REPORT: PlayStation Implements DRM - Digital Games Purchased Will Now Require Online Check-in, Or The License Will Be Revoked

For several days, PlayStation fans were weary of what was initially viewed as a bug; DRM had appeared in digital purchases from the PlayStation Store. Known as Digital Rights Management, DRM is a practice utilized by publishers and manufacturers in how their digital content (be it movies, video games, or music) is accessed or shared. If this sounds familiar, it was one of the concepts the Xbox One was intended to launch with, which led to massive backlash from Xbox fans. Even though the decision was revoked, it sealed the fate of the console before it launched. PlayStation, in a famous rebuttal, pounced on the opportunity to take a rightfully deserved shot at Microsoft during the launch of the PlayStation 4 in 2013. The Twitter/X account Does It Play was one of many that began bringing this to attention.

• PlayStation confirms DRM implementation

• Failure to login after 30 days will NOT launch your digital games, and will run the risk of losing ownership

• Practice was included in March 2025. Will not affect older purchases

It now appears that what players have feared has been confirmed reality. According to HazzadorGamin, an account on Twitter/X, a fan asked PS Support about the 30-Day Timer "bug", and verified this will affect all digital purchases:

Offline Functionality: If the console does not connect to the internet within 30 days, the license expires and the game may refuse to launch until a connection is restored

The support also verifies that the "Primary" setting will not bypass the login requirement, so this affects future purchases on both the PlayStation 4 and PS5. What's more concerning, as of this writing, PlayStation has not made a statement on this decision or why it was included in the March 2026 update. To add to the confusion, according to the Does It Play account, the timer or listings do not appear for the PlayStation 5.

SOURCE: Twitter/X

Video game ownership has become a contentious topic in recent years. Publishers and developers like Ubisoft have made incredibly brash and bold statements like players "getting used to not owning their games". While the push for services like Game Pass offer a great deal of promise, there is no indication that access to all the digital software will be indefinite. At the very least, with Game Pass, availability can fator on other means, like rights with third party developers. The practice of denying consumers access for a game paid at full price is the concrete definition of anti-consumer.

Will Sony address these concerns? Considering it was something they seemingly snuck into a firmware update, time will tell if they will change their mind on this decision.

This has aged well