Sony On PS4 Used Games: “If You Buy It, You Own, Can Do Whatever You Want With It’

Sony’s making it abundantly clear that when you purchase a PS4 game, you own the darn thing, and can do whatever the heck you want with it. Plain, simply, understandable and, I reckon, laudable.

That’s what President and group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Andrew House, told Yahoo Games at E3, adding that he was taken aback by the notion that they may have been considering a policy change.

You could argue that it’s a storm in a teacup – a very vocal minority of passionate gamers. This huge outpouring of feeling around the concept of ownership of content. But I have to say I don’t see it that way.

I think we saw a lightning rod for feeling that has been bubbling up – that doesn’t just apply to games, but to entertainment overall. I think there’s an increasing nervousness about what ownership of content means, in the absence of physical goods. When that nervousness was starting to migrate into control over physical goods that consumers have purchased, that was a bridge too far.

I want to be very clear about where we have been on this issue: I think there’s a danger that we could be seen to have reacted and capitalized on a situation. When we first announced PS4 in February, people were saying, ‘Oh, Sony’s being coy’ – almost with some implicit suspicion.

It struck us as very odd. We had no intention of changing our position – it hasn’t changed from what it’s been for the last fifteen years. We believe that if you buy it, you own it, you’re able to do with it what you want.

House added that he is a vocal advocate for the indie development community, contending that in an industry that’s becoming more and more reliable on AAA titles that are expensive to create, there must be a counterbalance.

I am very vocal on the topic of indie games. The industry has an increasing reliance on high-end, high-production-values games – the equivalent of Hollywood blockbuster game franchises. A creative entertainment industry absolutely needs a counterbalance to that, the equivalent of arthouse cinema – the creative, the different, the new. Our goal is to have PlayStation be the best place to foster that.

PlayStation 4 will be released this holiday season, however Sony has warned of shortages, so we’re encouraging gamers to preorder early.