How to give a game as a gift on PlayStation 5
For a long time, buying a digital game on an online store and gifting it to a friend was impossible. That has since changed with Steam and Xbox allowing users to simply pick out a game, pay for it, and send the download to a friend to play and enjoy. While those two gaming marketplaces have had the functionality for years, the PlayStation 4 never implemented a gift-giving feature. Has that changed with the release of the PlayStation 5?
Unfortunately, as of this writing, you cannot buy a game on the PlayStation 5 store and send it to a friend. Even with one of the PS5 models being digital-only, there is no functionality to do so in the marketplace. No official word has come from Sony about possibly implementing the feature in the future. The gift-giving process becomes more challenging when you realize that Sony no longer allows full game gift cards at retail stores since April 2019.
There is a simple workaround for gifting a game to someone with a PS5, although it is an indirect approach. Buy a PSN currency gift card from any retailer, and the receiver of the card can input that currency into their PSN account and use it towards a game of their choice. Be sure that you buy a card that says “[amount of purchase] PlayStation Store Gift Card” and not “PlayStation Plus Membership.” The latter is a subscription model to play games online that comes with other features, and it will not give the person any credit towards buying a game. A vast majority of retailers (even online ones like Amazon) have gift cards in values of $10, $20, $25, $50, $60, $75, and $100.
It is important to remember that many big games will retail for $69.99, so If you want to cover the entire purchase, you will need to get one of the higher-priced codes or grab multiple cards to add together. Even if you grab a lower value than the game’s price, it will knock off the amount the receiver needs to pay for the game.
It is unfortunate that Sony has still not implemented a way to give a game as a gift on the PlayStation 5 marketplace. If a gift-giving feature is ever added in, we will be sure to update this article.
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John Hansen
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