[STEAM] Mandatory internet connection is back on consoles as new PlayStation DRM disables your license after 30 days

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Those who were around leading up to the Xbox One's release in 2013 will not-so-fondly remember all the drama about

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's initial plans to make the console always online. There was total outrage during those days, and the sentiment of preserving offline play on all platforms has largely remained, though I can't say that it isn't dwindling nowadays.

And it seems Sony is well aware of the evaporation of offline gaming, as its new DRM solution seems to require players to check in with the company every 30 days at risk of losing their license. To put it simply, you have to go online at least once every month or so to avoid your license being disabled, preventing the game from being launched offline as long as the license isn't reactivated by connecting to the internet.

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This seems to have been put in place for a while now, generally targeting PlayStation 4, but as

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, it could be that every new digital purchase on both the PS4 and the PS5 is affected. "Every digital game you buy now requires an online check-in every 30 days," he said.

DRMs requiring license reactivation are nothing new. Denuvo, one of the most popular DRM solutions among mainstream publishers, can sometimes require you to go online so it can reissue a valid token to your machine, allowing the related game to run offline. These tokens apparently expire after a few weeks and need to be reissued.

The same mechanism could be in place here, though there's also a chance that it's a bug of some kind. If it is, it's pretty elaborate for a "mistake" and is, to my eyes, at least a segue into a future of

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