Sony: "if you buy it, you own it"

Trade-in games and DRM has been a contentious issue during this year's E3, with Microsoft drawing a hefty amount of criticism in the wake of their announced changes to their respective system.

Sony, on the other hand, are going the other way, and are maintaining the DRM policy that has seen them through the most recent console generation. However, the public outcry directed at Microsoft has inspired Sony to keep on discussing their stance.

SCE chief exec Andrew House recently spoke with Yahoo and repeated the company's position in no uncertain terms:

"You could argue that it's a storm in a teacup - a very vocal minority of passionate gamers. This huge outpouring of feeling around the concept of ownership of content. But I have to say I don't see it that way."

"I think we saw a lightning rod for feeling that has been bubbling up - that doesn't just apply to games, but to entertainment overall. I think there's an increasing nervousness about what ownership of content means, in the absence of physical goods. When that nervousness was starting to migrate into control over physical goods that consumers have purchased, that was a bridge too far."

"I want to be very clear about where we have been on this issue," added House. "I think there's a danger that we could be seen to have reacted and capitalised on a situation. When we first announced PS4 in February, people were saying, "Oh, Sony's being coy" - almost with some implicit suspicion. It struck us as very odd. We had no intention of changing our position - it hasn't changed from what it's been for the last fifteen years. We believe that if you buy it, you own it, you're able to do with it what you want."