Sony appears to have taken the phrase “the PS5 has no games” to heart as a mysterious bug is preventing PlayStation owners from accessing their digitally purchased games.
This highlights the anti-consumer nature of digital media and fraudulent “ownership,” as the likes of Sony’s PlayStation, Microsoft’s Xbox, and Valve’s Steam are more or less DRM platforms.
Every purchase is essentially a licensing agreement linked to your account, meaning the loss, theft, or ban of your account could result in losing access to all of your purchased content.
Or in this instance, a weird glitch is removing digital libraries of Sony PlayStation players on their PS4, PS5 and Vita systems.
At least 50 PlayStation owners have reported their digital games disappearing. One affected user took to Reddit to detail the issue and express frustration over losing access to some games, sparking discussion among others experiencing the same problem.
The user, identified as Dsuds, encountered the bug while attempting to launch Helldivers 2, receiving error message ‘CE-117773-6’. When they attempted to utilize the ‘Restore License’ function in their PlayStation account settings, it hilariously wiped their entire library of digital purchases.
“For the last few months, there has been a bug impacting a relatively small amount of PlayStation Network users, in which all digital licenses (including purchased games and titles added to one’s library via PlayStation Plus) become decoupled from your transaction history which shows you purchased those things” a Redditor explained in their post.
Another Redditor proclaimed that they contacted Sony support who deflected the issue to that of a hardware problem with the user’s machine, which makes absolutely zero sense given that a console with a corrupted drive would either fail completely or will still maintain the ability to view and access digital purchases made on that account, although you might not be able to actually play the games directly.
Thankfully, this brilliant mind from Reddit took Sony’s advice and purchased a brand new PlayStation 5 console, sadly this did not solve his particular issue but it certainly has benefitted Sony’s barbaric goal of selling 25 million units as the PlayStation 5 system reaches the end of its lifecycle as a financial flop.
The bug not only removes games from your account but also prevents affected users from re-downloading the missing games, as their PlayStation account won’t allow it.
Such is the problem when all of your so-called “owned” digital content is more or less tied to your account which is at the helm of Sony’s servers, this problem can also be applied to literally any other digital storefront, XBOX and Steam in particular.
Especially if your digital content requires you to pay a monthly fee to access the internet, such as this former oblivious lemming has written, proclaiming that they’ve purchased the Death Stranding Digital Deluxe PS5 upgrade but cannot access the game, which has no co-operative or online multiplayer functionality whatsoever, without being subscribed to PlayStation Plus which recently had its subscription prices hiked by as much as 35%.
Another user reached out for assistance, stating they’ve lost access to over 400 games after attempting to restore them once the bug affected their account, and they’re seeking answers.
The Reddit thread advises against attempting to restore licenses, as they suspect it might be what triggers the bug initially, Sony PlayStation has not issued a public comment on the issue as of yet, but post author dSuds mentions they are aware of it.
Another user has been keeping a record of everyone affected by the bug, with nearly 50 individuals reporting the same issue. Some claim the problem started months ago.
In all honesty, as a PC player I don’t think it would be possible for me to laugh harder than I am currently, with Sony dumping its first-party titles on the PC platform, such as the recently announced Ghost of Tsushima PC port, there is absolutely zero reasoning to validate the purchase of either a PlayStation 5 console or an XBOX Series machine.
Whether you like it or not, you’re obligated to adhere to the regulations set by Microsoft and Sony. This entails digital licensing for your all-digital account, which can be terminated for violating terms such as using offensive language in-game or insulting a protected class. Additionally, monthly service subscriptions are required to access your own internet connection.
Furthermore, there’s now the possibility of having all your digital purchases revoked due to a mysterious bug that has supposedly been occurring for months.
Physical media has long been obsolete, especially within the PC platform. Companies like Microsoft have already outlined their intentions to transition the Xbox brand into an all-digital system in the future.
With digital content, ownership isn’t a possibility, instead, you’re essentially purchasing the rights to play the game for an indefinite period. This concept mirrors the intangibility of digital goods and services, akin to live service games like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and Marvel’s Avengers, your account can just as quickly be terminated as a live service game can be shut down.
In my view, loyal Sony enthusiasts deserve such consequences for investing in a fledgling console system lacking actual exclusives. If you aim to build a PC with comparable capabilities, simply opting for a Radeon RX 6650 XT, or even a 6700 XT or the latest 7600 XT, would undoubtedly surpass the graphical capabilities of the PS5 which itself is using a customed RDNA 1 based Radeon RX 5700, with some of the feature sets of the RDNA 2 architecture.
Your game library would significantly expand without the need to endure steep $60/$70 price tags for games. You can now rebuild your entire PlayStation “exclusive” library for a fraction of the cost from key shop outlets, or even for free, given that Sony PC releases have no imposed DRM, let alone the vast amount of emulation of older systems at your fingertips.
Sony no longer supports prehistoric platforms such as the PlayStation 1, 2 and 3, all of which can be emulated to some success and provide far superior enjoyment than localized streaming via the cloud to your PS5 directly.
Though it must be noted, Steam isn’t a reliable service for digital purchases. I’ve personally experienced having one of my accounts terminated in the past for “abusing regional pricing,” resulting in the removal of its online functionality.
Although I can still access all the games on the account natively with online functionality, I can no longer engage with the Steam community or access the content on that account via family share. This serves as a cautionary reminder of the potential consequences of breaching the terms of service.
If manufacturers and publishers are unwilling to support and maintain access to older content, freely removing games and other media from digital storefronts, then downloading these games and more for free on PC should not be considered unethical but rather the only true way to ensure longevity of a product and true “ownership” of digital media.
