A report this week claimed Sony has implemented an always-online digital-rights check that will force newly purchased PS5 and PS4 games to reconnect to the internet at least once every 30 days or risk losing their license.
The claim was driven by statements from researcher Lance McDonald, who wrote: "Hugely terrible DRM has now been rolled out to all PS4 and PS5 digital games. Every digital game you buy now requires an online check-in every 30 days." McDonald added: "If you buy a digital game and don’t connect your console to the internet for 30 days, your license will be removed." The report said the change affects "all PS5 and PS4 digital games," but only newly purchased titles appear to be affected.
The most concrete on-console evidence cited in the report is a screenshot that reportedly shows a PS4 digital game page with a new "remaining time" category. Does It Play? separately summarized the situation: "Newly purchased PS4 games now have a 30-day valid license timer. Most likely introduced in March 2026 firmware. Could be a bug similar to an incident from 2022. PS5 is affected too, but only shows an error." The report said PS5 game pages do not currently show the new timer category, even though they will reportedly still time out after 30 days without an internet connection.
The change, if real, would be immediate and specific: 30 days is the period repeatedly cited in the reporting, and the new check-in would apply to digital copies bought from the PlayStation Store after the change went live. The report also said games bought in the past appear not to carry the new restriction.
The story carries a twist: the new online DRM cannot be bypassed by the usual workaround of marking a console as your primary machine, according to the report. That detail would strip a common offline-access workaround from players who rely on activated primary consoles to play without a persistent connection.
Reporters noted a possible explanation beyond deliberate policy. Does It Play? suggested the change "most likely [was] introduced in March 2026 firmware" and that the behavior "could be a bug similar to an incident from 2022." An anonymous insider told reporters: "Received word from an anonymous insider. The Sony DRM issue is unintentional. From what we gathered, Sony accidentally broke something while fixing an exploit. They’ve known about the confusing UI for a while, but didn’t see it as urgent. Hoping for a clarifying statement now."
The report itself was not independently verified in the article summarizing these claims, and the company named in the story had not confirmed or denied the assertion in that report. The original coverage said several other reports began to pop up that seemed to corroborate Lance McDonald’s claim, but it was not entirely clear whether the change was an intended feature or an unintended side effect of recent firmware work.
The immediate tension is practical and binary: players who keep consoles offline for long stretches—holiday houses, travel, collectors of physical alternatives—would suddenly find access to newly purchased digital games time-limited unless the company fixes the behavior or clarifies it as an error. The screenshots and quotes line up unevenly: visible timers on PS4 pages, error messages on PS5, and consistent secondhand claims that the restriction applies to both systems.
The most consequential near-term question is simple and addressable: will the company acknowledge the reports and roll back or patch the change? The anonymous insider’s assessment — that the problem appears unintentional and tied to a recent firmware fix — points toward a software patch, not a long-term policy shift. Until the company issues a formal statement, players who buy digital titles this week face real uncertainty about access if they plan to go offline for a month or more.
For now the cautious choice for consumers who value offline access is to prefer games purchased before the reported change or to keep consoles connected regularly; for everyone else, the industry will be watching for a clarifying statement or a firmware update that either explains or reverses the new 30-day behavior.
