I consider myself a pretty tech-savvy guy, but my credentials were tarnished a bit this week when I made an embarrassing rookie mistake when purchasing an Xbox Series X game.
I thought my mistake would cost me money and make me feel like an idiot, but then I discovered what Xbox can do. That, to my delight, overturned my mistake. The Xbox Store’s refund policy doesn’t currently support PS5, and as someone who primarily plays on PlayStation hardware, it’s disappointing that Sony isn’t fully competing.
So let me tell you how I failed and how Xbox saved me from blushing…
I made the travesty of buying Fallout.
I spent the last week binge-watching the Fallout TV show. This is one of the best game adaptations ever made and I loved every minute of it. After enjoying the show on Prime Video, I wanted to play the Fallout game.
Unfortunately, I don’t currently own the best gaming PC. So for a console-agnostic player, the Xbox Series And to my delight, there was a Fallout sale on the Xbox Store where you could buy Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas for just a few dollars (or in my case, British pounds).
The Fallout series boasts the most expansions of all time, so naturally I wanted to buy the GOTY version, which includes all the DLC. And there I made a pretty stupid mistake. I was browsing the Xbox Store on my laptop and accidentally purchased the PC versions of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas instead of the Xbox.
It wasn’t my best time, but in my defense, the Xbox Store doesn’t do a great job of flagging the platforms for each game listed. Rather than having a “PC” or “Xbox” tag at the top, you have to scroll down to the “Playable Environments” section below a lot of irrelevant information. Nevertheless, I admit that this is a case of “user error”.
Xbox did the right thing for me
I quickly realized my mistake when I booted up my Xbox Series X and didn’t see any Fallout games in my game library. After spending about 30 seconds berating myself for making such a stupid blunder, I started looking for a solution.
Based on previous experience (which I’ll get to in a moment), I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I wasted money with no recourse. But to my great delight (and surprise), a quick Google search yielded the following results: Xbox support page The title is “Digital Game Refund Request.”
This showed a very easy refund process and I immediately requested a refund for the two incorrect purchases. My request was approved immediately and the money was refunded to my bank account immediately.
The process only took a few minutes and I didn’t even have to talk to a customer service representative or have a sob story. by the way…
PlayStation not so much
The reason I was so pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get a refund through the Xbox Store is because I had the exact opposite experience a few years ago when I made an accidental purchase with my PlayStation Network account.
In this case, I hope you know that the mistake was not mine. Instead, my tech-savvy mother accidentally ended up spending £60 (about $75) on her PS4 when she tried to watch Netflix. I don’t know how yet.
After discovering the mistake, I initially thought my account had been compromised and considered getting a refund, but my only option was to contact Sony support directly. This required waiting on hold for a long time before speaking to a customer service representative, which resulted in me being told: Technically Sony was under no obligation to give me any refund, but as a “goodwill gesture” they only gave me a refund in the form of PlayStation Store credit.
With no other choice, I decided to take advantage of the offer and use the credits to add another year to my PlayStation Plus subscription. I was happy to have some form of solution, but the process took a long time and the final solution only partially solved my problem.
As I mentioned, this was a few years ago in the PS4 generation, so the process may have changed since then, but from my research, here’s what it looks like: roughly the same. moreover, PlayStation support page If you want to request a refund, you’ll still be directed to “Contact Us” instead of the convenient online form found on the Xbox Store.
Additionally, a major issue with PlayStation seems to be that once you start the download process for a digital game, you are not eligible for a refund. However, Xbox says it will only consider refunds “if you haven’t accumulated a significant amount of playtime,” which seems more in line with PC game launcher Steam, which offers the gold standard in refund policies. is.
This simple feature is really important
On the surface, it may seem arbitrary to get into the weeds about each platform holder’s refund policy. After all, when you make digital purchases, in most cases you won’t need to request a refund, so the ease of refunds doesn’t matter.
But I would argue that Xbox’s convenient refund process and consumer-friendly policies are small wins that can make a big difference. The simple act of accepting my request so effortlessly created a lot of goodwill for Xbox in me. This was a very refreshing change of pace compared to my previous experience on PlayStation.
After receiving my refund, I returned to the Xbox Store and purchased both Fallout games, this time on my console. I ended up spending a little extra (on Xbox, you have to buy the DLC separately), but I didn’t mind. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are worth it.
