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Whether it’s the holidays or any other time during the year that you might buy gifts for friends and loved ones, a PS5 game (or multiple PS5 games for those that are truly lucky) is always a great gift to give to the gamer in your life. This can be a tricky gift too though. Because unlike with Steam on PC, you can’t actually gift a specific digital game. Not directly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t gift digital PS5 games at all. There are ways to do it and it’s an excellent way to ensure the person you wanted to buy for can play any upcoming titles they might be anticipating.
Like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III for instance. Which just officially went fully live on November 10. This is just one example of course. And with the holidays coming up and shipping season in full swing, you’ll want to nail down what games you decide to buy now. The good news is that should be a somewhat easy job since there are quite a few really good options.
How to buy digital PS5 games as gifts
You can’t directly buy a digital copy of a PS5 game for a friend as a gift. So if your friend has the Digital Edition PS5 then you’re left with really one option. You’ll have to gift them a PlayStation Store gift card so they can load up on PSN money and then buy the game on their console themselves.
While it used to be possible to gift games on PSN to others, just like you can do on Steam for PC titles, Sony no longer allows this practice. And there’s no telling if it will ever bring it back.
If you want them to have a game or two, and not just currency for their PSN account, then your other option is to buy physical copies of games. Though, this only really goes for people who have the Disc Edition of the console (or if they’re still on a PS4).
Still, if they do have the Disc Edition, this is going to be your only way to gift actual games. You do have other gifting options though.
You could buy them a PS Now or PS Plus subscription
If you want them to have access to new games, you could also pay for their PlayStation Plus subscription. PS Plus gives them access to games at a discount while also giving them at least two or three games for free every month (of Sony’s choosing). And they get access to online multiplayer.
There are three tiers of PlayStation Plus you will need to consider. Essential is just like the old PlayStation Plus. Discounts on games, monthly free games, and access to online multiplayer. But you can also bump up to PlayStation Plus Extra or PlayStation Plus Premium. Both will give you access to the game catalog to download high quality games that you won’t have to pay any extra for to play. But if you go with Premium you also get access to the Classics Catalog where you’ll find classic PlayStation games from past generations of the console. And Premium now includes cloud streaming of your games from your PS5.
Buy them some accessories instead
If you can’t gift them the digital games you were hoping to, you could always divert that money into gifts for accessories. Chances are there is something they might need or want for their console. And if they save money by not having to buy it (because you already gifted it), then they’ll have more money for games, and can just make the purchase themselves.
There are lots of great accessories out there for the PS5, from controllers to headsets. So it’s just a matter of narrowing things down to something they need or want.
Get them an M.2 NVMe SSD for the storage expansion
If you really want to go all out, you could hook them up with a new M.2 SSD for the PS5’s storage expansion. These vary in price, but you can check out our guide on which ones to buy. Sony has a specific set of requirements for the SSD you can use.
It has to be an M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4 SSD. PCIe Gen 3 and prior will not work. It also has to meet a minimum read and write speed, which all PCIe Gen 4 SSDs should do, as well as fit within the dimensions of the console’s expansion slot. You can find out more about that here.