It’s been almost a month since Sony announced that they were going to shut down the PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS Vita online digital storefront, and the fan backlash has been fairly high. Rumors of the stores being shut down began only few days before Sony made the reveal, and players of the aforementioned systems have had concerns for certain titles that have yet to be ported from those systems. Well, it looks like the company has had a change of heart as SIE CEO Jim Ryan announced in a blog post that they will no longer be shutting down the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita stores. The PSP store is unfortunately still scheduled to be turned off on July 2.
Ryan explained that the initial reasoning behind the closure of the legacy storefronts was due to the arduous task of continuously keeping them online, as well as focusing on the newer stores such as the PlayStation 5’s. However, Ryan mentions that since the fan feedback was so intense, they reversed their decision, “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.”
As we already mentioned, the PSP storefront will still be shut down on July 2. No specific information was given as to why they weren’t saving this one as well, but since Sony hasn’t officially supported the handheld platform since 2014, and you can buy and download any PSP title on the PS Vita, it only makes sense for them to end this specific legacy digital store. The previous rule also applies here, where any digital title that you have purchased through the PSP store will not be removed from your library, and you’ll be able to re-download them whenever you want.
Fans who still utilize the PlayStation 3 and the PS Vita in any form or capacity will most likely view this decision as a major victory. As we already mentioned, there is still a good amount of titles that have yet to be brought over to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, not counting the PS Now subscription service. Hopefully, Sony will see this as a wake-up call and bring them to the modern generation of consoles, and possibly the PC platform as well.