Reversal: PS3, Vita, And PSP Stores To No Longer Close Permanently

[TimeLordCrow13y]

Everyone’s saying trophy syncing won’t be affected and that’s true...for now. However, considering Sony gave literally no hint that they would soon be closing the stores on the PS3/Vita (in fact they implied the opposite, IMO) when they announced the closure of the web store months ago...what’s to stop them from saying in another few months after that (around December or so) “Oh BTW, we’re nuking trophy syncing and re-downloads for PS3/Vita now too. Happy Holidays!” 

 

I honestly have very little faith in them right now. It’s beyond obvious they don’t care who they piss off. They’re even massively screwing over devs currently developing games for one of their own systems without blinking an eye. As long as they’re still seeing lots of PS5 sales (even if many of those are from people who will only ever buy a few shitty micro-transaction fueled games for the system) I don’t really think they’ll care if PS3/Vita trophy hunters are mad. 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by TimeLordCrow13y

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

2 hours ago, SnowxSakura said:

I feel bad for the vita developers that never had any type of notification of the closures while working on games

 

Same, I almost hope at least one of 'em tries to sue Sony for wasting their time, money and resources by not giving them any forewarning of this. Hope the guy that got the Vita devkit gets a refund or something.

 

2 hours ago, GregHouse007 said:

The thing is, If they are giving 3 months notice for the store closure, how much time would they give for the closure of the syncing servers which 99% of the players couldn't care less about?

 

This worries me also. They've been giving very short notice for a lot of their "we're getting rid of this thing" antics lately, and it makes me worried just how long it's going to be till trophy syncing ceases to be a thing, or worse, we can't re-download our purchased content any more.

 

I'm not too worried about trophy syncing on PS3 since PS Now exists, but I am concerned about the Vita, especially since they're abruptly killing its ability to use messaging and I honestly can't fathom why. I know messaging on PS3 is limited now as well, as of last year. Who knows what the next step will be, perhaps ceasing PS Plus features for those consoles. In which case, bye bye all my PS3 and Vita PS Plus games I will never be able to buy because my membership doesn't end till 2023, and Sony doesn't give us the ability to outright buy games we have via PS Plus like Microsoft does with Xbox Live Gold games.

 

I'm going to prioritise my Vita more when I can, definitely, but even if I drop everything else and focus solely on PS3 and Vita games, it's likely still going to take me another year or so to finish them. Just hope the 2-ish years time frame I currently reckon it will take to finish my backlogs for those systems is enough time before trophy syncing goes kaput.

Edited March 31, 2021 by SuperSmexy500

[Sendai-Horatio]

10 minutes ago, TimeLordCrow13y said:

They’re even massively screwing over devs currently developing games for one of their own systems without blinking an eye. As long as they’re still seeing lots of PS5 sales (even if many of those are from people who will only ever buy a few shitty micro-transaction fueled games for the system) I don’t really think they’ll care if PS3/Vita trophy hunters are mad. 

 

This happens with every console, there's a buttload that have super expensive games that came out in the last days or could never be finished. Thats why a few games jumped to a new generation like Twilight princess and Breath of the wild.

[BGriff1986]

8 minutes ago, TimeLordCrow13y said:

what’s to stop them from saying in another few months after that (around December or so) “Oh BTW, we’re nuking trophy syncing and re-downloads for PS3/Vita now too. Happy Holidays!” 

There’s nothing stopping from them from doing that. But there’s also nothing saying they are doing that

 

If you wanna worry about everything that a company *might* do you’re gonna end up with a long list of hypotheticals and a longer list of sleepless nights

[BG_painter]

I received an e-mail from psn with this info as well. You guys haven't?

[Sir_TyroneOBE]

1 minute ago, BG_painter said:

I received an e-mail from psn with this info as well. You guys haven't?

Kevin hasn't sent me anything.

[BG_painter]

Just now, Sir_TyroneOBE said:

Kevin hasn't sent me anything.

I could ctrl c,v here but my e-mail is in portuguese, my acc is brazilian. the sender was [email protected] I just checked

[Lordguwa]

i was curious about that e-mail. it was posted march 29th.

kevin is a bad man or whomever motivated him to cut the strings to ps3/vita.

[GregHouse007]

45 minutes ago, BGriff1986 said:

There’s nothing stopping from them from doing that. But there’s also nothing saying they are doing that

 

If you wanna worry about everything that a company *might* do you’re gonna end up with a long list of hypotheticals and a longer list of sleepless nights

Well, his fear is not that they may or may not do that, is the fact that if they do that and give another 3 months until the servers for trophy syncing shut down, there is no way in hell he will finish playing everything he has in his PS3.

 

So, we basically need to play all that now because when they send the notice of trophy syncing ending, they will not give us a reasonable time to play what we have. Suddenly playing all those PS3 games feel like a "job" I have to do now

Edited March 31, 2021 by GregHouse007

[Lem-77]

If someone started a petition and got a significant amount of signatures, maybe they change their mind? Like maybe make it clear to them that the end goal should be to get all these games available on the PS4, PS5, or some future hardware's storefront and that's why we should keep it going till it can happen? I know this sounds really naive on my part but I really hope they change their minds before the store shutdowns, and maybe there's a way to show them that we like and want these store to keep going, in some way.

[Sir_TyroneOBE]

1 minute ago, Lem-77 said:

If someone started a petition and got a significant amount of signatures, maybe they change their mind? Like maybe make it clear to them that the end goal should be to get all these games available on the PS4, PS5, or some future hardware's storefront and that's why we should keep it going till it can happen? I know this sounds really naive on my part but I really hope they change their minds before the store shutdowns, and maybe there's a way to show them that we like and want these store to keep going, in some way.

That's REAL wishful thinking man we have to be real there is no way that's happening. This is SONY were talking about here the same company that considers older games obsolete and unworthy of the current market. As someone who uses the PS3 as their main Sony console I can tell you it sucks donkeys arse but not Moses himself could persuade Sony to stop the shutdown.

[Lem-77]

5 minutes ago, Sir_TyroneOBE said:

That's REAL wishful thinking man we have to be real there is no way that's happening. This is SONY were talking about here the same company that considers older games obsolete and unworthy of the current market. As someone who uses the PS3 as their main Sony console I can tell you it sucks donkeys arse but not Moses himself could persuade Sony to stop the shutdown.

I know. I know this sounds like real wishful thinking. I just want there to be some sort of chance for them to change their minds about all of this. The PS5 being able to play PS4 games (both physically and digitally) gave me hope that maybe one day when strong enough hardware is here (PS6 or further happens), we could more or less get the same for the all the games on PS3, PSP, and to some extent PS VIta (admittedly the touch screen for some games for Vita makes it harder for those titles).

 

I just don't want to let this happen (the store closures) without some sort of attempt to make them reconsider their decisions.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Lem-77

[Sir_TyroneOBE]

4 minutes ago, Lem-77 said:

I know. I know this sounds like real wishful thinking. I just want there to be some sort of chance for them to change their minds about all of this. The PS5 being able to use play both PS4 games (both physically and digitally) gave me hope that maybe one day when the strong enough hardware is here (PS6 or further happens), we get could more or less get the same for the all the games on PS3, PSP, and to some extent PS VIta (admittedly the touch screen for some games for Vita makes it harder for those titles).

 

I just don't want to let this happen without some sort of attempt to make them reconsider their decisions.

There is a minuscule chance it could that the stores not shutting down could occur, but those stores are awful I mean some people can't even buy games it crashes half the time and that only gives Sony more incentive to kill it(even though they made it this clunky and crap). It's all good if you hope it doesn't happen. Nothing wrong with that just be prepared for the worst this coming year.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Sir_TyroneOBE

[HMS_Victor]

6 hours ago, BGriff1986 said:

 

Ratchet Trilogy isn’t cross-buy, either. Or at least the UK physical version wasn’t. Maybe it was in other markets and we just got shafted!

 

I just looked it up and Ratchet Trilogy was cross buy if you got it digitally. Not the physical version. I got the physical one on PS3 but I'll need to buy it again for Vita. Jak was only cross buy in Europe (weird)

[KingSkovald]

5 hours ago, SuperSmexy500 said:

 

Nintendo announced back in September 2017 that the Wii Shop would be closing. As of late March 2018, you would no longer be able to add funds to your Wii to buy games. As of late January 2019, the Wii shop closed down for good.

 

They gave a year and half's notice of the store's closure and gave a roadmap of how they planned to shut it down, and gave people plenty of time to still buy content. 6 months to still add funds to your Wii (and you could still buy content after that if you still had funds), whereas Sony has given us 3-5 months, and that's it.

 

And despite what many people seem to think, you can still re-download your purchases on the Wii shop to this day. Nintendo did state this would cease at "some point in the future", but so far it hasn't happened, and may honestly just be them saying that to cover their own ass. Could be you can still re-download your content in 2030, or it could of course come sooner. But it is very easy to get back your games on the Wii if you really need to, through backing them up and restoring them with CFW.

This plus all those games can be downloaded even from Wii mode on Wii U.
And we are talking about 281 games here lol It was quite realistic to buy the entire library for those who really cared after they made a notice or at least everything of interest. And there is still Wii U that sells some Wii titles and even games for Nintendo consoles many of us never even heard of. And they still make sales.

In case of Sony we are talking about dumping thousands of games, killing a golden generation where Sony and Microsoft both where super-strong and two generations of coolest handhelds ever made. Comparing Wii Shop closure with PS3/Vita closure is like comparing a horse dick with ant's pp

[Lem-77]

37 minutes ago, Sir_TyroneOBE said:

There is a minuscule chance it could that the stores not shutting down could occur, but those stores are awful I mean some people can't even buy games it crashes half the time and that only gives Sony more incentive to kill it(even though they made it this clunky and crap). It's all good if you hope it doesn't happen. Nothing wrong with that just be prepared for the worst this coming year.

That's fair. I am keeping my expectations in check regarding all of this. With that being said, I looked around and found someone who started a petition when the rumors started regarding all of this.

 

http://chng.it/nxcPxyHGHW

 

I don't know if anyone else wishes to start another one as well, now that the news is official as well.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Lem-77

[aishsha]

10 minutes ago, KingSkovald said:

In case of Sony we are talking about dumping thousands of games, killing a golden generation where Sony and Microsoft both where super-strong and two generations of coolest handhelds ever made. Comparing Wii Shop closure with PS3/Vita closure is like comparing a horse dick with ant's pp

I'd say PS2/PSP was still the Golden Age, but I see the point.

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

10 minutes ago, KingSkovald said:

This plus all those games can be downloaded even from Wii mode on Wii U.
And we are talking about 281 games here lol It was quite realistic to buy the entire library for those who really cared after they made a notice or at least everything of interest. And there is still Wii U that sells some Wii titles and even games for Nintendo consoles many of us never even heard of. And they still make sales.

In case of Sony we are talking about dumping thousands of games, killing a golden generation where Sony and Microsoft both where super-strong and two generations of coolest handhelds ever made. Comparing Wii Shop closure with PS3/Vita closure is like comparing a horse dick with ant's pp

 

In comparison, there's over 2,000 PS3 games and over 1,000 Vita games. Not all of those games are on the digital storefronts, but a very large chunk are, and that's not even including all the PS1/PS2 classics, PSP games or DLC. It's a massive loss when you remember a lot of those games aren't available anywhere else.

 

I hope everything on the PS3 and Vita's stores can be backed up before their closure. Last I checked, it's mostly just themes that haven't been backed up, but there's also a large chunk of Japanese/Asian games that haven't either. Pretty sure the vast majority of the PS3's North American and European catalogue are safe at least.

 

I can't believe the 3DS eshop is going to outlive the Vita's when the 3DS is just a tad older than the Vita. I imagine the Wii U and 3DS eshops still have another few years left in them at the least, they'll probably start purging them whenever the Super Switch or whatever Nintendo's next console is is released. I don't feel concerned about original Xbox or 360 games being taken off digital storefronts on Xbox's side any time soon either.

Edited March 31, 2021 by SuperSmexy500

[BGriff1986]

12 minutes ago, KingSkovald said:

This plus all those games can be downloaded even from Wii mode on Wii U.
And we are talking about 281 games here lol

Well, no. WiiWare had more than 281 games if you don’t just take the PAL list. You also lost access to all of the Virtual Console titles. Plus don’t forget that Nintendo had already killed most of the console’s ability to play games online

 

That last part on its own was a bigger blow than what Sony is doing at this stage

[Senbon Kaguya]

17 hours ago, Hwoarang_21 said:

You didnt answer any of my Questions.

 

More then likely if you use CFW and go online, especially with trophies you could get banned. So yes you can earn trophies with CFW. Worth it? Not really. This is why most people who have CFW on their PS3 stay offline.

Edited March 31, 2021 by WILD DOG

[KingSkovald]

17 minutes ago, BGriff1986 said:

Well, no. WiiWare had more than 281 games if you don’t just take the PAL list. You also lost access to all of the Virtual Console titles. Plus don’t forget that Nintendo had already killed most of the console’s ability to play games online

 

That last part on its own was a bigger blow than what Sony is doing at this stage

 

Each region had ~300 games. Not sure what happened with Virtual Console games, weren't they just transferred to Wii U Virtual Console?
Not sure online closure was a big blow at all, how many of those games even had multiplayer? Wii games were mostly single-player. Sony does it slowly step by step, next logical step will be to disable online too.

EDIT: Virtual Console games weren't lost and could be transferred to Wii U, proof: Nintendo Support: Wii Shop Channel Discontinuation

Edited March 31, 2021 by KingSkovald

[Sir_TyroneOBE]

6 minutes ago, WILD DOG said:

 

More then likely if you use CFW and go online, especially with trophies you could get banned. So yes you can earn trophies with CFW. Worth it? Not really. This is why most people who have CFW on their PS3 stay offline.

Yeah, I would cfw once Sony cut the cord on PSN.

[TimeLordCrow13y]

2 hours ago, GregHouse007 said:

So, we basically need to play all that now because when they send the notice of trophy syncing ending, they will not give us a reasonable time to play what we have. Suddenly playing all those PS3 games feel like a "job" I have to do now

 

This. What should be fun suddenly feels like an obligation that I have a hard deadline for. An obligation I will have to shell out a quite significant amount of money for quite rapidly (in the middle of a worldwide pandemic) to complete the way I’d like to complete it. And in my case it’s even more frustrating because my PS3 needs to be fixed (bad WiFi/Bluetooth chip on a slim-so can’t update to go online). So now, I not only have a deadline on purchasing PS3 digital games, but on fixing my PS3 so I can purchase those games (and no, I don’t want to buy a replacement PS3, I want mine fixed-I know it’s been taken care of and has no other issues). 

 

And that’s not even getting into my internal debate about whether it’s still worth it to buy a second-hand Vita/PSP if I’m going to have to buy them almost immediately if I want any digital games. And if trophy syncing with Vita might be nuked at any time as well. 

 

Hell, I still haven’t bought all the physical PS3 games I want. It’s just a mess all around. I’m still buying PS2, PS1, and even occasionally SNES games, etc. I don’t just throw away or sell older games/consoles when a new one comes out. There’s other older systems I’d love to own but haven’t had an opportunity to buy yet-but thankfully those systems only had physical games. 

 

The way things are going, I feel like the PS4 & Switch might be the last “current” consoles I purchase. I have an enormous backlog, and I feel like most new games I’m interested in will eventually make their way to PC in some form.

 

The only PS5 exclusive I can think of off the top of my head that I’m pretty interested in is the Demon’s Souls remake-but I haven’t even touched the original yet. The only upcoming exclusive I’m incredibly excited about, Hellblade II, won’t be on PS5 but will be available on PC. 

 

I’m just feeling incredibly pessimistic about the “digital future” of consoles at the moment. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by TimeLordCrow13y

[ccase137]

What I don't understand is why can't PS4 and PS5 at the very least play the PSone Classics from the Store, if the Vita and PSP can do it, there is no reason for those two consoles to not do it.  That's what I find weird.  Considering all the effort and time it took to build the PSone and PS2 Classics catalog up to this point (I remember when it was a huge deal to finally get Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Suikoden etc up), it feels like such a waste to throw it all away when it is as simple as Sony coding up a quick PS1 emulator on PS4 and PS5, and then continuing to make them available to sell in the new Store.

Edited March 31, 2021 by ccase137

[KingSkovald]

1 minute ago, ccase137 said:

What I don't understand is why PS4 and PS5 at the very least play the PSone Classics from the Store, if the Vita and PSP can do it, there is no reason for those two consoles to not do it.  That's what I find weird.  Considering all the effort and time it took to build the PSone and PS2 Classics catalog up to this point (I remember when it was a huge deal to finally get Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Suikoden etc up), it feels like such a waste to throw it all away when it is as simple as Sony coding up a quick PS1 emulator on PS4 and PS5, and then continuing to make them available to sell in the new Store.

 

My answer: yes.

Answer of average Sony advocate: PS1-PS2 architecture is not x86/x64 and is very hard to emulate. PS3 Cell architecture is literally impossible to emulate, haven't you watched Jim Ryan's interviews?

Answer of PC players: we play PS1 games with ePSXe, PS2 games with PCSX2 and PS3 games with RPCS3