PS3, PSP, and PS Vita Store Shutdown Countdown and Recommendation Thread - Update: Shutdown Cancelled for Vita and PS3!

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.

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This sucks. I’ve barely scratched the surface of these libraries. It just makes me never want their digital only PS5 and opt for the disc drive version.

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The Mega Man Legends trilogy is a must! Otherwise, you’re paying for a lot in the wild.

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Guess I need to snap up the PS One Classics while I still can and save them to my PSP as well.,

I hope they provide some information regarding patches. If nothing, I guess I’m going to be spending a decent amount of time putting all my discs in to check for updates.

PS3 software I’m looking to get in light of this news:

-House of the Dead 4+3 bundle
-Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles
-Contra Hard Corps Uprising
-Tekken 5 Dark Ressurection

  • Mamorukun Curse!

PS3 download-only I recommend people consider before the shutdown
-Fatal Inertia EX (not a great game but it is exclusive-ish and one of the few futuristic racing games of that generation)
-Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn (it was released physical in Japan but I don’t think that would include the english translation)

Vita DL-only software I recommend people look for:
-Super Stardust Delta (this game owns so much! And the PS4 game is based off Super Stardust HD)

Stuff that’s easy to overlook:
-Lair infamously launched with sixaxis-controls, and less infamously got patched to include buttons and rumble. However, a standalone DLC including the patch and bonus dragons was released on the PS store, so I recommend anyone with an interest in playing the game eventually to download that, especially as one of those dragon is quite the overpowered lad.
-Resistance Fall of Man was releashed physically and still colonizes bargain-bin everywhere, but the (inexplicable euro-only) digital version is the only way to get the rumble patch and DLC maps (both lost with the game’s multiplayer server shutdown) without CFW.

I second this one, grabbed it last year myself! The price UFO Interactive set it at makes it a steal compared with importing the game on 360 or PS3.

The PSP ports of 1 and 2 are also available for very cheap on the Japanese PS Store, but they removed PS1 Archives Tron Bonne at the end of 2019 for some reason.

Just bought the MML trilogy lol.

This is my current PS1 To Buy List.

PS1

JRPGs

Chrono Cross
Alundra
Breath of Fire IV
Vagrant Story
Wild Arms
Tecmo’s Deception
Xenogears
Suikoden
Suikoden II

Action
Klonoa
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 2
Tomba!
Tomba! 2
Strider 2
Herc’s Adventure

Fighters
Street Fighter Alpha 3 - (PSP version may be better here. Does it have Would Tour Mode)

My other lists:

PS3

Vita

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A few of those fetch a pretty penny on the aftermarket. Suikoden 2 for example is so prohibitively expensive that it’s kind of funny. Definitely need to get a few of those, like Vagrant Story. Always wanted to play that.

I assumed this was going to happen a few months ago when the web store delisted these platforms and went ahead and already bought:

PS3

  • Drakenguard 3
  • Echochrome (note this is very different from the PSP version)
  • Echochrome 2 (requires PS Move which lol I don’t have)
  • Soul Calibur 2 HD Online

PS2 Classics for PS3:

  • Contra: Shattered Soldier
  • La Pucelle: Tactics
  • Shinobi
  • Suikoden 3

PS1 Classics for PS3/PSP/Vita:

  • Alundra
  • Arc the Lad 1,2,3
  • Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
  • Parasite Eve
  • Threads of Fate
  • Vagrant Story

I’m also so far eyeing buying:

  • Soul Calibur 2 HD Online JP ver (I love the japanese voices and they aren’t in the US release)

Need to take another look if there’s something else I want to buy. Also I intend to speed up my purchasing of UMD games because they will be more attractive when PSN is gone; recently picked up FF 1+4, Locoroco 1+2, Echochrome, Echoshift, Jeanne D’Arc, and Goku Makaimura.

I’ll also probably go through my stuff and make a recommendations list if anyone’s interested in that.

Going to repost this list of PS3 exclusives if anyone needs it:

Only other thing I’m thinking is to use a well-known piracy tool that accesses Sony’s CDN services to download and decrypt official versions of all my PSN games. Often I find the official releases of PS1 games to be a lot less jank than what floats around online so it’d be nice to have a DRM removed archive of that stuff, and hey I bought it so no sweat of my back to use that piracy tool.

Sounds like I really need to grab House of the Dead 4. That’s the only digital exclusive I’m seeing that really piques my interest that I don’t already own.

My PS1 Archives (Japan) recommendations (titles marked with *** are expensive on disc):

  • Chippoke Ralph no Daibouken (Adventure of Little Ralph) ***
  • Zanac x Zanac ***
  • Super Pang Collection ***
  • Umihara Kawase Shun
  • Kaze no Notam
  • Panekit
  • Ridge Racer Type 4
  • Superlite 1500 Cotton ***
  • Superlite 1500 Cotton 100% ***
  • Ray Tracers
  • Touge Max 2
  • Crime Crackers 2
  • 右左/Migi-Hidari/U-SA/Turnabout (US name)
  • Arcade Hits Wolf Fang ***
  • Grill Logic
  • Aquanauts Holiday titles
  • Community Pom ***
  • Digital Glider Airman
  • Tail of the Sun/Taiyo no Shippo
  • Puyo Puyo Box (has an RPG puzzle mode)
  • Linda Cube/Linda³
  • Brightis
  • Atelier Marie Plus
  • Tomba
  • Tomba 2

Thanks for this. My focus will be on PS1 and PS2 titles that are really expensive to get physical. I have a good number already. Still have a PS3 hooked up to my main TV and plan to keep it the way for some time. I focus on physical PS3 games but definitely have a good number of digital titles over the year between PS+ (which I don’t sub to right now) and all those great exclusive indie titles from the second half of the console’s life cycle.

This is trash, there’s still PS1 and PS3 games I want to get on PSN. I don’t get why they would do this.

For Vita exclusives:

:weary:

Lol, what happened?

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Missing Adventures of Mana, unless you really want to play it on a phone.

Game’s pretty cool, very faithful remake of the GB Final Fantasy Adventure and served as a starting port for the Mana series remakes like Secret of Mana (PS4/Vita/PC) and Trials of Mana (PS4/Switch/PC).

Interesting. I do have the Mana Collection on Switch. Didn’t know it got remake.

Fat fingers on my part - wrong reply button