Sony Confirms Closing PS Store for Legacy Consoles Playstation

[Tom]

Sony has officially confirmed the news reports broke last week.

Sony has today announced that it's closing down digital console stores on PS3, PS Vita and all remaining purchase functionality for the PSP.

The PS3 store shuts down on July 2 alongside the PSP. The PS Vita store will be retired a little later, on August 27. All three dates were first revealed last week in a report from The Gamer. Sony later shut down all remaining access to those stores on the web.

When this change occurs, users of these consoles will no longer be able buy any new digital content, be it games, add-ons, or in-game purchases on these consoles. The digital stores will, after this point, effectively be dead.

According to Sony's FAQ, what players will continue to be able to do is re-download any existing purchases they had made (including previously claimed PS Plus games). They will also continue to be able to redeem PlayStation Plus membership vouchers, or game codes purchased at retail.

Cross-buy games will continue to be available, in cases where a purchase on a different console grants you a copy on PS3 or PS Vita. That's about it.

All other functionalities will cease after this date. Any funds in those stores' digital wallets will be transferred over to the updated PS4/PS5 store for use there.

 

[David76]

Shortly after Sony announced plans to close the PlayStation Store serving PS3, Vita and PSP, the company has changed its mind on the proposed closure of the stores and will now keep them open.

"Recently, we notified players that PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita devices was planned to end this summer," writes president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan.

"Upon further reflection, however, it's clear that we made the wrong decision here. So today I'm happy to say that we will be keeping the PlayStation Store operational for PS3 and PS Vita devices."

Good news for anyone eager to play older games via legacy hardware then. There is one caveat, though – "PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned," says Ryan. You'll still be able to buy PSP games through the Vita store until then, though.

Why the sudden change of heart? Well, it seems that the vocal nature of PlayStation players online had something to do with the company's decision to renege on the closures.

"When we initially came to the decision to end purchasing support for PS3 and PS Vita, it was born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on," says Ryan. "We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I'm glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations."

 

[Deleted member 26]

I'm pretty glad and relieved that they reversed this decision.. There's still plenty of gaming gems on the PS3 that I fancy trying.

If only they could bring back some of the previous delistings and/or run a PS3 sale to celebrate.. I feel like both are unlikely though!