PlayStation restricts how developers can give upgrades to "PS5" editions

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Summary

PlayStation is able to and have restricted how developers can give upgrades to players and what developers can give people upgrading from a PS4 edition to a PS5 edition of a game post launch.

Background

Rust console was released in May 2021 for both PS4 & PS5 along with Xbox one and series S & X. This continued until March 10th 2025, that’s when Rust console announced a PS5 & Xbox series only version, and like most games, it came in three editions, for rust these are standard, deluxe and ultimate. And after much speculation, the developers (Double11) announced that it would be a free upgrade for existing players on April 24th.

Incident

on June 18th it was finally confirmed that the free upgrades could not be completed on playstation until the full release date of June 26th, the release date of the game “due to platform limitations”. This meant that deluxe & ultimate edition owners, who were supposed to get 7 days early access starting on the 19th of June could not access the game until the 26th on June, unless they paid full price. In addition PlayStation players were only given the standard edition, instead of the edition they owned, however Double11 was able to add the other benefits into players accounts from the backend.

Consumer response

The consumer response was mainly a lot of anger to the Rust Console team rather than PlayStation, this is seen by a lot of the comments on their posts and the trailer for the rust console new gen version.