On Tuesday, Sony Computer Entertainment America president Jack Tretton appeared on GTTV and claimed that “the DRM decision for third-party games will be up to publishers”. Following this statement Sony felt it necessary to release a follow up statement to clarify why Tretton actually meant.

Although complex, the statement is thought to boil down to these points:

• Any PS4 game disc can be rented, resold, offered to friends (etc) with no checks or restrictions.

• The online (multiplayer) component of third-party games could be restricted to second-users (with a paid online pass required to unlock).

• However, the online component of third-party games may not be locked – the decision is down to the publisher.

• When it comes to first-party games, there will be no online restrictions.

• Traditional DRM policy (no lending) applies to digitally downloaded games, as usual.

 Sony communications director Dan Race told Gamefront:

The Online Pass program for PlayStation first-party games will not continue on PlayStation 4. Similar to PS3, we will not dictate the online used game strategy (the ability to play used games online) of its publishing partners. As announced last night, PS4 will not have any gating restrictions for used disc-based games. When a gamer buys a PS4 disc they have right to use that copy of the game, so they can trade-in the game at retail, sell it to another person, lend it to a friend, or keep it forever.

So what does all this mean for the PS4 crowd? Well from piecing together the information available to us it seems that PS4 owners are going to get a very fair fair usage policy. You buy a game, you own it, simple as that. Unless Sony are hiding something or not disclosing the whole truth then we can be confident in putting our money into PS4 games.

What do you think of the information presented? Too good to be true? Let us know in the commentsbelow.