- Sony has announced that the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita stores will soon close
- They will close next month in some regions and next year in the UK, US and Australia.
- The news comes as the company announces the end of physical disc production in 2028.
If today’s news that PlayStation will stop producing physical game discs in 2028 wasn’t bad enough, the company also quietly announced that it will soon close its PS3 and PS Vita stores.
On the official PlayStation blog, the company argues that the decision was driven by the fact that these old systems are “no longer capable” of supporting “modern business systems” and current payment processing standards.
“PS3 and PS Vita represent an important era in our PlayStation history, so it wasn’t an easy decision for us,” the post says.
Storefronts will not close immediately. It will be suspended next month in Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua, and then in “other Latin American and Middle Eastern countries” later in 2026.
For those in the US, UK, and Australia, the PlayStation Store will go offline on PS3 and PS Vita in July 2027. That gives you about a year to make any final digital purchases if you still have those consoles lying around.
Importantly, Sony at least says that “players will still be able to download previously purchased content” once the stores are offline for “the foreseeable future,” so it looks like you at least won’t lose access to anything you’ve purchased.
Reaction to the news in the comments has been overwhelmingly negative, with one PlayStation fan writing: “This is why physical media is important. There is increasing evidence that you are simply purchasing a license that can be withdrawn whenever companies want.”
Another wrote: “They just take everything from us today, huh? How much money is enough for you guys not to make everything worse?”
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