Digital or physical change nothing on ps4...

[Elk_mistral]

Recent rumor about Sony preparing to pull the plug on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable digital stores has spurred conservations about video game preservation and brought a new issue to light. Apparently, if your PlayStation 4’s internal clock battery dies, you will not only be unable to play your digital games, but also your disc-based games because of the way the console’s trophy system is set up.

The issue was first raised by preservation group Does it Play? and further explained by well-known modder, Lance McDonald. When the PS4’s internal clock battery dies, players are greeted with error CE 34878-0 and there’s no way to fix it other than replacing the battery (if you can find one, that is). However, even after replacing the battery, you have to synchronize your console with the PlayStation Network for your games to work. So if Sony ever decides to pull the plug on the PS4’s online network (say, 20 years from now) and the PS4’s internal clock conks out, the console will be bricked permanently.

 

 

Info on playstation lifestyle

[DaivRules]

It’s the same battery that’s on every computer motherboard on the planet for the last 30 years. They take minutes to change and cost a few bucks. CR2032. 
 

They last decades and can actually be changed while the computer is powered and on if you want to be risky about it. 
 

The only issue is yes, if PSN shuts down or Sony disconnects the PS4 from it.

 

Thousands of people went through this with music collections and their server authentications through the late 90s and early 2000’s. Microsoft famously created PlaysForSure for music and then infamously shut down those servers a couple years later. 
 

7 minutes ago, Elk_mistral said:

So if Sony ever decides to pull the plug on the PS4’s online network (say, 20 years from now) and the PS4’s internal clock conks out, the console will be bricked permanently.

This part is blatantly false. No connection to PSN is required to play physical games on PS4. Buy one and don’t connect it to PSN then pop in a disc to see. Replacing the battery would allow the console with no connection to PSN to play physical games again and thus would not be “bricked permanently”.