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PlayStation (Games) Sony

Sony Won't Shut Down PS3 and PS Vita Stores After All (cnet.com) 33

Posted by BeauHD from the reverse-course dept.
Last month, Sony said that PlayStation Store access for the PS3, PS Vita, and PSP would end this summer. Today, Sony has partially reversed course, announcing on the PlayStation Blog that the PlayStation Store would remain open on the PS3 and PS Vita. CNET reports: "It's clear we made the wrong decision here," Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan wrote on the PlayStation Blog. "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."

Commerce functionality for the PlayStation Portable will still expire on July 2, meaning that the PSP will no longer be able to buy any content on the digital storefront. Users should, however, still be able to re-download any previously purchased games or media.
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Sony Won't Shut Down PS3 and PS Vita Stores After All More

Sony Won't Shut Down PS3 and PS Vita Stores After All

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  • I bought a bunch of games after the news of the closure and I guess many others must have done the same for them to take notice of the sudden revenue. Good that the store is staying up, you'll have to pry my Vita out of my cold dead hands.

    • Re:Great news! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Monday April 19, 2021 @06:27PM (#61292186)

      I don't think it's that. I think they noticed the immense amount of negative press they're getting over it over the CBOMB issue and are extremely worried because compatibility wise, the PS5 sucks. It only plays PS4 games. With the announcement of shutting down the PS3 and Vita stores, people saw CBOMB was really around the corner because once they shut down the stores, how long is Sony going to keep the servers needed running?

      Contrast that with Microsoft, which has a worse issue (the Xbox cannot be activated without internet), but since the Xbox Series X can play games going all the way back to the OG Xbox, Microsoft will be much less likely to shut down the store.

      PS3 games cannot be played on PS4 or PS5, thus you must have a PS3 to play them. PS3s are old and no one plays them anymore therefore they don't matter, at least to Sony. But the Xbox is playing games going back to 2001? There may be no OG Xboxes still running out there, but the games for it can play on the latest (and even across generations - an OG Xbox game running on an OG Xbox can still LAN play with an Xbox360 with the same game alongside an Xbox One and Xbox Series all running the same game on the same LAN, so one game on 4 generations of hardware can still LAN play.

      Sony wants to promote their Playstation Now service, but it doesn't handle games you already own.

      And with Xbox Game Pass offering up OG Xbox games to download and play too, Microsoft certainly doesn't seem to be wanting to kill the OG Xbox or Xbox360 stores anytime soon.

      In other words, competition made Sony look very bad, and these are still the early days of PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. With PS5s still locked up by scalpers, things like this can easily sway a public fed up with not getting a unit (and knowing PS5 releases will cause supplies to tighten even more) to the competition. Especially since you can find the Xbox Series X and S in stores now - I've seen a few at my local Walmart. And this is affecting developers - they see PS5s go to scalpers which they see as someone who isn't buying their game, so why invest in developing for the PS5 right now? If they can, develop "for the other guys" first and then port it to PS5 when there are more consoles in the hands of players.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shess ( 31691 )

        In other words, competition made Sony look very bad, and these are still the early days of PS5 and Xbox Series consoles.

        It is Sony, though. They'll probably screw up the credit-card processing, or forget to renew the domain, or the SSL cert. Maybe they'll screw up search, or make the download button redirect to the logout page. What can you do? Market pushback can't fix incompetence.

        I've got a PS3 and a PS4, and I find the ability of Sony to go from weakness to weakness astounding. They have billions of dollars, it can't be THAT hard not to repeatedly own-goal yourself.

        [Apologies to Sony engineers over there. Just so y

      • Holy shit I thought I was the only one who couldn't add fucming funds to my wallet with a credit card -- I have to buy fucking PSN gift card on amazon and add those to my account. No amount of customer service communication could fix it -- WTF!

      • >PS3s are old and no one plays them anymore therefore they don't matter, at least to Sony.

        But the PS Vita is still a fine, fine thing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          But the PS Vita is still a fine, fine thing.

          Sony lost interest in the Vita after the PS4 took off. They just forgot all about its existence and basically stopped caring about it. They stopped making it years ago and as far as Sony was concerned, the PS4 was number one because the Vita, well, it's not selling like the PS4 was.

          I still remember the Sony aisles in the store - it would be packed full of PS4 games and PS4 accessories, and then there was the lonely rack of Vita stuff. With maybe 1 Vita game on the

          • Indeed Sony did lose interest. The device however remains good. Nice screen, good graphics, nice controls, nice hand feel.

            Every now and then I will pull it out to Touch my Katamari.

  • Well, so if enough people protest, they'll refrain from screwing them over... temporarily.

    Lame. What I'd hope would be that they admit they were wrong to even try it, and promise not to do anything similar in the future. But that's not what happened.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      The PS3 was introduced almost 15 years ago, and new sales stopped almost five years ago. How long do you think they should continue to sell games for it? Why is it "wrong to even try" to stop selling games for obsolete platforms -- and why do you think that will always be wrong?

      • Because they don't need to stop it, and it doesn't cost them anything to leave it up.

        It isn't like they're not longer a game company, or they no longer have webservers running that stuff.

        • security patches & attack mitigation, general maintenance, support staff and training. If they were shutting it down it's more than likely because they were losing money on it and not some nefarious plot. Sony *loses* money on hardware. The longer they can keep you buying games for a system they already took the hit on the better.

      • It was Sony's decision to lock down the PS3 so hard that it is largely junk without the store. The right thing to do would be, one final update that unlocks the ROM and the hard disk encryption stupidity.

        Sony made this filthy bed, now they must lie in it.

      • How much does it cost to keep that server running with a few gigs of hd space ?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rossz ( 67331 )

          It's going to require a lot more than one server with a few gigs of disk space to support a large number of consoles.

  • It took Microsoft one day to revert a 100% price hike from $60 to $120:
    https://gamerant.com/xbox-live... [gamerant.com]

    It took Sony a bit longer, but no worries, the customer is always the king. As long as we get ourselves heard.

    Now, if only we could get our headphone jacks, extensible storage, and replaceable batteries back...

  • From the announcement it's clear they're not doing it because it's the right thing to do, but in response to negative publicity. If they really want to do right, they need to provide upfront guarantees that they'll maintain necessary support for products for _x_ years after end-of-sale.

    • I got off the console treadmill with the PS4, and almost took a pass on that. Never again, not ever. Not any kind of console. The creepy control freakery over what is really an ordinary PC plus lockdown crap just makes it not worth it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Noven ( 7972590 )

        I got off the console treadmill with the PS4, and almost took a pass on that. Never again, not ever. Not any kind of console. The creepy control freakery over what is really an ordinary PC plus lockdown crap just makes it not worth it.

        Yeah I can understand that sentiment, but man, it is just so easy to turn on and game, not worry about anything working properly, drivers, etc.

  • How much money would shutting down those stores really save sony ? Surely the savings are not worth the bad image and press they are going to get. If anything they could have kept on selling those old warez for many years.

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