PS4 and PS5 digital purchases after March 2026 face reported 30-day license checks

PlayStation owners are reporting a new 30-day online license check on digital purchases made after March 2026, with the reports covering both PS4 and PS5 libraries. GameSpot said on April 28 that the latest system updates appear to have introduced a countdown that requires affected users to reconnect to the internet before access expires. On PS4 the timer is visible. On PS5, the Does it Play? account says the same check may run in the background even if the console does not surface it clearly.

The timeline is the key detail. According to reports collected by GameSpot, older PlayStation Store purchases made before March 2026 do not appear to carry the same restriction, while newer purchases do. That narrows the issue from a blanket platform lockout to a change tied either to recent firmware, recent store transactions, or both. Sony had not publicly clarified the behavior at publication time, and GameSpot said it contacted the company for comment.

That lack of clarity is why the story is moving. Does it Play? first flagged the issue on April 25, and since then the explanation has been messy. A support bot on the official PlayStation site reportedly implied the check was intentional, but even GameSpot noted that AI support answers are not solid confirmation. A separate statement to Kotaku suggested the validation window may have been intended to fight refund abuse and then convert into an unlimited license later. If true, that is a very different system from a permanent always-online rule, but Sony still needs to state it directly.

The Reddit reaction was predictable and loud. Top comments focused less on the timer itself and more on the fact that nobody can say with confidence whether this is a bug or a policy. Others immediately compared the situation to the online-check backlash around Xbox One in 2013. Until Sony puts a clear document behind the feature or rolls it back, digital-only players have a simple takeaway: purchases after March 2026 may now carry an offline expiry window, and that is a bigger platform-rights story than a one-day firmware glitch.