Part 1- Dark Mist
Part 2 - Real Bout Dominated Mind

Ok, so now on to how to get these games. Apparently with the store redesigns some changes were put into the Playstation store back end which handles payments.

It seems that if the dollar amount is low, the PSN store will not validate the credit card address on file against what is on your PSN account. This is the loophole we’re going to exploit.

The easiest way to do this is to use the Hong Kong store. It’s fully in English and easy to navigate. So we’ll start with the basics, how to create a Hong Kong account. By the way, if you’re not lazy (COUGHHITOGOROSHICOUGH) you should have 4 total accounts: Japan, Hong Kong, Europe, and US. This grants you access to demos or wallpapers that each store has the others don’t. For example:

JPN – Battle Fantasia demo
EU – Hot Shots Golf 5 demo (although I think US has the demo as well now)
HK – Lair Demo

1. Anyway, back to basics. Scroll all the way to the left and create a new profile. I named mine HK, EU, JPN so I know which is which. Once done, go ahead and log out of your profile (on the far left, highlight your profile, hit triangle, and log out). Now log in as your new HK account.

2. Now we’re going to create the PSN account. Simply go to “Sign up for Playstation Network” and follow your steps below:

3. Select Hong Kong as your Country/Region.

4. Make sure your language is set to English.

5. Select Master Account.

6. Create an e-mail account for your new PSN ID. Hotmail works wonders :D

Once you've created an account simply use the e-mail address in your registration.

7. Create an online ID. Mine was CBHK :D

8. Enter a name, it's up to you how to play this one. I put my real one in, it’s totally believable that there’s a Mexican in Hong Kong, right?

9. Now we need a mailing address. I used 13 Knutsford Terrace, Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon

10. Ignore the rest of the steps, as we don’t want surveys nor do we want to associate a credit card with the account….yet

Ok, so you’ve got your account and you’re ready to buy right? Well I’m going to save you some headaches. Here are two things you need to know:

1) CALL YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY and let them know you’re going to be buying something from a Hong Kong store. Tell them it’ll be an internet charge. I didn’t do this, and my card was put on hold cause they thought someone was trying to use it as fraud. Sure all it took was a 10 minute call to sort it out, but do it ahead of time. It’s simpler that way.

2) Be aware of any currency convienence fees your CC may charge. I have a Capital One card, and they don’t charge any fee for converting HK dollars to US, but my friend did and had a 41 cent charge added on.

But hey, you’re cool with that right? So let’s get into the store. Now, remember what I said the loophole is. You may need to make multiple purchases instead of everything in one, but it will work.

You want Dark Mist? It’s under Games – PS3 I believe. Make sure you grab both Dark Mist and the expansion. The total will be 88 Hong Kong dollars. This converts to roughly $11.28. Now, go ahead and checkout. Enter in your CC #, and the address can stay the same (or for safety sake, I put my real address in Line 2 and 3 if I needed to show the CC company it was me). And purchase. TADA. Download your new game, which can be played with any PSN ID.

I also mentioned the PS1 title Dominated Mind. How funny is it that an import downloaded PSN game will play on a US PS3 but the disc version would not?

These PS1 games cost $4.22. Just do it the same way as above (though the smallest charge they can do is 40 HK which is $5.12 US so you will have a small amount left over.) If you want to see what is available to buy for PS1 games just go to the HK PC store, choose CLASSICS, then JAPANESE VERSIONS and take a look. Specifically look under Fighting Action where you can find Guilty Gear (!), KOF from 95 – 99, Sam Sho 1 – IV and Last Blade.

Enjoy yourselves. I’m done for the day.