Sony makes bold claim about game ownership • Hacker News Board

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#101

Post by __aru » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #62

I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to enter the gaming console market using open source as a base. Linux support for GPUs has never been better than what it is today. I've spent the last 4 or 5 years gaming exclusively on Linux just to highlight how good it has gotten, and no I don't have to run around doing command line incantations. Linux has improved a lot, heck, even AI you have a drastically better exper…

> I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to enter the gaming console market using open source as a base.

It's definitely possible, but I suspect that Valve (or some other major player) must first prove the concept to be viable for a business.

e.g. The Steam Deck wasn't the first PC gaming handheld made, but it was the one that proved there was a viable market, which led to a bunch of competitors following Valve's lead.

The Steam Machine, unfortunately, botched the execution due to high pricing. If pricing had been good, I'm guessing that it too could have been the proof-of-concept needed to jump start the market.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#102

Post by aleksiy123 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

PlayStation store not allowing returns for games that have been downloaded is the most bs policy.

In a world where steam allows instant returns with under 2 hours play time.

I have a few games now on ps where I barely played or found out the controls were terrible and have no way to return.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#103

Post by ux266478 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #52

nerdjon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maybe should have phrased that better since I do understand their announcement around disks and removing the movies is a reason why they are the current target. I just find it hypocritical, people keep saying they are going to move to xbox or pc next gen and its like. Their policy is exactly the same. You have the same risk and not really ownership. And I am not defending Sony, they have a long history of getting c…

> Their policy is exactly the same. It's not, though. Their ToS is the same. They reserve to right to deny you ownership of your games. Only Sony has been stupid enough to actually do it. Every ToS in the world is designed to screw the signee over as much as it possibly can, so you'd need to go live in the woods if you wanted to escape it, but there is a tangible difference between how much companies actually abuse t…

To be clear, you never owned the games, you own the disk that contains the games. The right they are reserving is to revoke your legal access to the games you're licensing. They can't repossess the disk, but they can deny you the right to use what's on it. Obviously digital-only also exists, in which case you own literally nothing. All that remains is the contingent access that they legally have control over.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#104

Post by shevy-java » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

Sony will lose this. Why? Because courts can point to the fact that in the 1990s, people bought a game, then could play it and re-sell it freely. So the claim about Sony how people only ever "licenced" something from them, and NOW face more restrictions than before, simply because Sony claims so, makes no sense. That's against established practices.

Sony should be disbanded by the court for wasting our time here.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#105

Post by PenguinCoder » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #84

antiframe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have the same risk and not really ownership. You don't, though. When I download a game on Steam or GOG, I have the files on my PC. I can back them up. I can modify them. Yes, live service games still have an online component I don't control, but I do still control the files on my computer. I don't on a console. Actually, I don't own any consoles for reasons of software freedom but I hear they are much more diff…

Yes, you do. When you play a digital game on Playstation you also download the files... It may be harder like you say but the law doesn't really see it any differently PC vs Console if you want to archive/backup your digital game media.

How do you backup game files from a console, to an external drive/location that you own; and ensure the validity of that backup will still be usable on the console later?

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#106

Post by rolph » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

nerdjon wrote: post #3

What I don't understand is why Sony is the one being targeted for this when this has been the case with any digital purchase for 20 years? I don't know of a digital marketplace that works differently. But instead all of the hate, the boycots, etc are all targeting Sony instead of focusing on actually figuring out how to improve digital purchase rights which extend beyond games (and far beyond Sony). I know that some…

When You rootkit people, it tends to be unforgettable..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#107

Post by nerdjon » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #91

nerdjon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So its fine that they force you to agree to something when you paid for it but its not fine when they do the thing you agreed too? Instead of actually trying to fix the issue we just hope that Valve never has to do the thing they are legally allowed to do because we agreed they could. I honestly don't care who has done what, I don't care what company is supposedly better than another company. Overnight Valve, Microso…

> So its fine that they force you to agree to something when you paid for it but its not fine when they do the thing you agreed too? Two things can be both "not fine" but one can still be worse than the other.

Of course, I am not arguing otherwise. But if your core problem is not the removal of content but what Sony is arguing right now. You should have just as much of an issue with Valve as you do Sony since you are signing up for the same legal risk.

Just because one has done it and the other hasn't is a technicality to me since that could change overnight.

The point that I am trying to make here is that it is insane to me that all of this is focused on Sony. And frankly I don't have a good solution here, but just arguing that one TOS is better than another because one company hasn't done the thing yet but could is not a good argument.

How many times have we seen management change, companies being bought, whatever and suddenly something really bad happens.

I am just getting really frustrated by Sony this, Sony that. Boycot sony, etc when if all we do is move to another platform with the same policies do we really expect anything to change?

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#108

Post by __aru » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

hn_submit wrote: post #66

This statement could do Sony in. Gamers will refuse to buy a PS6 if there's not an ironclad guarantee that they own the games they purchase, be it digital or disc form. And since gaming is the only profit center that's holding Sony above water I see the company disappearing in a couple of years. I foresee another "gaming winter" like we had in the 1980's. Maybe a decade from now another gaming platform will arise, mo…

I think that this could end up true if the next Xbox really is "just a PC".

The PC gaming ecosystem is a powerful selling point, especially due to the existence of Steam, emulators, modding, etc.

Windows really needs more refinement and polish though, the current experience is mostly unacceptable for a living room PC.

A next-gen Steam Machine would likely be a better competitor to the PS6, it doesn't have the reputational baggage that Xbox and Microsoft currently has.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#109

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

nerdjon wrote: post #64

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their policy is exactly the same. It's not, though. Their ToS is the same. They reserve to right to deny you ownership of your games. Only Sony has been stupid enough to actually do it. Every ToS in the world is designed to screw the signee over as much as it possibly can, so you'd need to go live in the woods if you wanted to escape it, but there is a tangible difference between how much companies actually abuse t…

So its fine that they force you to agree to something when you paid for it but its not fine when they do the thing you agreed too? Instead of actually trying to fix the issue we just hope that Valve never has to do the thing they are legally allowed to do because we agreed they could. I honestly don't care who has done what, I don't care what company is supposedly better than another company. Overnight Valve, Microso…

[deleted]

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#110

Post by simpaticoder » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

captainbland wrote: post #11

If we're not owning it, you're not selling it, you're leasing it. Terminology on sales pages should reflect this. "Subscribe now" "purchase license" etc. should be mandated if this is the expectation. Terms like "buy" without qualification are misleading in this context, but they won't remove them from store pages because people are more likely to pay higher rates for something if they believe they are actually ownin…

It's a non-transferable lease that can be canceled at any time by the issuer.

The real problem is that most of society still thinks of games as a piece of physical media that you combine with a player that allows you to play the game. In that world you have a liscense to the software, and a physical token which is transferable and therefore valuable.

I'd argue that we need to decouple transferability and cancel ability from physical media. If this were to happen then the word "Buy" makes sense precisely the same way it used to with physical media. Of course more provision needs to be provided for live service games regarding cancel ability.