Microsoft have been taking a beating lately saying it is up to 3rd parties on how they want to deal with pre-owned. Microsoft said their first party games won't prevent people from reselling them or trading them in at selected retailers. But that 3rd parties could, hypothetically block reselling, or take a cut from selected retailers or charge a fee, similar to an online pass today.

Sony likewise said their own games won't prevent people trading them, many thought, wrongly it seems that this applies to the entire system and that it would be DRM-free. Sony today confirmed however that DRM preventing pre-owned sales is possible, but like Xbox One, it is up to 3rd party publishers to implement.

Sony Computer Entertainment America president Jack Tretton was on GTTV earlier, answering questions about Playstation 4, when the issue of pre-owned cropped up. Saying:

The DRM decision for third-party games will be up to publishers [...] We've certainly stated that with our first party games we're not going to be doing that, but we welcome publishers and their business models (emphasis mine) to our platform. [...] The DRM decision is going to have to be in the hands of the third parties, that's not something we're going to dictate or control or mandate or implement.

That revelation along with the fact you now need to pay for a Playstation Plus subscription to play online - another detail Sony glossed over in their conference, and the PS4 is starting to look less attractive. Even more so considering how weak they look on the game front compared to Xbox One, with many games shown during Sony's press conference not being exclusive to PS4, like Kingdom Hearts 3.

Although the 24-hour check like Xbox One, probably won't be needed. There is absolutely nothing preventing publishers from wanting to dial home to check on the status of the game, or require internet access to play, like we saw with SimCity. Sony aren't quite willing to stand up to the publishers as some were led to believe.