This is not an April Fools joke, but I wish it was.
After rumours circulated online, Sony has confirmed in their Important Notices page and in automated emails sent out to PSN users that come July 2nd 2021 the storefronts will close for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable will close permanently, with the PlayStation Vita storefront closing on August 27th. Following these dates, you will still be able to redownload your previous purchases, but you will no longer be able to purchase content for the PS3, PSP and Vita, and by extension the PlayStation TV.
If there is anything you want to buy off the PlayStation Store, now's the time to do it. In fact, just because they have given us until July 2 and August 27th, don't think that means you have a three month head start. Yesterday I signed into the PAL PlayStation Store on PS3 and Vita to find that Gaia Seed and Arc the Lad trilogy had been removed. These games however are still available on the US PlayStation Store... for now. Given that some of the PSone and PSP classics fetch over $300 or even $700 on ebay, this may be your absolute last chance to buy rare classics like Gaia Seed and The Misadventures of Tron Bon for cheap. 40 Winks and A Bug's Life have also been removed from the Vita store, but can still be purchased from the PS3 store at the time of my writing.
Even if you swear by buying physical copies, this closure will also affect you. With so many games reliant on patches to fix glitches, not to mention games with abundant DLC, when the store closes many newcomers getting into PS3, PSP or Vita are going to be left either broken or incomplete games. Sony claims that we'll still be able to claim Game cards after the stores close. So presumably newcomers will still be able to claim free DLC. But if that DLC is locked behind a paywall, you're only option after the store closes is pirated games websites. I strongly advise to go through your library of games and make sure you are up to date with patches and DLC.
It is not just gamers who have been screwed by this news. Apparently, even developers who only just released games for the Vita or are still producing games for it were not informed by Sony of the impending closure. This means many new games coming to the Vita have either been cancelled or will have an extremely rushed and limited release. "In recent months, the PS Vita has gotten new titles, like the Roguelite ScourgeBringer that comes to the platform in April 2021. The news about the store’s closing means wasted hours porting the game to the specific platform, only for the game to be taken off the store on August 24th. Many games, like Astro Aqua Kitty, are still planned for a PS Vita release, as the developers wanted to keep supporting the platform for gamers, knowing the risks it brought. Unfortunately, the games won’t have much of a life on the platform, minimizing revenue streams and wasting many human hours during development."
The developers also: "attribute the impending closure to the weak online infrastructure Sony has and claim that the problem could have been solved if Sony conjoined all platforms to a single store. Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case and, instead, Sony is closing the stores for the older generation of consoles."
This decision to close the PS3/PSP/Vita storefronts, not to mention the overnight pulling of games from certain storefronts, is only going to have a negative effect on Sony's reputation. Developers who got burned by Sony's surprise closing time (not to mention had to shell out only for Vita DevKits as early as a few weeks ago) will probably refuse to make future games for PS4 and PS5; and no doubt customers will cancel their preorders for PS5 Digital Edition. Who wants to be left with an oversized paperweight if their hard drive crashes long after the PS5 store closes?
Sony, I speak directly to you here. What happened to you? You used to go into every new console generation with backwards compatibility and embracing your past systems as a priority. Now you seem hell bent on sweeping your legacy under the rug and denying your customers access to their old games unless you think you can resell said customers games they already own. How hard is it to install emulators on PS4 and PS5 with a firmware update and bring the entire back library of PS3/PSP/Vita games to these systems? There are emulators that can play PS3 and PSP on PC. Even the Xbox Series X can play PS1 and PS2 in DevMode. You had one job!
Play Has No Limits... unless you are on any PlayStation predating PS4.
Despite this gloom and doom, I shall keep this partition open until the stores do in fact close. I encourage everybody to write to Sony, their official PlayStation magazines and gaming magazines in general voicing your disappointment and concern over all the problems this closure will lead to. I don't expect it to change the outcome. But never say never. Remember when Sonic The Hedgehog was going to look like nightmare fuel incarnate in the 2020 movie? Backlash on the internet fixed that! Let's see if outcries from angry customers and developers finally makes Sony see the light.