Sony has responded to a class-action lawsuit alleging that PlayStation fails to make clear that digital game purchases are merely licences rather than outright ownership, arguing in a court filing that such a belief would be implausible in the digital age. The case, filed on 18 June 2026, claims PlayStation buries this distinction in small print at checkout instead of disclosing it clearly, and Sony's rebuttal has provoked considerable anger from players, particularly given the company's separate plan to end physical disc production from January 2028.

In its 21 August filing with California's Northern District Court, Sony pointed to its Software Product License Agreement, which states "the Software is licensed to you, not sold", and used an example involving two named plaintiffs purchasing the same game, Resident Evil Requiem, to argue that consumers could not reasonably believe they owned their copies outright. Critics on social media countered that the storefront itself uses the word "buying", calling this misleading, and several argued that licences should guarantee permanent access to installed games or that the law should more clearly define what a consumer licence entails.