I explicitly remember being told that “they weren’t going to take my games away” and yet here we are.
About a year ago, Sony updated its Software Usage Terms for its PlayStation consoles, and users are now just discovering the concerning rules, in particular, a rule regarding the resale of games has garnered immense attention and the criticism of many on Twitter, particularly because the rule explicitly references physical media.
In the fine print, it states that you’re no longer allowed to resell your Sony PlayStation games of any kind, and I thought that Microsoft were supposed to be the evil ones especially considering how Sony themselves took advantage of Microsoft imposing DRM content locking on its XBOX One home console, by posting a helpful guide on how users can share their games on the PlayStation 4.
Sony as a company is one I truly despise, the former Japanese brand has globalized itself by relocating Sony Interactive Entertainment’s headquarters away from Japan to the humble state of California, while simultaneously going on a crusade against Japanese games and developers by demanding insensitive censorship be imposed on their games.
Combine this with the fact that Sony have forced Japanese players with their PlayStation 5 console to adopt the western style button-layout, essentially swapping X and O around, needless to say that Sony is a company that absolutely hates Japan. Its home nation.
But we’re not here to talk about Sony’s globalized policies which permit western erotica and vivid sex scenes while Japanese developers are racially scrutinized for featuring feminine characters and “fan service” amongst their games, this goes well beyond the realm of impacting a dedicated niche audience.
This policy change affects every single consumer of Sony’s PlayStation home consoles moving forward, as Microsoft tried and failed with an always-online XBOX ONE system, they’re already retracing their steps after years of lukewarm consumer adoption, with the new major milestone for the XBOX brand set to be all digital.
Sony’s revised EULA agreement that prohibits the reselling of PlayStation titles has been around for over a year at this point, and while the company seemingly goes above and beyond removing content that users have outright paid for, if not falsely banning thousands of players and nuking entire digital libraries, for the time being Sony cannot properly enforce these restrictions for the time being.
Many of Sony’s loyalists are defending this practice, since for now it cannot truly be enforced as each physical game disc isn’t tracked to specific consoles and or user accounts for the time being.
This is a clause that has been in effect, in various forms or variations, since the PlayStation 1 era, but it doesn’t make it any less retarded in theory and catastrophic in practice.
Sony introduced the practice of forbidding the resale of its games with the PlayStation 4 console, and yet ten years later their clause openly prohibits the reselling of used games, majority of console owners have already fallen into the snake pit of buying their games digitally from respective console storefronts.
Digital media is going extinct as it used to offer players the freedom of actually owning the content in question. the instant that the console itself can accurately track and monitor whether or not the game you are playing has been authenticated by another system or account their little anti-consumer scheme will finally come into action, because Sony openly states that it tracks its users online activity.
Activities such as any and all software you’ve used on your console, Sony is more than happy to remove such content that breaches its terms of service which includes used video games sold by unauthorized means, we’re already aware that Sony monitors in-game communication, Microsoft does this as well, if you were to send a hateful message or engage in some banter via party chat function you’ll be handed a swift ban.
Honestly, I’d love to see Sony properly enact these policies, imposing DRM on their physical media tied to specific consoles and accounts, Sony’s PlayStation has one of the most loyal fanboys out of any particular brand in the entire world, nothing would bring me more joy than watching their most loyal consumers burn down their Californian HQ simply because they can no longer resell woke slop such as The Last of Us 2 at retailers such as GameStop for a fraction of the price they paid.
If buying doesn’t mean ownership then piracy doesn’t mean stealing.
