Emulators and Homebrew might be the only way for the PS Vita in the future
News site TheGamer reports that Sony will be closing the PS Vita, PS3, and PSP stores this summer, citing anonymous but verified sources close to the subject. They say:
PSP’s and PS3’s stores are to be closed on July 2, while the PS Vita store will stay open until August 27. After those dates, you will no longer be able to purchase digital copies of games or DLC for any of the Sony consoles mentioned above.
The PS3 and Vita store can only be accessed from the devices themselves, currently, as Sony had removed them from general web access a while ago. It seems the next step is coming sooner than anybody wanted.
Although the article specifically mentions the stores, and the possibility to purchase games, it is unclear what will happen to digital games you already own, or, maybe even more concerning, games that are part of the Playstation Plus program. We can only hope that Sony won’t want to alienate their most loyal customers, and that those downloads will remain available to people who have previously purchased content, or to people who have been Playstation plus subscribers for a while.
It’s also possible, (but unlikely?) that Sony will only give users a few months to download the games they want to keep, and then remove the download functionality as well.
For the PS vita, in particular, this brings questions as a lot of games where only ever published in digital version, and might become inaccessible except through Vita Custom Firmwares and piracy. This also raises eyebrows regarding the future of the PS5, for all gamers who chose to go with the “digital” (disc-less) edition. Will their console see the same kind of fate and become unusable in less than a decade?
Gaming website Polygon state that Sony haven’t replied to attempts to reach out for further comments. We probably won’t see any official statement until the actual announcement, which is planned for this week or the next, according to TheGamer’s sources.
Source: TheGamer
