PS4 Game Expiry Timer Sparks DRM Concerns, Here’s What We Know So Far

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Many PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 owners are worried today because of claims that Sony has added a type of DRM. This DRM seems to indicate that purchased games might stop working after 30 days.

Okay, so I’m hearing some stuff, but honestly, the reports are all over the place. Plus, the company hasn’t said anything about it yet, and some people are even saying it’s already fixed! It’s a little confusing right now, and I’m taking everything with a grain of salt until we get official word.

Here’s what we know so far:

  • Some newly purchased PS4 games have started to display a validity period of 30 days.
  • Based on our testing, the issue only appears to be affecting PS4 games purchased within the last few weeks.
  • We’ve been unable to replicate the disclaimer on a PS5, although some on social media claim they’ve seen the message there as well.

We’ve seen reports that the timer restarts if you go online after it finishes, but we haven’t been able to verify this ourselves.

We’ve also seen reports saying your console will lose access completely if you don’t connect it to the internet after a certain date, but we haven’t been able to verify this. If it’s true, it would likely be illegal.

Issue First Emerged in Late March

Rumors about this began appearing in late March, but they’ve only recently gained traction on social media.

A comparable problem happened with the PS3 and PS Vita in 2022, but it was successfully fixed.

A game preservation account called Destruction Games says that if the battery in your console dies or is taken out, certain games won’t start if they’re checking for a valid date.

You may recall there was a big hullabaloo around this in 2021, which Sony actually fixed.

The CMOS battery keeps track of the console’s date and time, which is necessary for verifying earned trophies. Like all batteries, it doesn’t last forever and will eventually need to be replaced.

Although the part is simple to replace, older PS4 software used to need a connection to PlayStation Network to confirm the date and time after the replacement was done.

People worried that if the PlayStation Network ever shut down in the future, a required connection process would become impossible, making all games unplayable.

Sony fixed this problem in update 9.00, so it’s surprising to see it reappear after five years.

It Could Be a Bug

Some Reddit users have noticed that a display showing how long a game could be played for recently disappeared from their accounts. They say it was visible until recently.

The website Does It Play, which tests if software works without an internet connection, reports that a source familiar with the situation says the problem is not deliberate.

So, from what I’ve been reading, it sounds like Sony messed something up while trying to patch a security issue. Apparently, they’ve known the user interface was kinda wonky for a while now, but they didn’t think it was a big enough problem to fix right away.

Wait for More Information from Sony

Our view on this is that it’s likely an error.

We know people are skeptical and worried about this issue, and it’s clear from the reports we’ve received that it isn’t functioning correctly. Some users are experiencing the error, while others aren’t, and it seems to only affect new software on the PS4.

If it turns out this is a new form of digital rights management, we’ll be the first to point it out. However, because the company hasn’t said anything and there’s a lot of inaccurate information spreading online, we ask everyone to remain calm until we have more concrete details.

In the meantime, we’ll contact Sony for comment and update if and when we hear back.

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2026-04-25 23:07