Concerns about PlayStation’s approach to game preservation have been ripe following a report that suggested the manufacturer plans to disable the storefronts on some of its legacy consoles, including PlayStation 3. While we’re still waiting for official confirmation of that – and Sony will need to communicate something fairly soon if the rumours are indeed true – further speculation suggesting that PS4 hardware will no longer be able to play games should an internal clock battery die are heating up.
As is so often the case, the story appears to have started on social media, although it has been picked up by major publications since. The gist is as follows: PS4 includes an internal clock battery that assigns times to Trophy unlocks, preventing users from being able to alter the date or time they earned particular trinkets. Over time, as with all hardware, this battery will die, and while it can easily be replaced, it requires a handshake with Sony’s servers when reset to authenticate it. Without that connection to the PlayStation Network, you won’t be able to play your games.
The worry for some PS4 owners, then, is that there could feasibly come a time in the distant future where your battery dies and Sony has disabled all of its servers, thus rendering your library of physical software obsolete. However, the likelihood of this happening within the next 10 years is extremely low, and even beyond that PlayStation could eventually release a firmware update which may solve the issue.
We’ve contacted Sony for comment on this and will update if we hear back, but we’d recommend keeping a cool head on this. While there are legitimate concerns about PlayStation’s approach to game preservation right now, there are a number of factors that would need to align simultaneously in order for your PS4 to stop playing games – and even then it's worth remembering that all PS4 games can be enjoyed on a PS5. In the short-term there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, and even long-term these problems may yet be resolved.
[source twitter.com, via screenrant.com, twitter.com]
Comments 55
It's genuinely mad how one post on social media can spiral into total panic and chaos, especially once news sites put a bit of fearmongering spin on it.
It's bad with games at the minute, but mainstream media does this all the time with far more important issues. We live in frustrating times.
I saw this on my facebook. I was wondering when u all would pick it up
I usually have sony console each for about 7+ years and have no problem with it, I don't know if 10+ years old console will have problems or not though.
@jrt87 I think the story involving the PS3's store definitely triggered this one.
These people realise they’ll be dead soon right? Like, seriously, how many generations of old games do they want to keep playing? To me this would only be a problem if the gaming industry collapsed, but the cultural shifts that would have to occur for something like that to happen would bring problems that would make no more videogames seem like an irrelevance.
I still can't believe Sony haven't commented on this yet...
It's not a great look but I'm thinking a firmware update will remove the requirement at some point. I do hope they do it before most people pack away their PS4's though.
But seeing PS5 is the main way to preserve your ps4 games its a lesser issue. At this point last gen I was already following PS3 emulator development. I could not give a squat about PS4 emulation as I sould never need it.
By that time, people who’ve been playing since the NES days could be dead. Fun thought.
Surely they could just add an update that allows you to switch trophies off.
@JapaneseSonic I think he was not the lead when the PS4 came too be. 🤪
I sold my PS4 pro few weeks later after purchase if PS5. I realised that 60 FPS snobism and getting used to fast loading times are really setting in and I'll never want to come back)))
So, no worries about battery life etc.
NOW I FEAR that SSD in PS5 is basically printed on the chipset and if it fails I can throw the whole thing out of the window.
@thefourfoldroot I certainly hope I won't be dead soon since I'm in my early 30's.
I once killed a veteran sniper by putting my internal clock forward a week.
Yeah I don't know about this one. This feels too far fetched and only came to light because of everyone freaking out over the previous news.
Seriously anything can happen to a console at any time, especially years and years down the road.
@ShogunRok I'm wondering why news sites are relying on social media posts, for information, without due diligence. Unless it's from the horse's mouth/account. Is it the fear of not being "FIRST" as opposed to being correct?
Isn't this like EXACTLY what happened with the ApocalyPS3 back in 2010? When the PS3's internal clock went haywire, all games were rendered unplayable, which had a lot to do with trophies as well.
Did Sony seriously make this same ridiculous mistake twice?!
@PhhhCough I think it's a combination of that and the fact that the news cycle has been very dry this year. I imagine a lot of sites are looking for any kind of momentum while it's quiet, even if that means sourcing a single social media post without doing any real research into the topic.
@ApostateMage Best comment.
Im more worried that some games always online, liveservices, fix it when we feel like it get pulled offline and we wont be able too get some patches.
Ultimately, if Sony turns its servers off, games become unplayable anyway because they need massive updates to run at their optimum version (unless you have a GOTY version that has the latest build on it).
Did you also know that everyone that got the first smallpox vaccine in 1798 has died? Makes you think.
I have never heard of a clock battery dying on a modern console. What do they say about worrying about things you cannot control or that maybe will never happen?
@Rudy_Manchego You can probably homebrew the console by then and download the patches via other means. Hopefully.
I always think 'i am glad I got most of my games on disc' but then i think what happens in the future if say the PS6/7 is disc-less and i can't get hold of a PlayStation that can play my discs :-/ Well at the moment I have no way to play my PS3 discs due to all my PS3's dying Yeah I can go and buy another PS3 etc etc but how much money is this all going to cost me!?!?(LOADS I bet)
@jorel262 the battery will absolutely die it's as inevitable as night comes after day.
There's just no reports on modern consoles simply because they're in use and keep the charge topped up and healthy but it's the same battery used all the way back to the PS2 and Dreamcast era: CR2032
And trust me.. they die as I've had to replace on both consoles due to being in storage for long periods of time. They're also nasty for the motherboard when they leak and it's a good idea if you keep a console in storage for potentially years to remove the battery.
Strange. All of my 8-bit and 16-bit games and consoles are still working like a charm in 2021.
Bet they've got the same stuff in the PS5. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, well, you're stuffed...
@ShogunRok Sony asked for it with the disrespect to the PS3's legacy that appears to be true, to be fair.
@jrt87 and @get2sammyb yeah, this conversation started with the news about the PS3 Store shutting down. I assumed it isn't pure speculation since I saw at least two people that are involved in the mod community.
Like SNES cartridges and motherboards, PS3 has a PRAM Battery that supplies energy to the internal clock and keep the storage of your game's licences, among other things. I believe this battery is used on motherboards to store the BIOS and the SNES cartridges uses to store the save datas from that respective cartridge.
The patch problem is even bigger on PS4 since the majority of titles requires a day one patch. It happened with PS3 as well but it wasn't that often.
Whilst this is a very unlikely scenario, I have to give credit to the story in order to put pressure on Sony to do something about game preservation. Social Media clickbait or not, the issue for me is that Sony aren't taking the issue of game preservation seriously, and if this silly news keeps the pressure up on them in any way then I'm all for it.
@Hordak Still with the saves you have too change the battery in the cardridge. 🤪
@TowaHerschel7
Relatively speaking. I’m 38, I’ll be dead within the next 40 years most likely. Might not even have my faculties or be able bodied enough to play that long. Worrying about my games becoming obsolete every 20 years or so seems ridiculous, if generations even continue that long.
The fact they work on the PS5 means this isn't an issue, if anything I think many PS4's will die out due to it's poor cooling and users who don't know how or don't care about cleaning them.
In 10 plus years i probably wont be playing my PS3 games and the trophies are not a big issue because the servers will be probably offline by that time. Im more concerned with the big patches.
Eventually, a huge astroid WILL hit the earth.
At this point I’m not too worried about this story but I am a little worried about how low people regard games? Why are they not held in the same regard as movies, when I retire in 30 years I’m still going to want to watch Empire Strikes Back, why do people think it’s pathetic to still want to have another run through our final fantasy X
There is no permanence, only decay.
I shall leave it at that.
Wow. Started reading the article to know what the fuss is about and yes, another fake outrage spin 🙄
PushSquare gets participating award 👌
Sounds like another Y2K story to me. If anyone is worried pull out your battery and test it.
"PS4 Owners Are Worried Their Games Won't Work if a Clock Battery Fails"
Are they, though? Really?
@jrt87 you make way too much sense. People forget this simple fact: they cry about not being able every game they've ever purchased any time they want, while most gamers for the vast majority of the time never revisit the games they played in the past, unless there is a remaster with better graphics/gameplay + trophies.
But overall, I agree with Pushsquare staff. Sony needs to reply to this rumour ASAP.
april the 1st??????????????
Tick, tick, tick, ti....ck, ti.........ck, ti............
@Octane I hope so!
@Blacksmith1985 You are aware that the internal clock batteries can stop working for plenty of other reasons early in the consoles's life cycle and the PS5 could have an internal clock battery as well?
Imo this whole trophy thing was pointless to begin with and majority of people never cared about trophies anyway.
If it is possible to patch out the whole trophy thing entirely and allow the system to play games even if the internal battery goes bad I think that would solve all of this instantly.
This whole trophy system shouldn't have existed in the first place, it's only there for idiots with no real lives to stroke their own egos and brag about nothing anyway.
@malbhet achievements is not a bad thing. A lot of people like them.
The bad thing is that they are tied up to internal clock and battery.
@Blacksmith1985 That's what I meant, I just phrased it in a wrong way.
The only way Sony can get around this is by releasing an update that removes this feature entirely, if it's even possible that is, I'm not a programmer or technician so I wouldn't know.
Either way this is gonna hurt Sony in the long run, especially if the PS5 has an internal battery locked to trophies as well.
It's crap choices like this that's making people realize PC gaming is the only way to go today.
Does this affect PS4 Pro?
It’s mind blowing how people still believe in this kind of rumors!!!
Why would you still be playing your ps4 games on a ps4 that many years from now? I hope they absolutely don't shut down the Vita store, personally I think this should be illegal to remove your ability to play your purchased games unless Sony was going bankrupt and had no choice but that isn't the case
@Subsided When the store is shut down, you’re only unable to buy new games for the system. The rest continues the same.
My take from this is that a modern console still uses a battery for the clock.
The PS4 uses a common CR2032 battery, easily replaced, no soldering required either. Sure, you’ll have to tear down your console but in 20 years time I don’t see that being an issue. You can replace the thermal paste at the same time because that will be due also. By then the console will most likely be fully hacked to the point where the server handshake will be a non-issue also.
Did some google searching about this problem and it seems PS3 is also affect by this.
If the battery dead, no internet time = no game.
And if the battery is replaced, until the clock is synced from internet again = no game.
According to some tweets, Sony is not using normal NTP server to sync the time but using HTTPS, so is not easy to trick your not yet hacked console to sync with another time source.
Which means if one day Sony shuts down its time syncing service for old console and the clock battery in the console is dead/replaced, then your bought contents are now dead too.
Of course by that time the console can probably be hacked, but sadly there's still no way to preserve and use your own real money bought copy without any modification.
this story is more about ps3 and is very concerning. if the cmos battery were to die, there would be no way to re-activate the system again should sony close its servers. if you cannot connect to the server with the new cmos battery installed, you will lose access to your entire ps3 digital library. ps3 physical games will work, however. sony still has not commented on this and it is alarming... as if they want everyone to lose their digital content and force people to re-prchase it again some day. obviously i would resort to piracy if that were the case since there is no way i would re-purchase the same game after it was taken away from me.
Just replace the battery. So this is easily solved. There are enough stores repairing broken electronic devices.
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