
Sony will introduce a new PS5 model imminently, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 bundles are already being spotted in the wild. Along with photographs of the revised box art comes confirmation of a potential controversial tidbit: an Internet connection will be required to pair the optional Blu-ray disc drive with your console.
Presumably, this is an enforced security check by the Japanese giant to ensure you’re using an official Blu-ray disc drive and not a third-party one. However, it does raise potential preservation concerns: hypothetically, in the far distant future, if the platform holder were to shut down its servers, then it’d be impossible to pair a replacement Blu-ray disc drive with a console.
Now, this isn’t worth panicking about just yet, as it’s unlikely the manufacturer will be shutting down any servers in the near future. And, if such a situation should occur, it could always release a firmware update to remove the online authentication. It’s something you should be aware of if you’re planning to purchase the new PS5, though, as you will need an Internet connection to get it setup properly.
Remember, the Blu-ray disc drive is optional here, although some console bundles will include it in the box. The idea is that those who purchase a Digital Edition system moving forwards will have the option to pick up a Blu-ray disc drive later, adding more flexibility – while also streamlining the platform holder’s manufacturing pipeline.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 66
Surely this is only a concern if you try and add one after the servers have closed which would likely only occur at that point if the drive failed which would be no worse than if the drive failed on the current model.
By that point I am sure some enterprising soul or souls will have worked out how to get around it.
@Enigk Yeah, it could potentially become a problem in 20 years or so, but realistically probably not.
Still something to be aware of, of course!
I don't like the sound of this. I hope it doesn't also require a PSN account.
I hate it when Sony goes anti-consumer. This is clearly a decision that is put in place to sell more Blue-ray disc drives.
Hang on, wait.
How the hell does that work? The thing just clips in and connects to the PS5. Does the drive contain a chip that tells it it's paired? Does the drive itself connect to the internet?
What kind of Xbox One launch BS is this?
On the one hand, the removal drive makes the actual drive much easier to repair if it's a failure of a gear or motor, but on the other hand there is now no way to play a PS5 fully offline. Of course fully offline gaming is very difficult these days, but why do we have to use the official disc drive? Piracy, malware, or something? There's probably a logical reason but it seems dumb.
@get2sammyb Remind us when they shut the servers down as I will forget in 20 years. Hopefully it won't be a problem as long as the PS8 is backwards compatible.
@Haruki_NLI Disc Drives have circuit boards on them already, and the detachable drive will definitely have some kind of proprietary connection. The drive definitely won't connect to the internet itself.
My assumption would be it scans for a code on the PCB and checks it against a database, but that could totally be done offline.
It says "upon set-up" which adds a lot of confusion to how it would actually work. Do we have to register the disc drive or something? Who knows
Who the hell has internet access these days..?
This is a giant nothing burger
I bet this version leads to an hack at some point
It's probably a one off connection to register the drive's unique ID number against your PS5 on your PSN account.
Preservation aside, this is also a potential issue for anyone now that wants to buy the console, use physical media and doesn't have an Internet connection.
At this point though, the Internet is so ingrained in what the PS5 is that it would be silly to have without it
Its probably so that ONLY Sony can make/sell a drive and market it at whatever price they want knowing that the ONLY option for consumers is to buy 'their' Hardware or miss out.
Sony will want you to buy their TV's too to get the 'most' out of Playstation...
That’s a shame
@BAMozzy They already market their Bravia range as best for PS5. I saw it emblazoned on the wall in John Lewis last year.
https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/tvs-made-for-gaming
It makes sense for them to use that as a marketing technique of course. I certainly would if i ran in both markets
I'm 52 next year , can't see it being a problem 😂, I'll either be dead or nearly dead 🙄😂
No problems with them streamlining their "offering".
Rather than two SKUs, they have one. This is cheaper for them to produce and reduces the complexity of their offerings.
So, why haven't they dropped the price? The old PS5 Disc Edition was sold off recently for as little as £380. Sure, to clear stock, but it's a better price and more attractive. More attractive means more new users, meaning a larger potential for PS Plus and future licensing fee revenue.
At £480 for the disc bundle, it's no better than it was before. The Blu-ray drive itself doesn't cost £100 to produce and the R&D costs for Blu-ray drives, at this point, are minuscule. They'll have had to figure out how to fit it into the the casing.
I already have a PS5 and I don't plan on getting a newer model, so this suggestion doesn't help me, but they should be charging maybe £50 for the disc add-on and the total price should be closer to the £380 we saw not too long back.
All in all, them continuing with disc usage is fine and the price is at least no more expensive then it was before.
We must keep an eye Sony and Microsoft as we enter the next generation. They want to drop discs. The publisher's want to drop discs. Thanks to lax anti-trust/consumer laws, now one of the console manufacturers is also a big publisher. They will start saying that discs are selling less (neglecting to mention they'll make the decision to publish less discs to create this argument first). Then they'll start seeding articles into the IGNs and the Kotakus about how discs suck and we need to move on and stop holding back progress, etc, with imagined benefits that will never be realised of a digital only world.
They'll do it by hook or crook.
@Haruki_NLI Yes drives in most consoles are linked to the console to prevent them being used as a piracy vector. E.g. to prevent people just plugging in a hard drive with the image of the disc via the disc interface.
As @BeerIsAwesome said. If you have the discless DIGITAL console already then you will have no problem being online. Not a big issue at all for now. Perhaps in 20 years.
MattBoothDev wrote:
You know how the price of basically everything has increased?
That includes for businesses: Cost of manufacture, cost of some raw materials, cost of distribution, cost of power, cost of staff. Of course SOME of that will be offset by the lower cost of other parts, and other efficiencies. But it probably balances out or near enough. It's not like they are turning a huge profit on hardware.
As for the add-on drive I agree the cost is very high (in some territories) but this is likely because they WANT people to go digital. Agree we need to stop this.
@themightyant It does play 4k uhds though. I'm no expert on the going rate but a quick glance on google suggests it's at the cheaper end for something that does that.
So I want to make clarification about PS5 Slim model.
Is the PS5 Slim model that come with disc drive will play normally like PS5 Fat Disc version?
Hmmm surely this is just to add the firmware and update to the device. It has to chase updated drivers as its software based the connection.
Its the same for adding a ssd. You have to have the firmware and format.
Have to remember blu ray drives do have the ability to offer up to date trailers and features through blu ray discs. Standalonw blu ray players have to be updated also.
More likely it's to permanently pair the drive to the first console it's connected to... You know, so when the console breaks you have to buy a new drive too, which I guarantee will be like hens teeth to find after a short period of time...
Xbox should do a video about sharing a disc drive and needing the internet.
Like Sony did with sharing a game with a friend.
It’s only a joke by the way 😂
@Anti-Matter Yes.
There just giving you the option to have the drive or not.
The problem with all this is the marketing.
This is now the standard PS5. It may be slimmer it may even have the option to put a blu ray drive in it but fundamentally it is just the PS5
Its 1 SKU which will streamline production.
So yes the disc drive is the same one in the fat PS5 it's just now detachable or attachable depending on what you fancy
PRE-ORDER CANCELLED!!!!!!
@LiamOliver yeah I'm concerned that the availability for this might be quite low in the future. It's not going to sell many in the first place, and by the time people start needing one who knows if they'll still be in production.
I honestly find this statement from the "preservation community" quite ironic given that they praise MS a lot, the same company that sells you a console that requires an internet connection for the first boot and will phone home on a constant basis to validate even you physical copies.
Anyways, this was expected no? I mean, you know how many hacks and expoits were made using disc drivers? Of course a detachable disc drive would come with some kind of DRM.
If you buy it with the disk drive already installed, is it already paired? The digital needing it isn't a problem for obvious reasons.
I have tons of physical games; still play my ps2 & ps3 ones, and ps1 through backwards compatibility; I have planned to do the same with the ps5 but I don't want the big fatty one so this is a bad news.
Jesus Christ.... I thought we were past this with Sony! Remember the PS4 pitch for used games? That was a slam to the face for Xbox. Now this?! If this is the new precedence Sony is going to set going forward then I can only imagine how they plan to further evolve this idea later and go full DRM and I might be out supporting them going forward because of it.
@BeerIsAwesome So people that bought the digital edition should have no problem with these restrictions and limitations? That doesn't make any sense to me. Limited options to buy and having no control over your own disc drive sucks. This is in no way a positive development for consumers.
I don't see how this streamlines Sony's manufacturing pipeline. There are still two console SKUs and now an extra separate disc drive being sold.
Am I being incredibly stupid?
I'm afraid this does not raise any preservation concerns. If you've spent any time on the console modding scene, particularly with retro hardware, they'll get past this drm mechanism and bypass it entirely or find a way to clone an existing drive or find a way to do the process themselves with a spoofed address. You should see what they do to a ps3 these days.
@__jamiie “still two console SKUs”
Well you are right about that part, I can’t for the life of me understand why people keep saying there is only 1, SKU literally stands for “stock keeping unit” it has nothing to do with the manufacturing process, it only refers to store inventory. 🤷🏻♂️ But this does help the manufacturing process as their main plant only has to make 1 type of PS5, not 2. The disc drive and additional case piece are probably made at a much lower level company and they are probably only making 1/4 as many as they are PS5. So it does help production a little bit. Then they can bundle them as they see fit.
They actually have 3 SKU now instead of 2, not just 1, PS5 disc, PS5 digital, PS5 disc drive.
@get2sammyb One question that I couldn't find a clear answer to, if I buy a slim with a disc drive installed, can that one also be detached, or only from the digital model? Not that it makes much practical sense, but perhaps if my disc drive breaks down I could then replace it.
Seems weird to require internet connectivity to pair a peripheral. Do you need it for headphone, controllers or PSVR? By the time it becomes an issue we’ll be on PS9 which will require the ownership of our souls
@CAKESPECTRE999 I got you
(Throws medkit on the floor)
@__jamiie Possibly that every PS5 Slim is technically a digital model and the disc bundle doesn't automatically have the disc drive attached to the PS5 (you have to attach it yourself).
@Whately86 nice one bruv 😂✌️
@NotSoCryptic “You should see what they do to a ps3 these days.”
I know, it’s crazy.
I might have missed something there, but in the article it says "those who purchase a Digital Edition system moving forwards will have the option to pick up a Blu-ray disc drive later", so those of us who already on the normal digital version can't get it? Or am I just being dumb?
Personally, at this time I don’t consider this too much of an issue. The digital edition costs too much for not including the device so no one in their right mind will buy both things at once (unless the version with a disk drive included is on limited supply) and anyone that bought the digital edition needed internet to use it at all.
So long the bundled version is in high enough supply and does not require online activation it should all be fine. Even if Sony shut down the servers decades from now, I can easily see the preservation mod community figuring a bypass rather quickly.
@Kibinaaru that is correct. You can’t attach this new bludrive to the launch digital PS5. The attachment was designed basically as a Lego brick that specifically connects to the form factor of the new smaller PS5. Your only path to “upgrade” is to sell your current console and use that money to buy the new model.
@JokerBoy422 This seems a bit of an overreaction. It's a one-time pairing of a disc drive which will, for the vast majority of users, be permanently attached to the console. It'll be part of the console setup process.
I get the impression people are misinterpreting it to mean they need a connection every time they use the drive, which doesn't appear to be the case at all.
Funny, this is exactly the sort of thing that made PS fans passionately hate Xbox for the past decade.
@tameshiyaku I'd love to know that too. Potentially I could be the situation of wanting to swap the Blu-ray drive between two new PS5s.... assuming that's allowed with this DRM-type check or activation.
@kyleforrester87 No one does this to a PS3 anymore. I've since convertered my PS3 Grill into a power house of retro games.
@MrHabushi I understand it's a one time connection to pair the disc drive for now, but it's just one more step into getting people used to full scale DRM which Sony sees value in now.
How dare they make me connect to the internet for one time disc drive set up on my digital console!
@MrMagic https://twitter.com/charlieINTEL/status/1716958629184622762/photo/3
I am so confused, people keep talking about this being for the digital console, but if you guys bother to follow the Twitter source, this asterisked line is directly under the line that says, "Disc Drive (attached to console)* *Internet connection required to pair Disc Drive and PS5 console upon setup" and is written on the combo box that comes with the disc edition Slim. Even if it comes with the drive already attached, you will need to connect it to the internet at least once.
@Anti-Matter
Yes
That's weird if you buy the psychical version of the new PS5 console.
@BeerIsAwesome You are literally saying digital players don’t have to complain about online authentication simply because they download everything anyway. Who is putting words in someone’s mouth here now?
The point is that online authentication is a huge blow to freedom of choice, hardware preservation and accessibility. Owning the digital model doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t care about these things?
if you want the disc version of ps5 just get that. i mean in 10, 15 , 20 years , it will be the ps6 or ps7. so at that point the ps5 wouldn't even matter. also you have to live that long as well to even worry about it.
@sanderson72 no amount of hardware should ever be linked to your PSN account, that is DRM gone too far imo, it's just bad enough that a blu ray drive requires a internet connection to a service that won't be around forever
I wonder how many current PS5's aren't connected to the Internet or have never been? This is one of those things that people like to complain about but isn't an issue in reality outside of some theoretical point in the future, when you find a PS5 that for some reason hasn't had its disc drive authenticated and the servers have gone down. Realistically though, there'll still be millions of the current PS5's without such an issue and millions of the new model which have already gone through the process
Has anyone any information about the specs of these new Blu-Ray disc drives? Are they identical to the ones in the current PS5s?
If not, does anyone know if they support 3D Blu-Ray out of the box, which could lead to 3D Blu-Ray support returning to PS VR2?
You won't stop third parties from making knock off drives, if anything this security measure is just to stave off that inevitability. Tech is getting so advanced and so accessible that it's a matter of when, and not if. When will third party drives be available for PS5 slims? Who knows, but if it's a popular add on, and of Sony ceases support for it, some other entity will pick it up, maybe even just bypassing Sony's measures with software, and you could just use any Blu-ray drive. Who knows what the future holds?
@get2sammyb
Do you know if the pairing is permanent as far as the drive is concerned?
If so this would kill any second-hand market or lending the drive to a friend.
I’m pretty sure Sony (and Microsoft) are determined we won’t be playing any physical media within the next 5 years.
@kyleforrester87
Rural America has bad internet
@Spider-Kev good air quality though I bet.
this could set a very bad precedent going forward, and not just from sony. this is not just about needing an internet connection for a second, either.
i am surprised that other people have not made note of this but it is possible that sony could hardware lock out 3rd party (non licensed) accessories going forward as well. why wouldn't they if that means more people are forced to buy official sony or 3rd party (sony licensed) accessories, right? how long before sony locks out various 3rd party controllers, external hard drives, etc? this console gen can't seem to get any worse and yet it does.
@NielsNL Digital fanboys really try to ram that digital only through everyone's throat I never understood why having options is a bad thing.
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