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LOS ANGELES — Shots fired!
Publisher Sony said it won’t have any online authentication or digital rights management on its PlayStation 4 console games this evening at its pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo press briefing. It won’t require you to check in your console and games with online servers periodically, either. It said you own your games forever.
“When gamers buy a disc, they have the right to use that disc,” Sony chief executive Jack Tretton said. “Your games won’t stop working if you don’t check in after 24 hours.”
Tretton confirmed you can trade their games at retail.You can sell the game to another person, lend it to a friend, or keep it forever.
This is in direct opposition to the stance Microsoft recently took in regard to its Xbox One console. That console requires a daily authentication with its servers or else games will stop working. The hardware works with used games, but the process has many restrictions. For example, you can only trade discs at “participating retailers.” You can lend the game to friends, but only those that have been on your friends list for at least 30 days. This effectively kills second-hand sales on online marketplaces like eBay and Craigslist as well as at many indie game stores.
Additionally, Microsoft will allow publishers to enact a fee on used-game sales at the aforementioned participating retailers. Now that Sony won’t support that practice, it is unclear if publishers will treat Xbox players differently than PlayStation owners.