When I built my pc the cpu came with some free game or game coupon or something. It wasn’t in the box, I instead had to download and run some AMD software that verified that I was in fact using the CPU. I’m under the impression that it detected my specific CPU not just make/model but some sort of unique ID. Presumably this stops people from claiming the code and reselling the cpu,(or at least without reselling it as “new”) or from spinning up a VM and trying to redeem random promos without owning the real CPU.

Thought it was interesting that they did that but didn’t think much more of it. I don’t even remember what the promo was. Might have just been extended warranty or something?

In November I activated such an AMD Promo for my Ryzen 5000X. The game I got was Far Cry 6. Hilarious because the game keeps getting delayed to now mid September or so of this year, almost a year after I bought the CPU. Not exactly the best Promo to show off the power of the CPU :)

There are a lot of unique identifiers in a PC, not just on the CPU but various ones in the motherboard (BIOS) too...

from spinning up a VM

...and you can change them, even if not easily, for a VM. AFAIK the Windows licensing/activation relies on the same uniqueness.

Just can just run Bochs, emulate a modern AMD CPU, and with of patience, dump the game files.

That is glorious and horrifying. Sounds like it protects your business from counterfeits and hobby hackers at the same time :)

Also, I have a Sonos system and it works great!

Horrifying should indeed be the reaction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21895086

For now (see other comment with link). I'll never touch Sonos again. They burnt their bridges.

Well, until your choices are buy a new Sonos device or get bricked.