Sony is winding down more of its own disc-era online services this summer, and the affected titles are first-party, not licensed. Tearaway, the 2013 Media Molecule game whose studio Sony owns, loses its online services on August 13, and its companion website shuts down the same day [1]. PS Stars, Sony's own loyalty program, expires its redeemable points on July 31 [1]. These are the platform holder's services, retired on the platform holder's calendar.

The attribution matters because the same July-August list mixes operators. EA's Madden NFL 23 and NHL online services, Amazon's New World transactions, and 2K's Playgrounds shutoffs all appear on it too — but those belong to their publishers, not to Sony [1]. The Madden 23 online shutoff is EA's, dated July 13; this brief covers only the Sony-operated items on the same schedule. Two operators, one shelf of owned games quietly losing functions.

That is the divergence. Push Square reports a routine dated sunset, one line among a dozen [1]. On X it reads as catalog decay — the online half of a purchased game eroding on a clock the owner does not control. The paper's receipt is the operator-filtered list: Tearaway online gone August 13, its website with it, and PS Stars points gone July 31 — Sony's schedule, thinning what an owned disc still does.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles