Sony Interactive Entertainment is planning on shutting the PS3, PS Vita and PSP stores in a few months’ time, with ScourgeBringer being the last PS Vita game to pass North American lotcheck.
I suppose the writing’s been on the wall for quite some time now. For at least a couple of years, publishers stopped being invited to put their PS3/PSP/PSV games on sale, then there was the purging of PS3, PS Vita and PSP games from the web store half a year ago, along with online PlayStation profile pages only showing PS4 and PS5 games as part of your library.
Since Sony is pulling the plug rather soon with only a scarce few months’ notice to make some last purchases, it’s time to carry the torch from @entremet’s excellent Wii Shop Channel closure thread and get recommending each other some great titles from a heritage of software! What are your picks from the following categories?
- PS3 download software
- PS Vita download software
- PSP download software - playable on PSP and PSV
- Minis - playable on PS3 and PSP
- PS1 Archives - playable on PSP, PS3 and PSV
- PS2 Archives - playable on PS3
- PC Engine Archives - playable on PSP, PS3 (PSV unconfirmed)
- All separately purchaseable DLC - paid and free for PS3/PSV/PSP titles
When is the store shutting down?
- PSP and PS3 - July 2
- PSV - August 27
How can I store my downloads?
Since the PSP store shut a few years ago, I’ve had to use my PS3 to download and transfer games to my PSPs. After transferring a game you can choose to keep the game file itself on your PS3’s XMB, and presumably the same is true for PS Vita releases. So a PS3 with a large HDD should be able to store all digital purchases from every one of your accounts, in every category above.
Unanswered questions
- We don’t know what Sony plans to do with account activation. On PSP, you can only have your system activated to one account’s purchases at a time, and losing this ability could lock you out of purchases. If a PS3’s CMOS battery expires, it requires online activation to reenable access to all digital content.
On a more personal note, I’m disappointed in Sony Interactive Entertainment for turning its back its heritage like this, especially considering how Japanese publishers were still releasing PS1 Archives titles through to December 2019! The only surviving part of it seems to be the ability to stream a small number of PS3 titles on PS Now, but I can’t see that lasting much longer.
Despite the PS4’s success there is no doubt that its library of defining titles couldn’t be more different to previous PlayStation systems. After all, PS4 arrived in a post-smartphone, multiplatform world. Given this move I’m not sure I have any confidence in these games being playable in some form on current machines, the economics just aren’t there anymore to justify them pouring resources into enabling a program like PS Archives any more.
It’s a crushing disappointment that this all has to go, then, and it makes you wonder what would have happened if Sony didn’t drop the ball on its PSP successor, since unlike the PS4 the PS Vita did inherit a legacy of PS Archives and PSP titles released since 2004.