The PlayStation console community has announced a boycott of Sony, launching a week-long protest dubbed #PSBlackout. From August 23 to August 30, players turned off their consoles en masse, avoided logging into PlayStation Network, and completely refused to spend any money on the platform’s digital store.
The reason for the drastic step is the company’s recent decision to completely stop producing physical game discs for all new releases starting in January 2028. Amid the protests, the situation escalated further after users began receiving notifications about changes to the user agreement.
In the filing, Sony reiterated that digital games are not permanently sold to players, but are only transferred under a limited license that can be revoked if the account is closed. Such policies have drawn sharp criticism from defenders of gaming history and ordinary gamers, who fear their purchased library of games could spiral completely out of control.
“The Software is licensed to you, not sold. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal license to use or copy the Software for your personal, non-commercial use on the systems or devices for which it is intended. This license is valid only as of the specified Software Release Date, Early Access Date, or Beta Release Date. Any rights to the Software not expressly stated by us in this License to be granted to you are reserved by us.
