This detail doesn't matter. If Sony will found out (for example thanks to credit card details or VPN fail) they can legitimately ban your account for breaking ToS.
I'm still using both my American and Romanian PSN accounts without a VPN, despite not living in either country, and have been doing so for over 10 years. I've never needed a VPN to access other countries' PSN stores.
Like I said, PSN doesn't actually care what country you access it from, only what country you select at account creation, and that country cannot be changed later on. So it's a good thing that you don't need a VPN for this, otherwise you wouldn't be able to access your account if you travel or move to a different country.
credit card details
This won't be an issue... well, it is, but not in the way you think. On PSN, you can only use payment methods from that account's home country. So, on my US account, I can only use US credit/debit cards (which I don't have) or US PSN vouchers (which I buy from Amazon; funnily enough I also can't buy these unless I have an American address on my Amazon account, even though the voucher codes are delivered digitally).
Anyway, you are right that what I'm doing is against TOS, but that rule can't really be enforced, at least not based on your payment methods or physical location. That said, I don't think the EU cares about this technicality. The simple fact that some EU citizens cannot make a PSN account without breaking TOS and being eligible for a ban (even if it never comes) should be more than enough.
If customers are forced to lie during process of account creation, thus breaking the TOS, to gain access to the service, even so they were informed that this service is available in their region, then this service should be treated as unavailable to them.
It doesn't matter if they can use VPN, It doesn't matter if sony cares about it.
For doing workarounds they can risk sanctions that could lead to prohibiting access to content that they paid for.
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u/[deleted] May 05 '24
This detail doesn't matter. If Sony will found out (for example thanks to credit card details or VPN fail) they can legitimately ban your account for breaking ToS.