For the longest time, if you wanted a refund from Sony for a purchase made through the PlayStation Store, you were either completely out of luck or were maybe given a one time exception. There were a few other times where Sony cracked open that refund door another inch, such as when games were severely broken to the point of crashing systems, but these were made once in a blue moon. Even then it wasn't a guarantee that you would be issued a refund if you requested one.

Yesterday, Sony pushed out a slightly less draconian refund policy for purchases made from the PlayStation Store. It seems as though this change was made quietly and without much fanfare. Sony's new refund policy says that you now have up to 14 days from the release date of a game in order to request and receive a refund. If you pre-ordered a game, this means you have from the day you pre-ordered plus 14 days post release to request a refund. However, this will only work if you have not started to download or stream the content in question. This also applies to preloading. If you so much as downloaded a MB of data, you aren't getting your money back. If you do meet this still strict criteria, Sony will return your money to your original payment method if a refund is requested prior to a game's release.

What happens if you want a refund on a game that was already released? For games that are already out (this applies to DLC as well), you will still have 14 days from the moment of purchase to request and receive a refund if you have not downloaded or played the content. The difference in this case is the fact that refunds will not be issued to your original purchase method but rather issued as a credit to your PSN wallet.

Given this strict refund policy, Sony themselves suggests that users disable the "Automatic Download" feature on their PlayStation systems if they believe they will ever need to make use of the new refund policy. If you keep it enabled, you run the very real risk of having pre-orders or new purchases start downloading the moment you complete your purchase and thus ruin any chance you had at getting a refund.

Much like before, Sony will still selectively allow for refunds on games or purchased content that they deem to be faulty. If a game is simply buggy but isn't causing harm to your system, it probably won't meet Sony's criteria of being "faulty" enough for a refund.

Subscriptions for things like PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Now can also be refunded within 14 days of purchase. However, these will also only provide credit to your PSN wallet.

It's not much, but at least it's something, right? This refund policy is still incredibly strict when compared to Steam's refund policy, which allows you to request a refund on any piece of content so long as it's been within 14 days of purchase and if played for two hours or less. Valve has also been known to issue refunds on requests that exceed the time limits. Microsoft seems to have a similar policy to Valve. Refunds are typically issued for Xbox titles so long as they were requested within 14 days of purchase and if you played the content for less than two hours.