According to a report by online outlet TheGamer, we will soon have to bid farewell to PS3, PS Vita, and PSP online stores. The report reads that "according to a source familiar with the situation (verified by TheGamer), the stores are due to be closed down from July". According to this report, the stores for the PSP and PS3 are set to permanently shut down this July 2nd. The PS Vita store will close later, on August 27th. This means that digital copies of games and/or their DLCs on those platforms will no longer be available to purchase following those dates. TheGamer also writes that Sony plans to make the news official at the end of this month.

As usual, we should take such news with a pinch of salt as they come from "a source familiar with the situation" and haven't been verified by other outlets.

SOURCE

 

[Garirry]

This is a bizarre claim. The PSP storefront is already shut down, but it is still possible to download previously purchased PSP titles or transfer them from PS3. The PS Vita was discontinued two years ago. It makes no sense that the shop would shut down now, especially considering Sony has been known to keep servers running for a really long time.

 

[Chunbe]

Is there a PS3 browser payload that dumps all .rifs, act.dat and idps to USB? It'll make dumping PSN stuff really easy for everyone to do without having to install PS3HEN, you'll just need HFW. (PKG links can still be obtained on the PS store website using PSDLE). Along with a PS3 dumping guide that easy to spread around and get people to contribute without worrying about cfw stuff and potential bans. There's still a bunch of PSN stuff not preserved anywhere, like pre-order/delisted dlcs and other region exclusive (Asia/Japan) games.

 

[duwen]

The Vita store barely works anyway... that alone is a prime reason for Henkaku. Yet, despite having both my 1000 and PSTV with enso, I occassionally still look at purchasing titles digitally ...I say "look at" because nine times out of ten the store refuses to work correctly for one reason or another - it wasn't a problem when the webstore existed, but now that's gone it's as good as shutting the service anyway.

 

[chrisrlink]

The Vita store barely works anyway... that alone is a prime reason for Henkaku. Yet, despite having both my 1000 and PSTV with enso, I occassionally still look at purchasing titles digitally ...I say "look at" because nine times out of ten the store refuses to work correctly for one reason or another - it wasn't a problem when the webstore existed, but now that's gone it's as good as shutting the service anyway.

sucks when a certain piracy homebrew works better than the official store

 

[tivu100]

Another excuse to justify piracy because companies are dicks to their digital services.

It's no more an excuse, but proper reason if Sony indeed pulls the rug on consumers like this.

 

[Codemastershock]

If you ever did want to take that risk there is a way to unban a ps3 console but it involves buying a unbanned ps3 console id off of ebay.

this is only possible on a console with custom firmware (cfw). On a more recent console, with homebrew enabler (hen) it isnt.

 

[64bitmodels]

nope you can redownload your wii games lol just try it, even entering shop channel will just say its out of service so no you cant redownload your wii games at all, even if you purchased them.


well nintendo first said you couldnt buy games anymore and then after like 6 months the store was permanently down for the wii so you cant redownload it either if you had bought them before.

they have no obligation to keep stores running for ever, no company does it, once they discontinue a product there is no law that they need to maintain the online services.

wii was cut down you cant even redownload what you bough same for original xbox store.

with this it will be sony killing the ps3/psp/psvita and i bet xbox360 wont be too far away either, they will all say you can buy gamesa after day X and then afew months later the store goes completely dark and you cant even redownload purchases same as xbox/wii

this scares me because i own a 360 and i use the store quite a lot
plus unlike PS3 the 360 has no softmod so if it goes down i'm kind of boned

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

This is a bizarre claim. The PSP storefront is already shut down, but it is still possible to download previously purchased PSP titles or transfer them from PS3. The PS Vita was discontinued two years ago. It makes no sense that the shop would shut down now, especially considering Sony has been known to keep servers running for a really long time.

the vita is the one console that sony just really wants to get rid of seeing how much of a failure it was for them

 

[Garirry]

the vita is the one console that sony just really wants to get rid of seeing how much of a failure it was for them

Why would they want to get rid of it? It's new enough that there's still game sales for the system, and even has new games from time to time.

 

[Codemastershock]

this scares me because i own a 360 and i use the store quite a lot
plus unlike PS3 the 360 has no softmod so if it goes down i'm kind of boned

I dont discard the possibility of them discontinuing 360 services entirely., but I dont think Xbox Live and its services will be removed from the 360 so soon, because Microsoft has legitimate reasons to continue supporting: the games and services are supported on newer hardware and are one big advantage of the new line of devices over the competition and Game Pass. Microsoft in general has a masssive online infrastructure to the point of very recently they are effectively using most of it because of virtualization techniques. If the 360 services are not as used, this "free power" is easily allocated to something else using Azure.

 

[pickinanameainteasy]

They can have it!!

 

[DerpDingus]

I know I have the unpopular opinion but I have nothing against digital games or the closing of digital stores. I think having a digital game is similar to having the disc but in a different medium. Deleting it is like throwing out the disk and accidently deleting it is like breaking the disk.

This is some matrix level reality bending.

 

[|<roni&g]

When a company makes these plastic bricks& slabs, they need to make sure they remain as useful as possible for many many years. PS3 came out in 2006,the server's and stores should be there for another 20 years minimum. Vita store hasn't even been around 10 years yet, people that dropped the money on release deserve access to the store. Even if not many play it, the people that do have the right to use the server's & buy games if needed

 

[segashack]

The concern for me when the PS4/PS5/XB1 stores shut down one day is that many discs from the current generation and prior generation are useless as "day one updates" are required for these games to even play.

 

[Deleted User]

Customer: I want to preserve my games forever
Sony: No

 

[RedBlueGreen]

It's bad enough you can't buy ps3, psp, and ps vita games from the ps store on a pc web browser anymore and now this.

You can, it's just a pain in the ass to do. I had to buy Disgaea 2 for PSP through a web browser. They make it really difficult but there's a link on Reddit to the old store, and you can also google PS3 Store and click the PlayStation Store link that says "All PS3 Games" and it takes you to the old store where you can buy PSP, PS3, and PS Vita titles, though I guess not for long. If my PS3 were old enough I'd sail the seven seas for the games I can't find physically, but it's a 2011 160GB model, so the firmware it cane with was to recent to do anything with.

 

[RandomGamerRiven]

This is really grim news if confirmed, which I suspect it will be. Sony spliting off the PS3, PSP and PSVita stores from PS4 late last year was a big warning, which made me pick up a number of titles.

There were games released on the PSVita this year, but as Sony don't update the store you now have to manually search for everything. A lot of DLCs have odd titles on PSN making them a royal pain to search for. I heard that in Europe you can no longer use your credit card or Pay Pal to buy games as Sony didn't renew their card license, prepaid cards only.

All I'll say is buy the games and DLC right now while you still can.

 

[rimoJO]

entry number 16:
no No NO NO NO NO

 

[Deleted User]

This is a bizarre claim. The PSP storefront is already shut down, but it is still possible to download previously purchased PSP titles or transfer them from PS3. The PS Vita was discontinued two years ago. It makes no sense that the shop would shut down now, especially considering Sony has been known to keep servers running for a really long time.

They're shutting it down, it's been officially confirmed.