Sony U-turn PS4 & Vita Closures

It was just the other week I wrote about how PlayStation and Nintendo shouldn’t have to be preserving the history of games alone. This spawned from the news that the PS3, Vita, and PSP online stores would be closing this summer; which prompted a discussion in the greater community. Should storefronts, or storefront holders, be responsible for the overall sale of third-party titles that, by their nature, aren’t supported by Sony specifically? A major portion of the discussion remarked on the couple hundred titles that are exclusively digital, such was the case with Scott Pilgrim Vs The World before its return this year. I’d say that’s not on them to preserve.

Nonetheless, the company has announced a partial U-turn on their commitment to commence the sale of games through the PS3 and Vita stores. Announced yesterday in a blog post by Jim Ryan, the company will continue for the foreseeable with the PS3 and Vita stores. However, the PSP storefront will still be retired and sent out to pasture on July 2nd, 2021. Ryan, the president and CEO of SIE, and other’s within the company (as Ryan puts it) had the rationale that it would be better to focus greater amounts of resources on new platforms such as the newly released PS5 rather than 15/16-year-old consoles in two of these cases.

It is an understandable view when it comes down to the basic idea that the PSP was released back in 2004-05 and the PS3 entered markets in 2006-07. Both consoles ended production in 2014 and 2016-17 respectively. However, the PS Vita is the outlier in that bunch; A console that released in 2011-12 and was dropped as fast as it was picked up. Sony has never loved the Vita, at least as much as the JRPG/indie crowd have, which is a shame. As the counter-punch to the fantastic Nintendo 3DS (minus the 3D), it was a brilliant little bit of kit. It’s just a shame there were never that many games with it.

For the foreseeable future, the PS3 and PS Vita stores will continue to operate. However, Ryan doesn’t define a timeline of when he thinks it might be best to curtail the stores in the future, something that will eventually happen. Though he does thank fans for their feedback on the announcement and notes that the company is always listening to the community for what is the best course of action to take.