This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It's like when Twitter went downhill, everyone moved to [next corporate owned thing, yet to be enshittified. Anything but the fediverse.]
Okay… hear me out. I am not trying to play devils advocate here but I would like to point out some things regarding the backlash and ask some questions since I may be out of the loop.
From all that I have read it’s about no more discs.
People are talking about moving to Xbox or PC. Full disclosure I do Xbox because my big group does but I also play PC games. I did get a PS3 when Xbox did their dumb shit.
Xbox still has a disc drive but most of the time it’s all online. Including all updates.
PC still/can have a disc drive but most people including myself use Steam. Or ya know EA, Unreal, GOG. These are still digital downloads. With the exception of GOG (based on the last purchase I made) there is still a drm requirement and checking in. How is this any different?
It's covered in the article
Turds with different shades.
When they say that they're eyeing Windows 11 gaming PCs by the reality tmits to game on Linux
Fuck um
What possibilities are lost with the disc(ontinuation)? Has running the PS without a permanent network connection been a regular use case for many? Are DLCs and frequent patches and updates not a thing in the Sony sphere?
I think it's mostly about being able to have physical media that you own and can't be turned off.
Disabling games which someone ~~bought~~ licensed is a thing with Sony? That ecosystem has bigger problems than a missing disc drive it seems.
Not yet to my knowledge, although they have been doing it with some movies recently. And it's kinda hypothetical, and part of a whole slew of other issues.
So... Sony could, from a technical POV, block games which come on disc, too? It's just a tiny firmware update. And good luck playing GTA online or Diablo 4 with an offline PS to prevent updates. Or any game which needs a newer PS firmware.
The root issue seems to be that you are not root on your PS. And you don't trust Sony with that role.
At one point people decided that they needed that shiny new ps-only exclusive title regardless. And Sony knows that the majority doesn't care about control, as long as they don't take it away from them.
They actually just integrated the initial framework for this with the last major PS5 update.
They threw it in under the guise that it was a check to make sure that your downloaded games were legitimate, but they added but they added in a required 30-day timer that after 30 days it checks the license on a downloaded piece of software. And if your account doesn't have the license, or the system isn't online. It fails to work. This was originally expected to be a constant every 30 days thing, but at last minute they clarified that it was a one-time check to make sure that you didn't return the device under their return policy.
I have no doubt in my mind that they were originally intending on having this be in every 30 days requiring the PS5 to have to be online every 30 days in order for it to function, but decided to change it last minute when major media companies started reporting that the PS5 was going to officially require online
