It seems unlikely that gamers will see game-usage restricting Digital Rights Management brought to third-party games on PlayStation 4, at least according to Scott Rhode, senior Vice-President of Sony Worldwide Studios America.
Talking to Polygon, Rhode said "it would be pretty surprising" to see third party developers go against the precedent set by Sony first part ones, who won’t use DRM in any of their games. This is in response to Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony America, stating in interview with GameTrailers’ Geoff Keighley that third party devs will have freedom to decide what to do regarding DRM.
Rhode believes that the positive reaction to Sony‘s attitude would make it unlikely for third party publishers to have DRM in their own releases: "All those publishers were sitting in [our] press conference last night. When Jack, punch after punch after punch, and the house almost came down with all the cheers, they heard that.
"They heard it loud and clear and they saw the reaction to what our friends in green talked about. I think it’s pretty clear that we’ve set a nice precedent."
This quells concerns that Sony might have broken the promise made at Sony‘s E3 press conference that owners of disc-based games could freely sell and trade them. However, Sony confirmed to Polygon that this is not the case. If we do see third party publishers bring DRM to the next generation, it could be in the form of online passes, which are used in the current generation. The online passes mean that online segments of games can’t be accessed by purchasers of used games without additionally paying to do so. However, online passes have been controversial from their launch, and EA even stated last month that they will phase them out from their games.
Do you find it likely that there will be DRM in third-party PS4 games, and would it bother you if there was? Let us know in the comments section below.
Via Polygon