Just got one step closer to being a digital download advocate

[SpaceHarrier]

As much as I have been adopting digital downloads lately, even over readily available physical counterparts where there is little or no price difference, anti-consumer issues pop up from time to time to remind me why physical media is still relevant.

Case in point, news is making the rounds that the PS3 and PS4 essentially contain a 'suicide battery' of sorts. The CMOS battery keeps your internal clock going, but is also tied to your digital purchases. If the battery is dead, or changed, the system must 'check in' to the Playstation network server to re-sync the clock and reactivate your digital purchases. If the server can not be reached (either due to lack of internet connection, or if the Playstation server is no longer active in the future) your PS3 or PS4 digital purchases will return an error message (80010601). I'm unsure of the rules for posting video links here, but if you search Youtube for CMOS PSN, the first video will show this process. Again, this is speaking to the future when both the battery has died, and also presuming that the Playstation server responsible for re-sync might be deactivated.

Just a reminder to us that by design we don't own anything but a limited license to play a digitally purchased game, and within all the legalese of the agreement we are forced to accept is a statement that no guarantees are made as to the continued functionality of those games whatsoever. It's a shame that I should have to reconsider technology that is both more convenient and makes hoarding more physical objects obsolete because of publisher/manufacturer greed and control.

[YoshiM]

As much as I have been adopting digital downloads lately, even over readily available physical counterparts where there is little or no price difference, anti-consumer issues pop up from time to time to remind me why physical media is still relevant.

Case in point, news is making the rounds that the PS3 and PS4 essentially contain a 'suicide battery' of sorts. The CMOS battery keeps your internal clock going, but is also tied to your digital purchases. If the battery is dead, or changed, the system must 'check in' to the Playstation network server to re-sync the clock and reactivate your digital purchases. If the server can not be reached (either due to lack of internet connection, or if the Playstation server is no longer active in the future) your PS3 or PS4 digital purchases will return an error message (80010601). I'm unsure of the rules for posting video links here, but if you search Youtube for CMOS PSN, the first video will show this process. Again, this is speaking to the future when both the battery has died, and also presuming that the Playstation server responsible for re-sync might be deactivated.

Just a reminder to us that by design we don't own anything but a limited license to play a digitally purchased game, and within all the legalese of the agreement we are forced to accept is a statement that no guarantees are made as to the continued functionality of those games whatsoever. It's a shame that I should have to reconsider technology that is both more convenient and makes hoarding more physical objects obsolete because of publisher/manufacturer greed and control.

Holy hell....that's news to me. I wonder if the Vita might be in the same boat? The upside in my case is I don't have a lot of digital stuff for PS3 and I haven't played much of anything on it. But still-that totally sucks.

[gbpxl]

reminds me a lot like how GM says when you buy a car, youre not actually buying the car. no youre buying the right to drive that car and thats it. you cant perform any maintenance on it yourself or modify it somehow

[RARusk]

The modding community is probably already hard at work finding ways to overcome these problems. I'm not too worried. The floodgates will open once the last PS3 update is jailbroken as Sony will have abandoned the model and won't stop people from modding it.

[Gameguy]

Holy hell....that's news to me. I wonder if the Vita might be in the same boat? The upside in my case is I don't have a lot of digital stuff for PS3 and I haven't played much of anything on it. But still-that totally sucks.

Here's the video that explains it, I don't think it affects the Vita as nothing was mentioned about it but it will also affect the PS4 eventually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl0582D52ng

It's actually worse for the PS4 as the issue will apparently also kill physical discs from working, not just digital only games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcIn112ZLcY

The modding community is probably already hard at work finding ways to overcome these problems. I'm not too worried. The floodgates will open once the last PS3 update is jailbroken as Sony will have abandoned the model and won't stop people from modding it.

It's already overcome if you're willing to mod your system and pirate the games, it's been confirmed that this is already possible. At least with the PS3, I'm not sure how hacking is going with the PS4 as I haven't looked into it.


I refused to buy any type of digital only release for games or movies and will continue to do so, I see no reason to financially support practices I don't agree with. I want physical releases and I don't see why companies will produce physical copies if people will just pay them money anyway for digital only releases. Even with physical discs it will still suck for games that need patches, as those won't be available so games will play broken. So many unfinished games get released these days.

[YoshiM]

I did a little research and thus far, no mention of a Vita CMOS battery. I did see articles in passing about PS3 dating back to last year. I think the store going down for that system brought that issue back into the light.

[mailman187666]

Not sure of totally related, but I am unable to update any of my physical vita games. The internet connection is fine, and I have over 2gb of space left on my memory card. I'm not sure what to do about updating any games I haven't popped in the system yet, but I have had this issue for awhile now. Its almost as if I will have to mod it at some point just to be able to push updates through, if that is even an option. I'm just playing V1.00 of everything I put in at this point.