PlayStation now displays a timer for newly purchased digital games on PS4 to indicate how much time is left until the license expires.
As reported by YouTuber and modder Lance McDonald, this is part of a new DRM update that requires you to go online and “check in” every 30 days to verify your game's license. If you do not do this within the “Validity Period”, you will lose access to the game in question. This means that PlayStation games purchased digitally now have an expiration date when played offline.
The countdown cannot be avoided if you use “Activate with default console”.
This update also affects PS5 titles, but no timer appears on the info page. Instead, if license verification fails within 30 days, an error message will be displayed when launching the game. This system appears to have been quietly added in the March firmware update, so users are only now noticing it. Sony has yet to comment on the situation or its future plans.
“Sony DRM issue was unintentional”
However, according to Does It Play?, a popular X account dedicated to game preservation, the timer and license confirmation were accidentally pushed live.
As Lance McDonald points out, games purchased before the March firmware update do not appear to be affected.
“We received the news from an anonymous insider,” they said. “The Sony DRM issue was unintentional. From what we gathered, Sony accidentally broke something while fixing the exploit. They've known about the confusing UI for some time, but didn't think it was urgent.”
Whether intentional or not, the update proves that Sony is working on a check-in system behind the scenes to verify licenses, and sets a worrying precedent for game ownership, an increasingly hot-button topic as campaigns like Stop Killing Games push for more consumer-friendly measures.
“Everyone should keep an eye on the discovered PlayStation DRM timer until it is actually fixed.”, Does It Play? urged. “It may not have been enabled intentionally this time, but it's still there. It's similar to how the Xbox was rightfully slaughtered during the Xbox One reveal.”
In fact, in 2013, Xbox announced a game licensing system that would check consoles every 24 hours to verify ownership of each title. If you are unable to get online during this period, the game will stop working. This announcement was so controversial that just a few days later, Microsoft almost completely backed out of these plans.
Thirteen years later, despite PlayStation's system being limited to new digital purchases and the Xbox One also planning to limit physical discs, the reaction has been much the same, with users calling on Sony to 'fix' the update as soon as possible.
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