One of the more potentially awesome things about Microsoft’s vision of a DRM-laden future was the power to play your games on some other Xbox One console. With everything being digital, all you needed to do was check in via your account and also you could start playing your games while at a friend’s house. Sony has revealed that it has an identical idea in store for the PS4.

At Develop, Sony R&D Senior Team Leader Neil Brown said that any digital game you own at the PS4 might be played on the other PS4 so long as you’re signed into your account. He also says that the “Play as you Download” option at the PS4 makes transporting your digital game library almost as easy as transporting your physical game library:

“You can visit your mates house you could log into your account and play any game out of your digital library, that’s good. But how useful is if it takes half an afternoon to download the sport you have to play? With Play As You Download you get much quicker access to at the least the primary portion of the sport so that you can start playing quicker. So this makes a digital library a pragmatic option within the real world.”

It’s apparent that Sony is making an attempt to sell the ease of digital game ownership within the next generation. It’s already doing a fairly solid job of it at the PS3 with Day 1 Digital, however the infrastructure in place at the dated PS3 just isn’t built for all the realities of digital ownership. With the PS4 and Xbox One, we’re going to peer an increased push towards an all digital future where physical copies are really just a tool to wean gamers off of physical ownership.

Speaking of physical game ownership, people who choose to buy the blu-ray version of games at the PS4 will still must concentrate on game installs. Unlike the PS3, however, Brown says game installs will happen automatically within the background while you’re playing the sport:

“A similar system also works on Blu-ray, chunks are automatically copied to the hard disk within the background. Which means after the 1st little while your game can place confidence in having faster read speeds from the harddisk. Which gives a higher experience for players, and this can be a completely background process for the player. They don’t must look ahead to anything to put in before playing the sport. The sport will launch once the disk have been installed the drive.”

It’s great that the PS4 and Xbox One are eliminating one of the vital inconveniences of console gaming, but both platform holders must watch out with regard to where they go next. Microsoft admittedly had plenty of great ideas with regard to its DRM scheme, however didn’t give enough in return to gamers to justify the removal of game trade-ins. Going forward, both platform holders should work out easy methods to encourage an all digital future that offers back up to it takes away.

[h/t: OPM UK]