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Sony forcing you to have a PlayStation Network account for all their recent PC releases hasn't been well liked, and they of course have no plans to back down on it.

During the latest Sony Group Corporation investors call in their Q&A session at about 45:40, a question came up about what lessons they will take away from Concord (which Sony shut down and then closed the game studio).

Hiroki Totoki (President, COO and CFO) replied with an English translation from a live interpreter, so the translation is a bit loose and rough, but this is what was said:

Regarding that matter we have learned a lot. The way to face the issues regarding PC for instance, the PlayStation accounts that we have offered, by offering them for instance, sometimes that tends to invite push-back. But for the live service games, so in order to maintain order of the gaming, so that anybody can enjoy the game safely, we need to create environment conducive to that, of course enjoying the game freely.

Having some restrictions, may not call it rule, but to ask the users and gamers to follow the manner, and those balances are very important and we have to continue to seek the best way to achieve this.

Clearly the PSN requirement isn't going anywhere, and will be in all their future games, even though it's unpopular and locks out a whole lot of regions from buying their games. Sony want that extra control over their games, especially when they're now releasing outside of their own PlayStation console.

In some ways, it makes sense for their online live-service games, and you do have to remember the context of the question was for Concord that was supposed to be live-service.

However, it really makes very little sense for their single-player games where it's also now forced like Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Until Dawn, God of War Ragnarök and more to come. Forcing online accounts for single-player games is never going to go down well but it's here to stay for Sony's PC releases.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc, Sony, Steam
16 Likes
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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34 comments
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nebadon2025 3 days ago
I can safely rest assured that my data is being harvested and fed into a some kind of Learning Model for Ai marketing purposes and monetization.
WYW 3 days ago
PlayStation No
tarmo888 3 days ago
They keep requiring the PSN account, I keep NOT buying their games, because I can't (EU country not on their list).

Eventually it's their loss because more and more people will not have any emotional connection (or only negative emotions) with their IPs.
soulsource 3 days ago
I guess a lot has been lost in translation...

What Sony usually means when they talk about "safe" in a PSN context, is the option to blocklist or report people, to always know whom you are playing with, to make sure that kids can't access content they shouldn't, and a lot of other player-friendly features.

Sony have all that stuff set up for their consoles, so I'm not surprised that they are going the path of least resistance and try to use the same systems on PC too. Especially for games that already support all that via the PSN APIs on consoles it makes sense to use the same APIs on PC - but their online-features all assume that the player has a PSN account...

So, while I am not happy about it, I can see where they are coming from.

(For offline games it really doesn't make much sense though... As long as the games don't access any PSN APIs it doesn't make a difference...)
StalePopcorn 3 days ago
Boo!
eldaking 3 days ago
This cell and these restraints are both entirely for your protection. We can't guarantee your safety if you are free to leave.
dziadulewicz 3 days ago
I knew it must have something to do with our safety! THINK ABOUT THE KIDS!!!
JustinWood 3 days ago
I've never been of the crowd that get annoyed with registering more accounts (though no shade thrown to those who do), but what honestly bugs me the most about this whole ordeal is that it's caused folks in a lot of places to be completely denied access to these games on PC. Like, it made some sense when the explanation was something to the effect of "you need to be able to buy a Playstation" or whatever it was, but really even when that was the case it still didn't make much sense. If you can build a PC and run Steam on it, there should be no reason why you can't buy a Sony game and register a Playstation account, it's baffling.
Linux_Rocks 3 days ago
Even as someone who doesn't care about the requirement and thought the outrage was and is stupid. (They're PlayStation games, needing a PSN account is not shocking.) I find this excuse about safety laughable and it just makes it all look worse. lol
Okona 3 days ago
I call shenanigans!
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