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Topics: PlayStation, Sony, PlayStation 4, Tech
PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 owners have shared concerns regarding potential ownership of their games following a recent update from Sony.
As the endless debate of physical media vs digital downloads rages on, a huge concern surrounding potential access to PlayStation owners’ digital library has come up over the weekend.
According to some users (via Push Square), a new form of DRM has cropped up in some digital games to suggest that owned digital games will expire after a period of 30 days.
Digging a little deeper, it seems that not every digital game is affected by this, and that it seems to have applied to different users’ games at random.
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However, one thing that is consistent with the issue is that it seems to be affecting PS4 users who bought a game in the last few weeks, and hasn’t been replicated on PS5.
“Hugely terrible DRM has now been rolled out to all PS4 and PS5 digital games. Every digital game you buy now requires an online check-in every 30 days. If you buy a digital game and don't connect your console to the internet for 30 days, your license will be removed,” reads a post on X (formerly Twitter) from programmer and modder Lance McDonald.
The update seems to suggest that if you don’t connect your PlayStation 4 console to the internet within a 30-day period, you’ll lose access to the digital game until you can re-establish a connection.
If you’re worried that Sony is introducing some kind of new DRM to PlayStation consoles, the good news is that this is likely a bug.
As posted by Does It Play?, an account dedicated to testing if software runs offline, posted that it heard from an “anonymous insider” that “the Sony DRM issue is unintentional.”
It added: “from what we gathered, Sony accidentally broke something while fixing an exploit. They've known about the confusing UI for a while, but didn't see it as urgent. Hoping for a clarifying statement now.”
So it’s likely an error, and therefore not a cause for panic. However, we’d also recommend keeping an eye on Sony’s official channels for confirmation.
If it really were going to introduce a new type of DRM for digital games, we’d hear about through Sony’s blog or social media accounts.
A similar issue also cropped up back in 2022 with the PS4, PS3 and Vita, where claims were made that if the CMOS battery inside your console is no longer in usage, digital games would no longer be playable.
Although this still remains a concern among PlayStation users, Sony actually fixed the problem in a firmware update.
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