Now that Sony plans on ditching physical releases for PS5 games, its old video guide on how to share PS4 games has aged like milk.
In 2013, after Microsoft explained that it’s then upcoming Xbox One wouldn’t let you share or resell physical games, Sony, almost immediately, clapped back with a 21 second long video that won them that console generation before the PlayStation 4 was even out.
Simply titled ‘Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video,’ its step-by-step guide on how to share PlayStation 4 games – you just hand them to someone else – was so devastating that Microsoft U-turned shortly afterwards.
Long heralded as an iconic moment in PlayStation history, the video has become bitterly ironic following the news that Sony is ditching physical games entirely, prompting fans to flood the comments and lambast the decision.
There are many reasons to dislike Sony’s plan (several of which we’ve already discussed), but the one being focused on here is the ability to share games; something that’s very easy to do with physical versions.
This was an aspect Sony championed for the PlayStation 4 and now intends to abandon for the rest of the PlayStation 5’s life cycle and the eventual PlayStation 6, which would make the latter a purely digital console.
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As a result, the top comments under the PlayStation 4 video are no longer celebratory and reek of bitter resentment.
‘You’ve become the villain you mocked,’ reads one by iammohaumodiko, with plenty of others repeating the ‘live long enough to see yourself become the villain’ line from The Dark Knight.
‘This is how you own yourself 13 years later,’ says themindslyde.
‘Play does have limits after all,’ says simonematjeke5248, referencing Sony’s ‘Play has no limits’ slogan for the PlayStation 5.
‘I commented five years ago saying, ‘this is gold’. Well, they became the villains they mocked and ridiculed,’ says BboyJoshyWashy123.
One comment by Enum_Dev even suggests, whether jokingly or not, that the video’s aged so poorly that Sony might now take the video down.
Our favourite comment comes from PoolBoy314, who says: ‘This is like watching the wedding video after the divorce.’ We’re clearly not the only ones, as it has 6,600 likes at time of writing.
Another thing to note is that the two men in the video – Shuhei Yoshida and Adam Boyes – have long since departed from PlayStation. The former left in late 2024, after previously spearheading first party development through the PlayStation 4 days, before being sidelined and put in charge ofindie gaming.
Boyes, meanwhile, served as vice president of third party relations and developer technology before his departure in 2016. Nowadays, he’s the CEO of Vivrato, an advisory company for game studios.
For what it’s worth, Sony does allow you to share digital games on your PlayStation 5 with friends and family, meaning they can access your library from their own console, but it’s not the simplest process.
Sony could alleviate some of the bad publicity if it were to make digital game sharing more streamlined or, at the very least, improve its awful refund policy, which only gives you a 14-day window and is automatically void if you install the game.
However, this shift doesn’t change the fact that, starting from 2028, any and all PlayStation games you purchase aren’t really yours. You’re buying a licence and even if you can easily share it with a friend, it won’t mean much if Sony can take it away whenever it wants.
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