According to an analysis conducted by Hikikomori Media, the PS5 does not lose its ability to play games once its CMOS battery bites the dust.
The report claims that the PS5 is still able to play physical and digital PS4 and PS5 games even with a missing or expired CMO battery. However, titles that have been redeemed via PlayStation Plus will no longer work.
Even so, this is a step up from what we were lead to believe, as it had been reported that most PS5 physical and digital titles would not boot up with a missing or dead CMOS battery. PS4 has run into issues in this respect, but Sony later patched the console so that games would continue to work in light of an issue with the battery.
For those out of the loop, the CMOS battery directly powers the internal clock of Sony’s hardware, and compares the date and time on a remote server to the internal clock on the system when staring a game. This is done to ensure that the player is verified to play the software.
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However, in light of the battery dying or being removed, the console will instead ask the player to manually enter the date and time when booted up, before syncing the date and time via the Internet.
[Source – VGC]