PSN: The PS3, Vita and PSP digital store closure is only terrible (or great)

At this point, it seems inevitable that this summer, Sony is removing the ability for customers to buy digital games for the PlayStation Portable (PSP), the PlayStation 3 (PS3), and the PlayStation Vita (PSVita). Considering we’re now two console generations removed from the PS3, that’s not the most surprising news, but for the PSP and PSVita, Sony is coming up short with excuses.

If your first Sony console was a PlayStation 4, you’d be forgiven for not caring. But a lot of people care. I really care. This is either great news or terrible news. It doesn’t live anywhere in the middle, it simply can’t. Let’s talk about the terrible first.

Why it’s terrible:

First things first, you’ll still be able to download any games you purchased on those storefronts, so, that’s neat. Every other game, DLC, season pass, even stuff that’s free like costumes and skins, is being removed from the storefront. Forever. Across three platforms. If you own it, you can in theory download it in perpetuity; if not, it’s like it never existed.

These games aren’t available anywhere else and like most collectibles during the pandemic, secondhand prices of many vintage games have skyrocketed. Digital versions not only kept the prices of old physical games in check but also made them readily available to anyone with the hard drive space.

What’s most insane is that these consoles have been out for a long time. The PSP launched in 2005, the PS3 in 2006, and the PlayStation Vita in 2012. These consoles have been around for at least a third of the PlayStation brand’s lifetime, if not more than half of it. We’re losing games, yes, but more than that we’re losing history. Besides their own original games, the PS3, the PSP, and the PSVita are the only means to play digital versions of PlayStation One games, the bedrock of the entire brand. They’re not everyone’s fondest memories, but they’re somebody’s.

I’m struggling to think of another medium doing that. What if every silent film was just removed from digital storefronts, and the only way to watch them is to know somebody who already owns them? Golden Age comic books, Cubist paintings, Transcendentalist novels – it doesn’t matter, just think of a key era to any medium and just delete it. The thought alone is just crazy.

I’m not great at business (numbers scare me), but I guess the profit Sony was making finally dipped below what it cost to run these stores so that’s it. Never mind the fact that Habroxia 2 just came to Vita in February, and Scourge Bringer comes out in April. The store is dying, sure, but it’s not dead. Devs are working on titles for these platforms in 2021, and Sony is pulling the rug out from under them.

Ugh, that sucked, I hated that.