None of the 438 Check Requests in Sony’s $7.85 Million PlayStation Settlement Qualified — Every Account Was Still Open. It’s Wallet Credit for Everyone, and Final Approval Is Up October 15.

For almost everyone, the PlayStation settlement never had a claim form. The settlement pays automatically: what is left of the $7,850,000 after fees and costs “will be divided among and distributed by SIE to Settlement Class Members’ PSN account wallets, pursuant to the Plan of Allocation,” the official site says. The one exception was for people whose PlayStation Network account no longer exists. They could ask the administrator, A.B. Data, for a check instead, and the deadline for that was August 27, 2026.

When class counsel filed the motion for final approval on September 3, 2026, it reported “438 check requests by eligible Class members with closed PSN accounts.” Three weeks later that number dropped to zero. The joint status report of September 24, 2026 (ECF No. 242), signed by both class counsel and Sony’s lawyers, says: “Defendant’s in-house data team attempted to match each request to an account eligible for a payment under the proposed Settlement, and confirmed that none of the accounts are closed. As a result, none of the individuals who submitted requests for a check are, in fact, eligible to receive a check.”

That is not a denial of payment. The same report says that if they are otherwise in the class, “they will receive cash-value account credits distributed directly to their PSN accounts,” and that the parties will tell the administrator to notify each requester “that they are not entitled to receive checks” and should expect their money in their PSN wallet. If you asked for a check and get that message, it is consistent with the court filing. By our arithmetic, 438 requests out of 4,407,533 eligible accounts is about 0.0099 percent, or roughly one in 10,063.

Who is in the class: anyone who, between April 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023, “purchased a Digital Game through the PlayStation Store that was previously available through a Game-Specific Voucher.” That is not every digital game. The qualifying titles are on the game list filed with the court as Exhibit E to the preliminary approval motion. It includes titles such as Destiny 2: Forsaken, Madden NFL 17, NBA 2K18, WWE 2K19, NieR: Automata and Resident Evil 4, and it can be found under Court Documents on the official site. That list answers the common search for a “PlayStation settlement game list.”

How much: the Plan of Allocation divides the net fund pro rata by the number of qualifying purchases on each account. Nobody has published a per-account figure. The court’s April 8, 2026 order called the recovery for each class member “quite low.” Our own rough math: take $7,850,000, subtract the maximum 25 percent fee ($1,962,500), the $30,000 in service awards and the top of the $180,000 to $190,000 administration estimate. That leaves about $5,667,500 before counsel’s expenses, or about $1.29 per account on average. The objector puts it at “about $1.14” for an average account. Accounts with more qualifying purchases get more and accounts with fewer get less.

What form it takes: class counsel says the credits “are immediately available when placed in eligible PSN accounts, apply to all products available for sale in the Sony PlayStation Store, and never expire.” At preliminary approval the court noted that the credit “is not transferable” but “never expires.” Whatever money is left after fees does not go back to Sony; the agreement calls the fund “non-reversionary.”

When: under paragraph 9 of the Second Revised Settlement Agreement, Sony distributes the money “within five (5) business days after the later of: (i) the Settlement becoming Final or (ii) April 1, 2025.” “Final” means the court approves the deal, enters judgment, and the time to appeal runs out or any appeal is resolved. So the October 15 hearing does not start the payments. If the judge approves and nobody appeals, credits would follow once the appeal window has closed. If an objector appeals, payments wait for the appeal. As of October 12, 2026, no payout date has been announced.

If your PSN account is open: you don’t need to do anything. There is no claim form, and the settlement site never asks you to file one. The deadlines that did exist have passed: opting out or objecting was due by July 2, 2026, check requests by August 27, 2026, and a notice of intent to appear at the hearing by October 1, 2026. If you did nothing, you stay in the class, receive credit if you qualify, and are bound by the release.

The hearing: the September 2026 update on the official site puts the fairness hearing on October 15, 2026, at 2:00 p.m., “in Courtroom 5, 2nd Floor, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland, California.” Two warnings about the location. First, the long-form notice sent in April listed the wrong courthouse. Class counsel admitted in its September 24 reply that it “incorrectly lists the hearing location as the San Francisco Courthouse” and “erroneously” gave July 2, 2026 as the deadline to appear. Second, the home page itself still disagrees: further down it says Courtroom 3, 3rd Floor at the same address. FAQ 16 warns that the court “may reschedule the Fairness Hearing without further written notice.” Check the site before you go.

Is the email real? A real message from this settlement will not ask you to file a claim or pay anything before you receive credit, because the settlement has no claim step. The administrator’s official channels are (877) 777-9145, info@PSNDigitalGamesSettlement.com, and PSN Digital Game Settlement, P.O. Box 173046, Milwaukee, WI 53217. Requesters should expect one specific email: the notice, ordered in the September 24 report, that they will not get a check and should look for credit in their wallet instead. A message offering to “speed up” a PlayStation settlement payment or sign you up for the settlement does not match anything in the court record.

What PlayStation is being sued for: the plaintiffs allege that Sony “engaged in anticompetitive conduct designed to monopolize the PlayStation digital game market, thereby causing consumers to pay more than they otherwise would have paid for certain digital games on the PlayStation Store.” Sony denies it, and the court has not ruled on the merits. Class counsel says the settlement equals “approximately 26.5% recovery on the $29.6 million damages estimate.”

Why zero checks matters: the check option was more than a convenience. At preliminary approval the court used it to support the argument that the credits are not coupons. Coupon settlements face stricter federal rules on attorneys’ fees. The court reasoned that the credit “does not compel any class member to . . . continue business with SIE who would rather have no relationship with SIE,” because people without active accounts get checks. In a response filed with a motion for leave on September 18, 2026, an objector argues that this cash option “was not a real choice”: closing a PSN account is, under Sony’s terms, irreversible and costs the holder their game library. The response notes that an average covered account bought 22.2 games, and it counts the 438 requests as “fewer than one in 10,000” of about 4.4 million accounts. That response was filed before the joint report showed the number of valid requests is actually zero.

Class counsel replies that the court already decided the coupon question. Their September 24 reply says “Because the PSN credits never expire, the Court here found they were not ‘coupons,’” and that counsel asks only for “a flat 25% Ninth Circuit benchmark fee,” while reporting more than $8m in time spent on the case. Notice went to 4,404,989 email addresses, of which 240,692 bounced. A.B. Data reported $162,586.83 in notice costs and $4,110.73 in administration costs through August 15, 2026. The motion’s table lists three objections and nine opt-out requests. Judge Martínez-Olguín decides on October 15 whether to approve the settlement and the fee request.

We covered the closed-account deadline before it passed in August; this update replaces that guidance. Questions about PlayStation refunds, PS5 repairs or controller drift are separate from this case, and nothing in this settlement covers them.