Report: PS3, Vita, And PSP Stores To Be Permanently Closed In A Few Months

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i miss the pre-internet consoles tbh. where you had no dlc and if you wanted to put out additional content you had to make it at least feel substantial to justify it since it had to be a physical release.

maybe this is because i am trying to think of all the ps3/vita/psp stuff i want to try in the future, but can't use the website now to look it up because they removed that functionality months ago. so i have to

on the shelf across from me i have the 'digital contents collection' for ffxiii-2, which was a copy of the game with an extra disc including most of the dlc (collaboration dlc and some items from preorders/merchandise bonuses are missing) and updates/patches. i wish more games would have done that, just a separate disc with all the dlc on it. i know you get that sometimes with goty editions but not every game gets those, and i don't think they even include everything all the time.

that is going to add more manufacturing costs and i am not going to get that for games that came out over 10 years ago now, but i can still be grumpy about it. i have started buying more digital games lately but only if they're substantially discounted, so it tends to be older stuff. but are manufacturing costs a big issue for companies when digital copies tend to cost the same price as the physical releases. maybe i'd be more forgiving if you were selling for the same price but the digital one included extra stuff as an incentive, but when they do that they call it a 'digital deluxe edition' and charge you an extra 30% or something.

plus preserving stuff. i mean i don’t expect the higher ups to care about games as more than a way to make money when they’re like “but how can we make this a live service and have loot boxes” for everything, but surely someone must want to see it live on

idk man i am just feeling sad rn
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Sounds like that would be an extremely easy fix on Sony's end. As the article says, they could reduce the number of system functions tied to the check, but even more simply, couldn't they just make it so the system can confirm the date/time with ANY old server? Yes that would still require an internet connection, but only once when you change the battery, right?
 

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
Playstation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will continue operations.

Recently, we notified players that PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita devices was planned to end this summer.

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. PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned.

When we initially came to the decision to end purchasing support for PS3 and PS Vita, it was born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on. We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so

I’m glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations.

I’m glad that we can keep this piece of our history alive for gamers to enjoy, while we continue to create cutting-edge new game worlds for PS4, PS5, and the next generation of VR.

Thank you for sharing your feedback with us – we’re always listening and appreciate the support from our PlayStation community.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
I mean, yeah it's "inevitable" but I think it's quite a consumer/player victory that Sony fucking backed down and decided not to hakai the PS3 and Vita store.

If this were Nintendo they'd have gleefully flipped the kill switch and then sent a commemorative tweet about it, thanking the players for their support.
 

Nanaki Skywalker

Kate Lord of the Sith
AKA
Tarkatan Trash
While good news, this is only delaying a bussiness inevitability.

This also encourages people like me to go down the emulation rabbit hole...and keep in mind, I have 8 gaming consoles (plus 3 of the officially released "Classic/Minis" with built in games) dating back 31 years. I have a 31 year old NES that still works, so that should tell you how much playing older games means to me.
 

Nanaki Skywalker

Kate Lord of the Sith
AKA
Tarkatan Trash
Everyone should be emulating anyway. Emulation is a rich digital culture, as is as owning the legitimate hardware.

Also, this is incredibly good news. Seems like the PSP’s not getting spared, though :mon:
I'm already considering a Raspberry Pi, mainly for arcade games, and in a travel situation (that way I don't have to take 3 or 4 different consoles with me).
 

Roundhouse

Pro Adventurer
I don't emulate -- at least, not in the shady sense. I don't want to get into trouble just for trying to play a game that I can't conveniently buy, sigh. This means that I still haven't played stuff like Xenogears, Chrono Cross, and Mother 3, as none of them are available in Europe, ugh.
 

Nanaki Skywalker

Kate Lord of the Sith
AKA
Tarkatan Trash
I don't emulate -- at least, not in the shady sense. I don't want to get into trouble just for trying to play a game that I can't conveniently buy, sigh. This means that I still haven't played stuff like Xenogears, Chrono Cross, and Mother 3, as none of them are available in Europe, ugh.
If you know how to dump your own roms, publishers can't do jack shit to you. Plus, it's already to the point where you can play roms on original hardware (flash cartridges such as the Everdrive line for cartridge based consoles, optical drive emulator mods for disc based consoles).

As for Chrono Cross, I highly suggest you play that game on a CRT, as that game is the namesake for a problem on modern displays associated with 240p gameplay and 480i menus where there's a noticable sync delay when the game changes resolutions (this is an inherent problem with modern displays themselves), though I think the upcoming Retrotink 5x (and maybe a few other retro gaming scalers) may have found a solution to this.
 
Tfw when, out of those three consoles, you only own a PSP. :(

Video game consumers have made it abundantly clear that they are happy to buy old games if you provide them conveniently. If publishers still don't want to take advantage of that, I think they cede their right to moral indignation.

Exactly. I feel like there's a good amount of people who will buy old games if given the opportunity, but if a game has seen no modern release (or Western release at all) and is only available for a hefty price used then, yeah, people are going to look for other options. Everyone has a different point where they draw the line morally, but I'm personally not going to fault someone for emulating, like, Baten Kaitos Origins (only ever released on the Gamecube, was never released in Europe) even if they didn't rip the disc themselves. Like, if Nintendo wanted to make money off of Mother 3 in the West they'd release it, but begging for an official release is a meme now and buying an official cart legally at this point isn't getting money to anyone who worked on the game, so I feel like Nintendo can't really complain (figuratively speaking, obviously they could take legal action if they wanted to I suppose lol) about what people do.
 

Prism

Pro Adventurer
AKA
pikpixelart
For some reason, I don’t view emulation as just piracy. Obviously, it is piracy, but it feels like it’s more than that. The novelty of running console software on your PC, the excitement of new developments as the emulators get better, the feeling of having a whole console’s library at your fingertips, the charming UI and design the emulators have, the culture related to making ROM hacks and preservation, etc - it all amounts to something that’s really fun.

A lot of the times, the games that people emulate are games that you can only purchase used copies of anyway, so it’s not like the money is going to the developers. And even if they get a proper rerelease, that rerelease might end up helping the publisher more than the developers themselves.
 
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