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 If the server can not be reached (either due to lack of internet connection, or if the Playstation server is no longer active in the future) your PS3 or PS4 digital purchases will return an error message (80010601).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.
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