Sony UK’s PS4 Terms of Use Prohibits Rentals and Used Game Sales

I’m sure everyone remembers this cheeky video that Sony made about how to share PS4 games in the wake of Microsoft’s ill-concieved DRM policies. 

Well, some eagle-eyed gamers (or hardcore Xbox fanboys) have studied the latest copy of Sony’s Software Usage Terms posted here on their UK site. Two articles in the terms are particularly raising some eyebrows-

6.3. You must not lease, rent, sublicense, publish, modify, adapt, or translate any portion of the Software.

7.1. You must not resell either Disc-based Software or Software Downloads, unless expressly authorised by us and, if the publisher is another company, additionally by the publisher.

So has good guy Sony gone over to the dark side? Not quite… upon further inspection you can see here that similar policies have been in place since the PS3 days. Also to calm any worries Sony President Shuhei Yoshida replied to a tweet confirming that reselling games won’t be hindered. 

@McErono78 you are allowed to sell your disc based games

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) November 11, 2013

So there you have it, rumor debunked… but why does this exist? Enforcing that kind of policy would obviously kill a rental business like Gamefly and put a big hurt on resell-happy retailers like Gamestop. Let’s all just hope Sony really are the good guys they claim to be.

Oh and by the way, they’re also monitoring everything you do on PSN… sort of.

However, we reserve the right in our sole discretion to monitor and record any or all of your PSN activity and to remove any of your UGM at our sole discretion, without further notice to you. Your use of PSN and our community features may be recorded and collected by us or sent to us by other users as described in 13.1. Any information collected in this way, for example, your UGM, the content of your voice and text communications, video of your gameplay, the time and location of your activities, and your name, your PSN Online ID and IP address, may be used by us or our affiliated companies to enforce these Terms and the SEN Terms of Service, to comply with the law, to protect our rights and those of our licensors and users, and to protect the personal safety of our employees and users.

So basically, if you’re being an obnoxious, racist jerk or flashing your junk to little kids, they’re going to turn you in to the cops. Still, if you’re the paranoid type… simply don’t buy a PS4 Eye and don’t use a headset. I also suggest wearing tinfoil hats as well, just for an added layer of protection.