A new announcement from Sony this week reveals the upcoming end of older platforms. Sony has just announced plans to also phase out the purchases in Web stores and mobile devices.
October 19th will see the phasing out of PSP, PS3 and PS Vita purchases of all kinds via the web and mobile PSN stores will be disbaled. Wishlisting will also be disabled at this time. For another week, users will be able to buy games on the devices themselves, if they want. Starting 27th October 2021, you can no longer use a credit or debit card, or a payment method such as PayPal, to buy digital content or add funds to your PSN accounts via the PS3 and Vita consoles. This effectively kills the storefront for most remaining users.
The only remaining way to make purchases will be to add funds via PSN store gift cards, credit/debit or PayPal via a desktop computer, mobile device, a PS4 console or a PS5 console.
Earlier this year, Sony ended the distribution of movie and TV content on PSN. Users could stil access their already downloaded content, and that’s likely to be the same for PS3 and PS Vita games content. Although there’s not much else left for the PS3 and PS VIta to do. PS Vita messaging has already been ended, Sony having done so back in June.
Though it sucks to see, it was inevitable. The failure of the Vita has been a long time coming, and it’s kind of sad. The noble attempt to follow the success of the PSP never really got off of the ground. It’s also worth noting that PSP game downloads and purchases are affected by this change.
The PS3 and PS Vita stores are still up, but only barely. The announcement of the end of direct payments basically means the stores don’t have the userbase to offset server and financial costs of maintenance.
