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Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

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Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate? The recent moves I’ve seen have been announcing a shift to digital-only and another about clawing back movie purchases. Neither are appealing to me, but also aren’t related to game performance or compatibility.

The obvious next step will be to claw back game purchases. Come on now. This is extremely obvious.

> Come on now. This is extremely obvious.

I was talking about game compatibility and you brought up an utterly unrelated point and referenced non-specified “recent moves by Sony”. Forgive me for giving you the benefit of the doubt and inquiring if there were platform changes that would affect compatibility.

Clawing back games isn’t a particularly new risk. If you issue a chargeback, Sony bans your account, losing your library and any wallet funds you may have. And I already indicated that if I have to go all digital, then Steam is far more attractive. But there’s no guarantee any given game I buy on Steam is going to play on any given device. If I purchase a PS5 game I can be fairly certain it will run on a PS5 and what the performance is going to be like.

But, yeah, thanks for reminding me: physical games are still a major benefit for consoles. I buy Switch cartridges almost exclusively because Nintendo's DRM implementation is horrible for a family library. I lend games to friends and family members. I've even sold games and bought used ones. Steam Family is great, and the best of the current DRM options. But, while physical still exists, it's a good reason for favor consoles that has nothing to do with technical acumen.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#262

IANAL, but is it illegal to have a "Buy" button that is just a disguised "Rent" button? If not, should we change the law?

Unrelated, but that is such an unfortunate acronym.. There's no way the people who perpetuated it didn't know what they were doing I propose, let's see.. Definitely Isn’t Legal Doctrine, Obviously or.. Based Only On Basic Speculation perhaps Consult Official Counsel, Kindly or more succinct, This Isn’t Trained Solicitor Advice

Respectfully, and for the pun: all of those are as ass as IANAL.

I don’t understand what is wrong with NAL/NLA not a lawyer/not legal advice.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#263
How do people still "buy" any movies after all these stories?

If "buy" means you can watch it on this specific device while logged in with this specific account, for some limited time, then downloading it to your disk is not "theft".

Seriously, my brain, deformed by years of file sharing, can't get it.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#264
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect people who've gotten any depth into both desktop and mobile gaming don't think they're even remotely substitutes.

Gaming on a phone is definitely not for me. I've been using PCs for several decades; it's possible that mobile gaming will never be my jam. But I can accept that I'm not everyone. I suspect that we'll have whole generations of people who manage to grow up and grow old and without ever having, or even seeking, the opportunity to spend quality time gaming on PCs. I think that's alright. Things are allowed to change.

I've got college-age extended family members who don't have any memory of a desktop PC like thing being in their home. Parents might have brought home a work laptop from time to time, but outside of that by the time they were like five the family machine had already been scrapped.

The "big family computer" became an iPad.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling someone a license, and then revoking it is like destruction of property. The injured party is owed a refund in the amount of the present day replacement cost. It's the same as if someone sold you a toaster with a remote self-destruct feature, and then invoked the self-destruct. They owe you a new toaster.

IANAL but I bet that: - If the license terms include a section on termination, and termination is done in accordance with the license terms, it's fine legally. - Licenses can be transferable but that doesn't make them non-terminable. I could be wrong, though. It's pretty crappy that we got to the point that overly simple actions (like clicking on buttons or breaking stickers on packages) can be considered accepting l…

Sure; if the fine print sticker on the bottom of the toaster says that the toaster may be remotely deactivated at any time, without a refund being issued, then it's fine. After all, you agreed to the sticker by breaking the tape seal on the box.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#268
post #59
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consoles made sense as a product category where specialized graphics hardware was not generally available for consumer PCs. We have this now, every PC has some kind of graphics hardware, and has for many years. Consoles have been riding on their momentum of their brands , but the technical justification for their product category hasn't existed for 15+ years now.

That doesn't really make sense. Consoles have always occupied a different space to PCs, not least because they plug into living room TVs. Very few people are going to trade that for a (considerably more expensive) PC. Gaming PCs also require specialized knowledge, more maintenance, etc etc. Consoles are pick up and go. I very much doubt they're dead yet.

You'll likely see a lot more Steam Machine-like PCs because of this. SteamOS fixes most of the problems you mention. Price is the new normal and you should expect next gen consoles to come closer to it. It's not a bad deal anyway when you consider the bigger library, cheaper games, and no subscription required.

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just loud Internet people. The Switch 2 is the second fastest selling game system of all time, and is keeping up with the trajectory of the first Switch, which shipped the most units of any gaming system. It'll probably get further boosts as Splatoon Raiders comes out (Splatoon is huge in Japan) and other anticipated titles. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/06/switch-2s-first-ye... I can't say I know anyon…

>I can't say I know anyone IRL who has any interest in leaving PlayStation As a counterpoint to that. Most of my 30+ year old dad gamer friends (all of us are the type to own a PC, switch and ps5 pretty much) all are considering whether this will be our last sony generation as most of us are either physical copy people or suspect the pricing will be bad without a second hand market to compete. I don't think there is…

When I was a PS3 guy I remember the prices in Playstation Store typically being $10 or more higher than what you could get physical copies for, and things never went on sale. Having one storefront for all game sales seems like an absolutely terrible deal for consumers.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#270

IANAL, but is it illegal to have a "Buy" button that is just a disguised "Rent" button? If not, should we change the law?

At the same time, I expect consumers to have a skosh of sense - I would never expect a third party to hold any sort of digital media remotely for me, in perpetuity, just because I gave them a few bucks. I know they should, based on allowing consumers to “buy” movies but, at the same time, I have a good enough understanding of the world to know that’s not likely.
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