According to reporting from The Gamer, PlayStation is looking to close the digital stores of a number of their systems beginning in July, with a formal announcement set to come later this month.
Per The Gamer’s report, the digital storefronts for the PlayStation 3 and PSP look to be shut down on July 12, while the PS Vita store is set to close later on Aug. 27. Once the stores close, users of any of the affected systems will lose the ability to purchase any games, additional content, themes, demos, avatars or any number of things one might have bought on them. The systems will be as good as dead outside of physical media or anything you’ve already downloaded to them.
This move feels like a long time coming, and even then it’s tremendously sad to see. Last year, with the impending arrival of the PlayStation 5, Sony pushed out an update to its stores that eliminated the ability to purchase PS3, PSP and PS Vita games on the web store. This meant that you could only buy games for the respective systems on their consoles stores, although you actually can’t even use the PSP’s own store, so especially pour one out for that little guy.
While some saw this as a normal shift in priorities to highlight their newest and brightest systems, it was definitely a prominent step in putting the systems out to pasture. That move and this one now seem like a pretty big condemnation of the “all-digital future” we keep being promised. Archivation of games is already notoriously lax without the corporations behind them actively choosing to nuke their pasts completely like this.
The lesson: let’s all enjoy our time with the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 stores while we’re able to.