We have unfortunately been barrelling towards a digitised future for some time now, but Sony’s latest news that PlayStation will be fully digital by 2028 has heightened fears that players have about ownership and the inability to preserve art. The fear is so palpable that people are looking back on Hideo Kojima’s old take on the situation.
“Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative,” Kojima says in a social media post. “Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off.”
This has been a very real fear for quite some time now, with the Stop Killing Games being one group to lead the charge against a lack of consumer protections, although its latest bid for rule changes unfortunately fell flat in front of the European Commission:
“The Commission considers that at this stage it cannot propose a legal obligation to keep videogames playable after they stop being provided commercially. This is due, also, to existing intellectual property rights. Under EU copyright law, rights holders enjoy exclusive rights over their creations.”