A digital console game is not a file the buyer owns outright. It is a license recorded against an account, and almost every confusing behavior on a console follows from that fact.
The account holds the entitlement
When a purchase completes, the platform records that a specific account may download and run that title. The downloaded data on the drive is a copy, not the thing that was bought.
That is why deleting a game costs nothing permanent and why signing into a different console restores a library without any transfer of files from the old machine.
It also means access depends on the account remaining in good standing, since the platform is the authority that confirms the license each time it is checked.
Offline play requires a designated console
Platforms let an account nominate one system as primary, and on that machine games run without contacting the service each launch. Other consoles verify the license online at start.
The arrangement exists so that a household can play offline while preventing one account from enabling unlimited simultaneous play across many systems.
It also produces the familiar failure where a service outage blocks a purchased single-player game on a secondary console, while the same game launches fine on the primary one.
Delisting removes sales, not libraries
Games disappear from storefronts for reasons that are usually contractual, most often expiring music or brand licenses the publisher cannot renew indefinitely.
Buyers who already own a delisted title normally keep the ability to redownload it, because the entitlement was already recorded and the removal only stops new sales.
That guarantee is a platform policy rather than a property right, which is the practical distinction between owning a disc and holding a license.
Generations complicate the picture
Carrying a digital library forward depends on the newer console being able to run the older software and on the platform choosing to honor the entitlement across hardware.
Where a publisher releases a separately sold upgraded version, the original license may not cover it, since the platform treats the upgrade as a distinct product.
Upgrade paths therefore vary title by title, which is why two games bought the same day can behave differently on a new console.
Sharing is bounded by design
Console platforms allow limited sharing, usually through the primary console setting or a family grouping, so that a household can access one purchase on more than one profile.
Those systems are deliberately narrow, with caps on how often designations can change, because a fully transferable digital license would function as a resale market.
Understanding the boundary is more useful than resenting it, since it predicts exactly which sharing arrangements will keep working and which will break at the next sign-in check.