PS3, PSP, and Vita Stores Closing in July

[ShiraNoMai]

I second Moony's response. I personally think this monetarily motivated but regardless of the who's and what's, it's nice to see them keeping it around a little longer.

[Dragon Lord]

I'm not going to feed into the "Sony only did this for money!" conspiracy theories, and until proven otherwise with concrete proof, I'm going to give Sony the benefit of the doubt and believe that they reversed their decision after seeing the backlash and disappointment of their costumer base. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for CEOs of corporations to actually do something good from time to time.

The stores will still shut down eventually, that's going to be unavoidable, but this gives me more time to go through the stores and pick out the games I want to get before a complete shutdown does happen, so I'll be happy with that.

[Moonface]

I'm not going to feed into the "Sony only did this for money!" conspiracy theories, and until proven otherwise with concrete proof, I'm going to give Sony the benefit of the doubt and believe that they reversed their decision after seeing the backlash and disappointment of their costumer base. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for CEOs of corporations to actually do something good from time to time.

Same. I doubt Sony would have done this just to encourage sales. In the event that somehow they lied about store closures just to drive sales, on the bright side it does appear it got Sony to investigate the CMOS battery issue in PS4's. Besides, like is being said, the stores will shut down legitimately eventually, so even if Sony lied about it for now, people who bought games would have still bought them regardless of Sony's motive.

[ShiraNoMai]

You will never ever find concrete proof of a company admitting that anything was for monetary gain; that's just counterproductive for marketing and brand purposes. Even if a company claims to be transparent about matters, it's a load of shit.

I work very closely with our CEO and absolutely know that generally, if you're not making money by doing it (or intending to in the long run), you're not doing good business. And that includes charitable causes. So I'll never believe for a second that things weren't foundationally monetarily motivated because that's just how business works, unfortunately.

[Moonface]

I expect Sony at first announced it because it wasn't worth the upkeep of having it, only to later determine that they can make more money by changing the decision and keeping it. Especially since they're still shutting off the PSP store, so no matter what that still isn't worth the upkeep.

[Metallix]

Yeah it was probably as much about money as it was people complaining.

[Moonface]

PS3 and PS Vita Stores To Finally Close Down
Despite delaying it from the original July 2021 date, Sony has announced that the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita will be fully closed down worldwide by next year, with select markets starting this year. That means new content purchases will no longer be possible once the PlayStation Store closes on these devices. Players will still be able to download previously purchased content after the closing date for the foreseeable future.

• Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting August 2026.
  
• Additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting late 2026.
  
• In all other countries, PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027.
  

---

I know this was inevitable, but it seems very tone deaf to announce this at the same time as no longer producing physical games starting in January 2028, and Sony removing over 500 movies from the digital libraries of customers that purchased them...

[Dragon Lord]

I know this was inevitable, but it seems very tone deaf to announce this at the same time as no longer producing physical games starting in January 2028, and Sony removing over 500 movies from the digital libraries of customers that purchased them...

Yeah, announcing the shutdowns of the stores on the same day you announce you're fucking every PlayStation gamer right up the rear by forcing them into a digital-only future where you will never actually own a game you buy and PlayStation can, for any reason at any time, just screw you by removing your purchased "licenses" or just banning your account, is pure garbage. At least with physical games, if something happens to your account you still have the game. But now with this if something goes wrong and you're wrongly banned from PlayStation, you either have to go through a months long slog of fighting with PlayStation to get your banned reversed or you have to make a new account and re-buy all of those "licenses" you had. 

I bet you anything once January of 2028 hits, we're going to see a hell of a lot less sales going on on PSN as well. Getting rid of physical also means people don't have cheaper options any more. I don't know how many times I'll find physical copies of games reduced in price to $30-$40 just a few weeks or a couple of months after release while the digital versions will stay full price and rarely ever go on sale.

Add in the ongoing "crisis" with RAM and storage prices and welcome to a world where you're going to have to be buying new SSDs for your PS6 because all of the massive sized digital games are gong to fill up your storage in no time, which is going to add astronomical cost to owning a PlayStation console. 

Yep, here's to hoping this will be the beginning of the end for PlayStation. Fuck you Sony/PlayStation.

[Moonface]

In their blog post about it a reason they gave was that the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita can't support updates to payment systems at the level required, which is a fair reason but if all the content on the stores is still downloadable, then I wish there was a way to prevent buying content on those consoles but instead you can buy it either via a website or the PS Store on newer systems, and then just redeem the download on your PS3 or PS Vita. However I understand the work/cost of setting that up probably isn't worth it, but that seems like a way of making content purchasable for a longer time across all consoles without the problem of any particular console struggling to work with modern payment systems and stuff. Hell even just make it like buying digital games from non-console storefronts where they give you a code to put in to redeem the download if it's too much hassle to sync purchases to a console that were made elsewhere.

[Dragon Lord]

I don't mind the closure of those storefronts as much. Yes it does suck, but those systems are quite old at this point and like the 3DS store, it was going to happen eventually. At least I have a full year to go through my libraries on those systems and get what I need/want from the store before they're gone.

Announcing both the closure of those stores and the end of physical game production on the same day is just a pure dick move by PlayStation.