> They must feel free to do as they please since they know consumers are trapped.

My take is somewhat difference: Sony is offloading the cost of their prior decisions onto consumers.

For things like movies, they should have negotiated a contract where sold copies are sold copies and cannot be revoked (even if their right to sell/rent copies lapse). For things like the PS3 store, it cannot be run indefinitely. That said, from my understanding, the authorization keys expire if the clock battery on the PS3 dies. That should not be permitted.

I don't think that this is a "do as they please" situation. I think it is a case of bad decisions being made in the past. For some, like the movies, there isn't much they can do to fix the problem after the fact. There is absolutely no incentive for the rights holders to let consumers continue to access previously purchased content (especially with Sony taking all of the blame). Even something like offering refunds to people who purchased the movies is problematic. In all probability, all of their contracts have similar terms. They would have to refund everyone for every purchase in the long run.

Other stuff, like access to PS3 purchases, are likely fixable. The question is: where is the incentive? They could create a patch for old consoles, but it would only affect a small number of customers who still have those consoles. (Worse yet, it wouldn't do anything for those who stored their consoles in the closet -- only to pull it out later to discover the authorization keys are invalid.) The math probably doesn't work out for them so they aren't going to do it.

I made a decision to get away from other consoles and only invest in Steam a while ago. In the 2010s I was a big Vita player but Sony backed away from investing in the Vita and I saw that the kind of Japanese games I liked were coming out on Steam so I sold my Vita.

And it doesn't have to be this way. I started buying Xbox games digitally for the Xbox 360, and with their backwards compatibility that ended up being a great choice. My current XSX plays games for the last 3 generations of digital purchases I've made.

Well it's just for new sales, access to purchased content remains "for the foreseeable future". How long the future is foreseeable for Sony? Might want to ask the Concord team maybe.

> they know consumers are trapped.

Gaming is a luxury good. We can all just walk away.

In the long run I think consoles might get replaced to "consolerized" PCs (they are already technically, but I guess we might see more advanced software environments like steam boxes).

Neither Sony nor Microsoft had a consumer orientation and they will likely loose against the competition.

Physical media was a method to have a "plug & play" game, although that changed in recent times. With that I don't think classic consoles can compete, especially with their new price points.

> This is a weird marketing strategy. They must feel free to do as they please since they know consumers are trapped.

I've been on PlayStation family since PS2, and used to think I was married to it, with my game library and my player character stuff/gear/creations in various games.

But the platform no longer lets me play many of those games, anyway, whether due to console gen or server shutdowns. And nobody cares about my PlayStation gamer score or trophies. So there's little tying me to the platform for the next game I buy.

Sony, please don't make me move to "Linux" gaming, via Valve/GOG/Epic (since I don't want to endorse Microsoft hegemony over the low-level gaming "standard"). PlayStation should be a beloved brand and platform that can be trusted to keep games working -- not one that throws away history, nostalgia, and community. You already impose rules on publishers, so this is within your power.

Related: Project Aces, I was fairly highly ranked in a couple of the Ace Combat installments, but when you shut down the servers, you took away what I'd invested in. I reluctantly bought AC7, but found I didn't have the heart to invest in it, just to have it taken away again, and I won't be buying AC8 nor anything else in the franchise.

Sony is dead to me now.

I mean the PS3 was launched in 2006.

The fact that the PS store has still been supported on the console for this long is kind of incredible.

If you hadn't brought that up, I would have.

Sony should not be let off the hook for its offensive (essentially criminal) behavior.

I won't even review Sony's decades-long efforts to undermine industry standards...

The storage price isn't really an issue. For the average game it's probably $2 of storage on a hard drive when it's not currently installed on your console. And digital versions see discounts more often.

I'd say screwing up ownership is a much bigger issue.

I remember when the ps3 released Sony mocked controller rumble as a 'last gen feature'. Now their haptic feedback is the only distinguishing feature of their console.

I do think if you are claiming something is not permanent you should basically have to make some specific claims about the timeliness of it (eg you can use it for at least 10 years or your money back).