A wild story broke over the weekend, and supposedly it may already be over, but it is worth going through the whole thing.
Modder Lance McDonald, best known in many circles for his work around the Souls games, claimed that Sony had introduced a new DRM system affecting digital games on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. According to him, newly purchased digital games may now require an online check-in every 30 days. If the console does not connect to the internet within that period, the license may be temporarily revoked. This allegedly does not affect games purchased earlier. The standard primary-console setting reportedly does not bypass the requirement…
There has still been no official confirmation from Sony, so for the moment the whole thing remains in rumor territory. There were also claims that Xbox had introduced something similar, and there may even have been reports about that years ago, since digital games would sometimes fail to launch during Xbox outages. And it is worth remembering that the Xbox One originally wanted a daily internet connection back when Microsoft unveiled the console in 2013…
Then Does It Play? wrote on Twitter that it had received information from an anonymous insider. According to that source, Sony’s DRM issue was not intentional. Based on what they gathered, Sony accidentally broke something while fixing an exploit. The company had apparently known for some time that the user interface around the issue was confusing, but had not considered it urgent. They are now hoping a clarifying statement arrives soon.
Hopefully this really was just a mistake, and not part of a future Sony plan that would make games unusable without an internet connection even when they are offline single-player titles, and Resident Evil Requiem would be one such example. If this only applied to online games that require server connections and are in many cases free-to-play, that would at least be understandable. Otherwise it would be a rough move from Sony. At least disc-based games do not need the internet…
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. If you buy a digital game and don’t connect your console to the internet for 30 days, your license will be removed. pic.twitter.com/23gU16CIkx
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) April 25, 2026
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.
— Does it play? (@DoesItPlay1) April 25, 2026
