Technology

I have content I purchased on steam 19yrs ago. Shit was built for completely different hardware but I can go install and play it right now. The physical console games I bought that year only work in consoles that have long since broken. I can go play HL2 whenever I want, to play my copy of THPS3, I have to find and buy a PS2 that still works.

Digital ownership can apparently work just fine

Sony is reminding us that Sony is a shitty company. The company that bought you amazing technology like the memory stick (tm) probably cannot be trusted.

We need to stop calling it digital "ownership"! You don't get to own anything as a customer on these platforms, because rights that can be taken away on a whim are no rights at all.

Remember the time when Sony invented rootkits to make their drm stronger? Pepridge farm remembers.

It should be illegal to take back / away a digital purchase because of a rights change or any other reason. Sure, maybe I lose the ability to download again if the company goes out of business, but other than that, my media, my fucking property. And not in a distribution sense. Like it was a physical copy. It's not like they're allowed to enter my home and steal my blu-rays.

The ps5 and Switch will probably be my last consoles. I will just find ways yo mod the Switch when support dies for it to keep games on the go, and when psn is cut for ps5 that will be it. PC will be my way forward. I won't put up with this "pay for internet twice and still not own your games" stuff after these generations.

If there's DRM involved, then you're renting, not buying. Take that into account when considering how to spend money.

Points at the Jolly Roger.

Counterpoint: digital ownership — true ownership when you have the actual files — is amazing. It’s the media panacea we’ve wanted for years. Storage is cheap, content is boundless, and if you curate your own collection you can usually get it anywhere you want.

After the spyware disclosure and consent form on launch of Horizon Zero Dawn, I ceased getting anything Sony.

But the recent discontinuation of service shows us the ethic of piracy is (and always was) one-sided. Sony takes what it pleases, and no one is going to enforce otherwise.

We are justified in taking whatever action is necessary to ensure our own survival and fair benefit including violent terrorism so long as the state's agencies are not going legislate or adjudicate fairly but in the favor of plutocrats and corporations.

The whole point of the social contract is equal treatment and preventing the bloodshed of natural disagreement resolution (typically intergenerational family feuds)

Sony can appreciate we just want our shows and tunes and games with little hassle, and not revenge for being a traitor to the peace.

Sony will totally download a bear.

What the hell they talking about? Digital ownership is amazing. I can stream all my content from my server and keep it forever as long as I backup regularly. What sucks is buying shit digitally because then you don't own it at all

After this I'm getting an external drive and backing my gog library, since it and itch io are the last bastions of ownership (shame I can only pay in USD on itch).

Not sure why anyone at this point is stoked to own a Playstation. Literally all of their games are going to be on PC, GTA6 will eventually be on PC, not to mention all of the cross platform games on PS5 that are, you guessed it, also on PC.

Between digital storefronts removing content you paid for and the price tag on all new releases, it just doesn't make sense to engage with this new generation of "you don't actually own your games now".

Thing is that most games on physical media aren't much good in the long run either for the very same reasons. Even the single player ones have a myriad of little bits and bobs of online connectivity nowadays. I expect 95% of them to break once their servers go down. Most of them for super stupid reasons..some version mismatch here, a weird timeout in the launcher there. And being on closed systems,.there will be no way to patch them by the community on consoles.

The only games I expect to still work are Nintendo games. That's not because they are the good guys but because their understanding of this whole internet thing is so laughably bad.