It appears Sony isn't going to force DRM, but instead allow the publishers to enforce their own. This means there will be many titles with little or no DRM, but also many with restrictive DRM without the benefits of the MS system to go along with it. Good or bad I'd almost rather take consistency, sure you can cherry pick publishers to 'support' the type of DRM they enact, but it's going to end up being a wash in the long run. Sony will play this off like they're not the bad guy by doing this. Wondering if one of the DRM options will be their patent to marry a disc to a console once used.
We still have a lot to learn about the vilified MS DRM. Could end up leading to a lot of neat innovations and standards for this generation and those that follow, much closer to a Steam-like experience. They really need to do something to allow the disc in the drive to circumvent a DRM-check for those with connectivity concerns. I am very much looking forward to just installing my games and never needing to get the disc out again. The rumored potential for remote play via skype, being able to sell/trade your game licenses digitally... we have a lot more to learn about what their plans are. By monetizing these processes, I wonder if we could see a reduction or removal of Live fees since many would use them. This revenue could also help reduce the cost of digital games. Of course it's possible nothing will be reduced, and it's all profits, but they've got to take steps to make this better somehow than a friendlier system (on paper) being offered by the competition. I don't know how Sony answers a few hours after the MS E3 keynote if they say all digital games will be $10-20 less than retail.
It's a shame the two aren't consistent. On one hand you have Vita owners who probably will only be able to remote play any digitally purchased and only the retail game that's in the disc, meanwhile an X1 user can play any of their installed games instantly. If Sony had the MS system and every game in my library was available for remote play with just a couple button presses - presuming the digital marketplace is still much more expensive than retail so it's cost prohibitive to go all digital right away - I'd have a much harder decision to make. Otherwise going into E3 I'm leaning strongly towards X1 because HDMI passthrough on a machine with balls is something I've wanted since the first day I fired up my sluggish Revue. If Sony keeps up the good work they're doing I can see myself having a PS4 downstream from that HDMI passthrough too though at some point in the future