While they don’t say it, I expect this is solely to prevent ripped disc images from being presented as a disc drive to the console using emulation hardware.
Hopefully the versions sold with the disc drive are pre-paired from the factory.<p>I appreciate that they still make consoles that can be used without having an internet connection, even for setup.
I skipped the ps3 and ps4, but recently bought a ps5, and as much as I wanted the digital only version, stores were either sold out or only had the optical drive version.<p>One thing I did notice, is that if I install a game from disc, I still need the disc to run the game. What's the point of installing 100gb to the hard drive if you're just going to keep reading the disc anyways?<p>That said, I wonder how many of these drives they are going to sell, unless they're the only available option like in my case...
This should be illegal.<p>On the other hand, give Sony enough rope and every bloody time they'll convince me not to buy something that I actually kinda want.<p>Don't worry, the marketing department will pretend that the products aren't shit.
I think the Blu-Ray/DVD player requires a similar online activation in PS4 and PS5 consoles as well. Or, Sony supposedly only pays for the playback license until a fuse is burnt on the SoC.