's the account I downloaded them with? This shouldn't all be this confusing; it seems like it would be a simple answer but I think Sony's made it a bit more difficult than it needs to be. Thanks for any more answers and help you all can give me.

19K

You can download those games to any PS4 you want to. You can also download them to a 2nd/3rd/4th/etc PS4 if you want to, however, only YOUR account will be able to play it on the additional PS4's. The only PS4 that your kids will be able to play those games while logged in under a different username is on the PS4 that is set as your primary.

Basically, setting a PS4 as a primary gives any and every user on that system access to ALL the content that primary account holder has downloaded.

Like I said earlier, if you want your kids to have access to your games, the PS4 they will be using needs to be the primary. YOU will still have full access to the games on the 2nd (non primary) PS4 as long as your account was the one that originally downloaded it.

Lucas McCain

Got it. Man thanks so much for your help. Your posts made much more sense to me than all of my googling articles on the subject. I'll leave it as is with the primary downstairs and then I can play the stuff upstairs. Thanks a lot.