PSA: You could lose your PS4 games if your PS4's internal clock dies

Your PlayStation 4 may be edging towards redundancy, with reports from data miners suggesting that if the console's clock battery dies, your PS4 data may become unusable.

This was recently highlighted on Twitter by @DoesItPlay1, who said: "When the PS4 CMOS battery dies (and it will), it renders all PS4 digital files unusable without a server reconnection."

Lance McDonald then followed up, explaining this issue stems from PS4 Trophies. The Trophy system uses the internal clock to prevent players from manipulating the date and time in which they unlocked the Trophy.

How to fix PS4 internal clock

Luckily for PS4 owners, this issue can be fixed fairly easily by replacing the CMOS battery, which can be found in most major retailers.

Once the battery has been replaced, PS4 owners will then need to reconnect to the PlayStation Network to re-synch their console, granting them access to their game data.

It's here where the problems arise.

The death of PSN

Earlier this week, Sony announced it is shutting down the PlayStation Stores for the PSP, PS Vita and PS3 consoles. This sunsetting of older consoles is common among hardware manufacturers who see no reason to divert resources to these devices for longer than required. The next logical step in this move is to remove PSN support for these consoles.

While likely a long, long way off, the PlayStation 4 will inevitably suffer from the same fate. When the time comes for Sony to shut off PSN Support for the PS4, any consoles hit by this issue could be damaged forever, or it would force players to jailbreak their consoles.

The lifespan of a CMOS battery depends on its usage but is expected to last up to 10 years. This means that if you bought a PS4 at launch in 2013, you might have a couple of years before a replacement is needed. We'd recommend fixing this sooner rather than later.

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