Sony Lawyer Responds to Lawsuit Over Digital PlayStation Game Ownership

Sony’s defense argues that digital games cannot be owned.

This summer, Sony announced plans to phase out physical discs for PlayStation games. Some gamers are unhappy with the shift to digital formats, noting the disappearance of the secondhand disc market, Sony’s ability to dictate pricing, and the fact that users will no longer truly own their games.

From a technical standpoint, a digital game version is simply a license. Under certain circumstances, a player can lose access to purchased content.

Sony is currently facing lawsuits in various countries. One of these lawsuits stems from a potential violation of California’s digital purchase law, as players argue that buyers are not properly informed that they are merely purchasing a license:

Consumers who “buy” digital games through the PlayStation Store do not acquire ownership rights to these products. Instead, PlayStation provides only a limited, revocable license to access the software.

GameFile drew attention to the company’s legal arguments. Sony’s defense explains that owning a digital asset, such as a game, is impossible because a player cannot own something purchased from a digital storefront if that exact copy has already been acquired by another person.

Media outlets highlighted an example provided to prove that a digital game version cannot be owned:

As the plaintiffs acknowledge, Section 1 of the SPLA also explicitly states: “The Software is licensed to you, not sold.” This makes sense: in the digital age, it is implausible to claim that reasonable consumers believed they were acquiring “ownership rights” to a digital game. If that were the case, plaintiff Edward Haycock would not have been able to buy Resident Evil Requiem on February 25, 2026, for $69.99 in the PlayStation Store after plaintiff Jason Mendoza purchased Resident Evil Requiem on February 14, 2026—because at that point, the game would have been owned by Mendoza rather than Sony.

Image source: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Rumors suggest that the phaseout of physical discs for PlayStation games might be temporarily delayed. Reports indicate that Microsoft is currently trying to strengthen its position by telling partners that the next Xbox console will support physical copies.

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