Sony and the DRM situation for PS4

First Sony was the savior of gaming during the conference and now after Jack Tretton stated that it would be up to publishers if they have DRM or not people argue that Sony was lying or follow suit to enforce DRM in the future.

From the explanation that was given during the conference Sony wasn`t lying because nothing on the console side is there to support DRM. There is nothing in place to have online check ins required, nothing that would block reselling games or lending games on a system level. So what DRM features have publishers available? I would guess from the looks of it the same they have on the 360 or PS3 and that would be things like online passes. Technically they could have an online pass for the whole game as it doesn`t make much of a difference if you gate off the multiplayer functions or the whole game from a technical point of view. You can do the same on any current console if you want to and given the backlash MS got over it`s DRM features I would say nobody would want to try this at the moment

As for the possibility of Sony following in the future MS. The issue that I have is that I don`t understand what MS is doing. I get it that publishers and developers want money from the used market, but in one way it boosts new sales because people can trade in games and afford new games with the money or give different games a chance because they know they can trade it back in. The second thing is that the used market is going to face away over time

Digital retail is becoming more used every year and what MS is doing is aimed at disc based games. None of the "problems" they try to remove are present with digital games. Don Mattrick was claiming that it`s not a sprint but a marathon? So if they see it as a marathon, why do they try to get rid of used games that fast if it would be a lot smaller of a problem in a few years. Microsoft put the Xbox One in such a bad light when it was not necessary at all. They could have waited it out for digital to take over without the need to go through all the bad press and bad PR. I prefer disc based games because I can have them in my shelve and can play them in the future when my console dies or servers are not online anymore to download the game again. But over the last few years I have seen myself buy more and more games digitally and especially if they are cheaper then disc games. There was no need for MS to come up with their draconian DRM features. They could have remained open towards used games and lending games to friends and so on and have digital games priced competitively lower compared to disc based games. If your digital game is cheaper, unlocks at midnight and can be pre downloaded so people can start a minute after midnight the core gamers will go for it. There will always be people that prefer discs, but there is no reason to try to eradicate them and screwing them over. They can just reduce it to a low number where it doesn`t make a difference if some people trade or lend copies to others by treating the customers right and giving them a good reason to go digital.

So long and keep on playing, but play on your terms not on terms dictated by others.