alt Hacker NewsIs there any evidence of this?
They can delist a game from the PS store, but I doubt they would make a game unplayable if it's already installed or if you own it physically.
Replies
I am not aware of a case where they disabled an already-playable game via a firmware update.
But they do require certain firmware updates to play games, at least they did in the PS3 days. If you hadn't updated to that firmware (say, because you didn't want certain features you used like the OtherOS installation to be deleted) your new physical media would not play. I bought Dark Souls on a disc and could not play it on my console.
Firmware anti-downgrade functionality with eFuses is common across all kinds of consumer devices. The physical evidence is there, if you can find it.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFuse> <https://free60.org/Hardware/Fusesets/#fusesets-07-11> <https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Fuses#Anti-downgrade> <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/google-gives-develop...>
They said “can”, not “has”. Given that it’s a closed platform that Sony has complete control over, they certainly can do it.
You can doubt that they will, but that’s just hope rather than a legal or technical guarantee.