Sony will close PlayStation Stores for PS3, Vita and PSP this summer.
It is in accordance with The player, who cites a “source familiar with the situation” in a new report on the closings. The PS3 and PSP stores will apparently remain online until July 2, 2021, with the Vita store slightly behind them with an August 27 deadline.
Sony hasn’t confirmed the closure of these stores, so don’t rush out and buy a bunch of external hard drives or SD cards just yet. The Gamer reports that Sony plans to announce the end of its legacy stores later this month, so at the most, you may want to think about what digital games you are still missing in the systems’ libraries. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to play but never did, it may need to be downloaded soon.
All three consoles are home to many legacy PlayStation games, many of which are not available on PS4 and PS5, so they are still reasonably valuable platforms. The PS3 offers a solid collection of PS2 and PS1 games, and Vita has a good PS1 line of its own, as well as a selection of top-tier indie games.
Historically, once console stores close, users can no longer download digital games or game updates on these consoles, so if this is true, this news can affect much more than just digital property. Again, the details and schedule are not yet official, so for now, hope for the best while preparing for the worst. We have contacted Sony for comment and will update our reports if we receive a response.
Sony is moving wholesale to the new console generation: last December, the company PS4 Pro direct sales discontinued, and earlier this year, interrupted the production of several PS4 models in Japan.