Upon “further reflection,” Sony has changed course on a decision earlier this month to shut down the PS3 and PS Vita portions of the PlayStation Store. The company announced in a PlayStation Blog post today that the PS3 and PS Vita aspects of the store will continue operations.
“Recently, we notified players that PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita devices was planned to end this summer,” the blog post reads. “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.”
The decision was met with uproar from video game fans, citing a desire to preserve video game history and enable legitimate means to purchase and play retro games. Some unfavorably compared Sony’s decision to Microsoft’s efforts in backwards compatibility, and even Apple’s recent announcement that they will be offering classic iOS games as part of their Apple Arcade service.
“The fact that Apple, possibly inspired by Microsoft, has a real chance to do game preservation better than Sony is not a sentence I would have expected to type in 2021,” wrote MacStories’ Federico Viticci.
Sony does note that PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned.
Join the AIPT Patreon
Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:
- ❌ Remove all ads on the website
- 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
- 📗 Access to our monthly book club
- 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
- 💥 And more!
