"Just got hit with Xbox One flashbacks": Did PlayStation just adopt bits of the hated Xbox DRM policy from 2013? 🤐

"Just got hit with Xbox One flashbacks."

As new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma aggressively puts the Xbox community first, it seems Sony PlayStation is taking a step backward.

In 2013, Microsoft adopted an aggressive DRM policy for the Xbox One. Microsoft told itself this was a "best of all worlds" scenario, designed to bridge the gap between physical retail and the increasing shift towards digital games. Xbox gamers have always skewed disproportionately digital in the console space, as Microsoft was among the first to offer robust services in support of the shift.

Microsoft set up a convoluted system that attached your Xbox account to the discs you were using. To resell or share them, you'd need to get the disc unlocked and removed from your account via "participating retailers." Games would also be subject to DRM check-ins online, to ensure that you actually had the "rights" to the disc you'd, you know, purchased. In exchange, Microsoft was planning to allow family pooling of digital games into a single huge digital library, similar to what Steam offers today. It buried this lede pretty hard, though.

The confusion over the policies led to a denigration of the Xbox brand that continues to this day in some ways. Microsoft backpedaled hard in 2013, but it put them on the back foot all the way to modern times. In 2026, the vast majority of Xbox games you own no longer need any form of online check-in when used on your "home" Xbox console — save for multiplayer games, which are online anyway.

Oddly, PlayStation now seems to have adopted a mandatory 30-day check-in — which is reminiscent of those fateful Xbox One days.

Putting The PS5 DRM Claims To The Test - YouTube

Watch On

As examined by Spawnwave in the video above, it does seem that PlayStation now has some form of DRM check-in period for some games, requiring an internet connection and a valid account sign-in.

PlayStation Support seems to have suggested that the check-in period is around 30 days.

"Thank you for your interest on the 30-Day Timer that is being applied to all new purchases," the purported message reads, "Affected content: games purchased digitally after the March 2026 update. If the console does not connect to the internet within 30 days, the license expires and the game may refuse to launch until a connection is restored."

Either way, it's truly nowhere near as aggressive as the Xbox One policy from 2013, which was gunning for a somewhat insane 24-hour check-in. Even in 2026, I've had situations where our fiber optic internet has been down for over 24 hours, and I live in a country that (supposedly) ranks high for internet connectivity.

Thankfully, Microsoft walked back the insanity of this policy, and PlayStation's DRM check-in is far more "generous." But there's a broader issue here.

I'm not really someone who cares a great deal about DRM, speaking personally. Like I said, I generally have good internet connections, and failing that, you'd have a 5G hotspot to do the DRM check in a pinch.

But, for many, the issue boils down to futureproofing. Imagine decades into the future, in a scenario where PlayStation, Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter, decides to no longer continue serving the DRM services for whatever reason: you could end up with a console full of digital games you could no longer play or access.

Microsoft no longer requires any form of DRM on the vast majority of its digital single-player games, meaning you could fill up a big Xbox Series X|S Seagate Storage Card (21% off on Amazon btw!!) with games and, as long as that Xbox was designated as your home console, you could realistically expect to access those games decades into the future, even if Xbox stopped supporting the Xbox Series X.

For PS5, on the other hand, if Sony ever stopped supporting DRM checks on that system, you'd be checkmated in theory after the 30-day expiry period.

It's still a pretty far-fetched scenario to imagine, and not one I personally think is realistic. I can't envision a world where PlayStation, Xbox, or any of the major platform players shut down their account management layers in my lifetime. If they did, it would likely be due to some catastrophic global event, in which case accessing my games would probably be low down on my list of priorities. But for many, it is an issue. Not only mechanically, but it's often also a matter of principle — and that's totally valid.

It's a reminder that we don't truly "own" our digital games we've purchased. It's a far cry from how games used to work in the 80s, 90s, and early 00s, where buying the disc simply meant owning it for all intents and purposes. And it's why Xbox's aggressive posture, ramming this through in 2013, was met with such hostility. I've seen some suggestions that this is PlayStation's attempt to mitigate recent attempts to jailbreak its ecosystem. Whatever the reason, it's probably not going to be as big of a deal for most people in real terms, in an era where we're all perpetually connected online.

Every platform handles its DRM a bit differently. Steam's DRM supports indefinite access offline for games you own, as does Xbox's, after that initial online setup. But it's an interesting reminder of the 2013 Xbox One backlash — bearing hard lessons Microsoft is arguably still reeling from.

In any case, we've reached out to PlayStation for a comment. It could be a bug, or something unintentional. We'll let you know either way.

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