Originally, Sony had decided to discontinue the legacy services for their PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable devices later in 2021. As we reported earlier, the end of these services became a matter of great debate among the PlayStation and general gaming communities as to the rights of consumers in the digital age.
The announcement of the closure of these services sparked a sudden surge in people buying digital-only content from all three stores in order to provide a way to preserve the games, along with the uncounted amounts of games previously bought, onto consoles worldwide.
It seems that Sony has listened, or at least seen the recent uptake in PlayStation 3, Vita, and Portable game sales and has decided to retract their idea of closing two out of the three services.
In a statement released online via social media and their own website blog, Sony has decided that it would be in their best interests to keep the store for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles online for the time being. The PlayStation Portable Store will still be closing in August 2021.
While many PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita owners are happy with this news, it could be that Sony has seen the numbers and online backlash, deciding it would be best to keep the services online for now, with plans to remove them again somewhere down the line.
PlayStation owners, along with gamers everywhere, are pushing for Sony to make PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita titles available on more recent PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles in order to preserve the games that are available on the service. This has also been echoed by indie developers who have stated that by killing off these services, that some of their best titles will no longer exist.
If there was ever a time for Sony to rethink its position on backward compatibility, and make a program that rivals Xbox Game Pass, then now is the time.
