PS Store access for PS3 and Vita will continue after all, Sony has announced

Shortly after Sony announced plans to close the PlayStation Store serving PS3, Vita and PSP, the company has changed its mind on the proposed closure of the stores and will now keep them open.

"Recently, we notified players that PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita devices was planned to end this summer," writes president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan.

"Upon further reflection, however, it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here. So today I’m happy to say that we will be keeping the PlayStation Store operational for PS3 and PS Vita devices."

Good news for anyone eager to play older games via legacy hardware then. There is one caveat, though – "PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned," says Ryan. You'll still be able to buy PSP games through the Vita store until then, though.

Why the sudden change of heart? Well, it seems that the vocal nature of PlayStation players online had something to do with the company's decision to renege on the closures.

"When we initially came to the decision to end purchasing support for PS3 and PS Vita, it was born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on," says Ryan. "We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I’m glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations."

Ahead of the launch of PS5, Sony unveiled a revamped PlayStation Store and announced that the new version will only list PS4 and PS5 games – whether the company still intends to drop support of older generations fully at some point remains a mystery, but at least for now some of Sony's heritage will remain intact.