PlayStation is taking legal action to prove that you never owned the games that you paid for.
Earlier this year, Sony announced it would be stopping all physical PlayStation discs in early 2028. In a short statement, they explained it was the “natural direction” for the company to go in as they adapted to consumer trends. “The general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs.” One report claimed that just seven PlayStation games have sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the US this year.
The move has been heavily criticised by industry professionals and gaming fans. Hideo Kojima called it a “scary” and “frightening” decision, especially after Sony deleted hundreds of movies from PlayStation 5 libraries over an expired rights license. One petition asking Sony not to “kill the disc” has more than 377,00 signatures and other fans organised a week-long economic boycott of Playstation.
Meanwhile, four PlayStation users have filed a class action lawsuit against Sony over the misleading language it uses on its digital store. Fans are told they can “buy” games and have to “confirm purchase” before accessing the digital edition of the game but according to Sony, you’re only really borrowing the title. “Reasonable consumers are misled into believing that purchasing a digital game through PlayStation confers an unrestricted ownership interest, when in fact the transaction merely grants a limited license that may be restricted or revoked,” explains the suit.
However Sony has argued that the wording of its current Software License Product Agreement and PlayStation Terms Of Service means that “reasonable consumers would not be misled” into believing they own the digital games they’ve paid for (via GameFile). Buried in the thousand-word agreement, Sony does say that “software is licensed to you, not sold” and “virtual content is licensed, not owned,” but the class action lawsuit argues that it’s easy to miss.
Sony now has to prove that those same disclosures are “accessible and obvious at the time of purchase” to avoid facing further legal action.
In other news, Rockstar Games has confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t include any microtransactions of generative AI assets at launch.
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