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Sony has amended the refund policy of its digital store to permit refunds on digital pre-orders – including DLC and add-ons – any time in the lead up to a game’s release. Furthermore, it will also allow players to refund orders up to 14-days after release provided the game hasn’t been downloaded.

The changes (thanks, GI.biz), bring Sony’s practices more in line with the refund policies offered on Steam and Epic Store, but stops short of permitting refunds for games played for less than two hours. Refunds can only be credited to your PlayStation Store wallet, not your card, and refunds of subscription services like PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Vue will only be partially refunded depending on “how much you have used the service”.

Valve’s Steam and Ubisoft’s Uplay refund policies run afoul of the law last year, too. For noncompliance of France’s consumer code last year, Valve was fined €147,000 (£130k), while Ubisoft was hit with a €180,000 (£160k) penalty, both related to the refund policies offered on each company’s storefronts, and how neither shop informs consumers that their rights to refunds – as set out in French law – are being denied. As such, both storefronts in France now carry warnings concerning the ruling at the top of their pages.

This isn’t the first big shake-up from Sony we’ve seen, either. Last week, the company confirmed it will no longer sell full game digital download codes via high street and online retailers. It’s also confirmed that it will not be attending this year’s E3 – the company’s first absence in the expo’s 24-year history. Sony’s announcement came in the wake of the cancellation of last year’s PlayStation Experience, too, the fan event usually held in December. It’s thought the decision not to appear at either show could be because the hardware developer is holding back plans to announce its next-generation console.

Sony recently streamed its inaugural State of Play show, a new streamed marketing presentation designed to deliver updates directly to fans in the style of competitor shows, Nintendo Direct and Inside Xbox. It announced a slew of new VR titles, and confirmed Sony’s PlayStation VR system has hit 4.2 million global sales earlier this month.