Sony reportedly shutting down the PSN on everything but PS4/5 in a few months

[dope_danny]

https://www.thegamer.com/ps3-vita-ps...nently-closed/

Not long after the Japan Studio thing we get "well this fucking sucks" deja'vu. Its not confirmed yet but given the removal of the PS3/P/Vita store access online already this doesn't seem that unlikely and a lot of reliable news/industry people are treating it like its legit. The questions of course are 1:will we still be able to redownload purchases? and 2:what does this mean in terms of games preservation?

On one hand you have the idea of things you may have bought as recently as this year on the Vita just going away forever, thanks for the money sucker, start counting the years till your PS4 purchases are all gone too!. But this would set a bad precedent and be extremely bad press for a company trying to push their first all digital console so i doubt it but its still a minor worry just in case.

The real issue here is the games we lose. Many PS3 games never hit other hardware including sonys own and some never had a physical release at all. Those that did are no doubt going to get scalped to high heaven should this occur. So enjoy having to pay $100+ for Tokyo Jungle a year from now instead of 5 bucks for example. Considering this includes all the dlc games will forever be locked out of on those platforms this could see a staggering loss of content on a degree we have always expected to happen one day as more and more digital only content was produced but hoped wouldn't occur.

Then theres the experience issue. I love games like Suikoden, Vagrant Story and Front Mission 3. Right now you can buy those in the PSN Ps1 classics section for a few quid and experience some of the best games ever made. If that goes away what do you tell younger people who dont know or want to resort to piracy and emulation? go on ebay and hope that 300 dollar copy is legit?

no doubt the usual short sighted consoomer crowd will go "who cares those games are over 6 years old and thats ancient you had your chance to play them lmao" as they always do till something they give a real shit about goes away but in terms of videogame preservation and just simply the ease of playing older top tier games affordably and legitimately that could be a thing of the past in a few months and that really sucks.

[Edge-]

I mean...the PSP is ancient, and the Vita has been dead for a long, long time. Neither of these would be surprising, though still disappointing. The PS3 news hits harder, and I wish this wasn't the case but sadly the precedent has already been set by Nintendo.

From what we're seeing with the insane upgrade system for Avengers to go from PS4->5, I imagine PSN is still a technical nightmare to deal with and getting rid of some "legacy" services makes it less of a headache.

This is why I still prefer and generally try to get physical copies for consoles. You never know when a store might go down, and I'd rather not have to worry about it.

The report isn't super clear though, so not sure if it's just ending the store/ability to buy games for those platforms or if it'll prevent you from downloading games you already own. If it's the former, less bad but still shitty. If it's the latter, it's just shitty.

[dope_danny]

I mean...the PSP is ancient, and the Vita has been dead for a long, long time. Neither of these would be surprising, though still disappointing. The PS3 news hits harder, and I wish this wasn't the case but sadly the precedent has already been set by Nintendo.

From what we're seeing with the insane upgrade system for Avengers to go from PS4->5, I imagine PSN is still a technical nightmare to deal with and getting rid of some "legacy" services makes it less of a headache.

This is why I still prefer and generally try to get physical copies for consoles. You never know when a store might go down, and I'd rather not have to worry about it.

The report isn't super clear though, so not sure if it's just ending the store/ability to buy games for those platforms or if it'll prevent you from downloading games you already own. If it's the former, less bad but still shitty. If it's the latter, it's just shitty.

I think some of the purchase functionality is already gone. I went to buy Wild Arms from the PS1 classics section before its gone and it gave an error on both browser and ps3 but let me on my vita and then i went on my ps3's purchase history to download it from there afterwards.

-and yeah PS3 is my biggest worry. Some pirates famously ripped the entire store catalogue of PSP/Vita titles so in some way those games are all preserved but theres a LOT of PS3 stuff that people will have to scour console hard drives for or only remember them as video and screenshots like some lost game from the mid 90's and thats a damn shame.

[Edge-]

I think some of the purchase functionality is already gone. I went to buy Wild Arms from the PS1 classics section before its gone and it gave an error on both browser and ps3 but let me on my vita and then i went on my ps3's purchase history to download it from there afterwards.

-and yeah PS3 is my biggest worry. Some pirates famously ripped the entire store catalogue of PSP/Vita titles so in some way those games are all preserved but theres a LOT of PS3 stuff that people will have to scour console hard drives for or only remember them as video and screenshots like some lost game from the mid 90's and thats a damn shame.

Weird, I went to the page and it was purchasable, but seeing as I own that it just prompts me to download the game on my PS3 when I'm logged in. Just added Vagrant Story to my cart without issue too, so not sure what's up.

[dope_danny]

Weird, I went to the page and it was purchasable, but seeing as I own that it just prompts me to download the game on my PS3 when I'm logged in. Just added Vagrant Story to my cart without issue too, so not sure what's up.

Maybe theres just a mad dash of people trying to use it today to grab those cheap games they sat on rather than risk paying scalper prices for physical later? the idea of PSone classics going away has had folks on twitter going crazy about it.

[Jtbrig7390]

And this is why ill never support 100% digital.

Its also why Backwards Compatibility needs to be a thing. So many games will be lost that was digital only, Hopefully they make it so where u can download what you own but I won't hold my breath. Nintendo did the same thing with the Wii and likely soon the Wii-U/3DS.

I'm not surprised with Sony doing this because its been clear for awhile they give no fucks about preserving games and BC.

Remember you don't own digital, your just renting it.

[Unholyground]

It's not a big deal you can find every one of those games on *snip* or other websites if you really want them.

Please don't discuss/promote piracy. -Edge

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I have a dumb question, because honestly I haven't kept up with console gaming in a while, by losing the PSN, will PS3 games not update anymore, assuming an update is released or hasn't been downloaded?

[dope_danny]

I have a dumb question, because honestly I haven't kept up with console gaming in a while, by losing the PSN, will PS3 games not update anymore, assuming an update is released or hasn't been downloaded?

Its depends on the level. It could simply be "you cannot purchase anything anymore" or it could be as serious as "your console cannot connect to anything and if the internal clock battery fails some functions and games wont work due to conflicting errors while the entire digital library ceases to exist".

[Edge-]

I have a dumb question, because honestly I haven't kept up with console gaming in a while, by losing the PSN, will PS3 games not update anymore, assuming an update is released or hasn't been downloaded?

This is a report on rumor/leaks so we don't have the full details. It initially seems like they're taking down the ability to buy the games, but it's unclear if they'll still be available for download or additional updates. I doubt most of these games are getting updates still, most probably haven't been patched in a decade or more. But if you can still download the games, you'll likely get any additional updates they released post-launch.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

Its depends on the level. It could simply be "you cannot purchase anything anymore" or it could be as serious as "your console cannot connect to anything and if the internal clock battery fails some functions and games wont work due to conflicting errors while the entire digital library ceases to exist".

This is a report on rumor/leaks so we don't have the full details. It initially seems like they're taking down the ability to buy the games, but it's unclear if they'll still be available for download or additional updates. I doubt most of these games are getting updates still, most probably haven't been patched in a decade or more. But if you can still download the games, you'll likely get any additional updates they released post-launch.

Thanks for the info. I generally avoid buying digital games for this sort of reason, I don't know that I've ever actually bought anything from the store, but I have a backlog of physical games that I've never gotten around to even loading on the system, so no doubt there are old updates, always waiting for the proverbial "rainy day" to get around to playing them.

[Edge-]

Honestly, the precedent is WoW. WoW’s games are destroyed 2 years after release. That’s kinda how online gets ya.

That...has literally nothing to do with this at all. You're talking about a singular game that changes and evolves, and is hardly the first game to do that (the entire crop of pre-WoW MMO's would like to say hello). This is entirely different, it's a storefront.

[Gorsameth]

And this is why ill never support 100% digital.

Its also why Backwards Compatibility needs to be a thing. So many games will be lost that was digital only, Hopefully they make it so where u can download what you own but I won't hold my breath. Nintendo did the same thing with the Wii and likely soon the Wii-U/3DS.

I'm not surprised with Sony doing this because its been clear for awhile they give no fucks about preserving games and BC.

Remember you don't own digital, your just renting it.

"Just do full backwards compatibility" completely ignores the amount of technical difficulties and problems that come with it.
That's why companies don't like doing it, because it makes everything MASSIVELY more difficult and expansive to design.

[Edge-]

"Just do full backwards compatibility" completely ignores the amount of technical difficulties and problems that come with it.

At this point software emulation should be more than capable of playing a lot of those older games. That's how Microsoft handled backwards compatibility for Xbox One, and even went in and made some improvements to how some games run as a result. Not to mention the dev mode on the Series S/X has opened up consumer emulation software as well.

I'm sure it's not a cakewalk, especially with the fucky cell processor and whatnot, but it should be possible. It's just a matter if Sony wants to do it or feels pressure to do it or not, and IMO they should. It'd be a hassle to handle legally with rights and whatnot, but imagine having access to PS1/2/3/4/PSP/Vita games on Sony consoles moving forward because the hardware is all capable of virtual emulation. Now all those games have much longer lives and folks don't have to worry about losing access to them. Each console is essentially just a new PC capable of playing modern games in addition to everything you already had but your rig wasn't capable of handling.

[Tech614]

At this point software emulation should be more than capable of playing a lot of those older games. That's how Microsoft handled backwards compatibility for Xbox One, and even went in and made some improvements to how some games run as a result. Not to mention the dev mode on the Series S/X has opened up consumer emulation software as well.

I'm sure it's not a cakewalk, especially with the fucky cell processor and whatnot, but it should be possible. It's just a matter if Sony wants to do it or feels pressure to do it or not, and IMO they should. It'd be a hassle to handle legally with rights and whatnot, but imagine having access to PS1/2/3/4/PSP/Vita games on Sony consoles moving forward because the hardware is all capable of virtual emulation. Now all those games have much longer lives and folks don't have to worry about losing access to them. Each console is essentially just a new PC capable of playing modern games in addition to everything you already had but your rig wasn't capable of handling.

Its definitely possible(on PS5 anyways, PS3 BC more sketchy on that potato cpu in PS4) but the question is, is it profitable? Sony definitely doesn't think so, and since they have dominated the market still even while MS tries anything and everything that can to win brownie points on the internet they're probably right.

The probable truth is Sony doesn't want to have an entire dev team dedicated to recompiling a bunch of games just to only get a 30% cut on selling them. They can instead just fund another game with that money.

Hell you can go further then Sony, Nintendo is the other dominant party in the market and they like Sony don't have easy ways to access a lot of their back catalogue outside of owning the old hardware, or emulating it. Both just focus primarily on new releases and remasters/remakes of old ones. If the market as a whole had a massive demand for playing old games I don't think both of the market leaders for consoles would be like this.

[Jtbrig7390]

"Just do full backwards compatibility" completely ignores the amount of technical difficulties and problems that come with it.
That's why companies don't like doing it, because it makes everything MASSIVELY more difficult and expansive to design.

If a few guys in their basement can do it then Sony can as well. Software emulation wouldn't be a problem for the PS5 seeing how powerful it is. My PC I built in 2014 can do it and the PS5 runs laps around it.

[Tech614]

If a few guys in their basement can do it then Sony can as well. Software emulation wouldn't be a problem for the PS5 seeing how powerful it is. My PC I built in 2014 can do it and the PS5 runs laps around it.

I wouldn't call current PC emulation of PS3 to be in a state where you could sell the games at all. It's still wonky as fuck on a game to game basis. So nah, if they wanted to do it they would have to do a lot more then what the "guys in their basement" did. Including QA testing every release. OFC it's possible on PS5 but no where near as easy as you're making it sound.

[dope_danny]

And this is why ill never support 100% digital.

It does make you wonder if some people who bought a digital only PS5 are seeing this do the rounds and feeling the shadow of an expiration date on their console hanging over it in a more precient way. Sure it won't happen for a long time but all those PS5's are one day going to be about as stagnant and pointless as the PSPGo is about to be.

[Tech614]

It does make you wonder if some people who bought a digital only PS5 are seeing this do the rounds and feeling the shadow of an expiration date on their console hanging over it in a more precient way. Sure it won't happen for a long time but all those PS5's are one day going to be about as stagnant and pointless as the PSPGo is about to be.

People who bought the digital only PS5 probably aren't concerned with playing those games 15 years from now or they wouldn't have bought it.

[Jtbrig7390]

I wouldn't call current PC emulation of PS3 to be in a state where you could sell the games at all. It's still wonky as fuck on a game to game basis. So nah, if they wanted to do it they would have to do a lot more then what the "guys in their basement" did. Including QA testing every release. OFC it's possible on PS5 but no where near as easy as you're making it sound.

That's my point.

They got this far without the knowledge and budget that a company like Sony could put behind it. But current Playstation really doesn't give a dam about anything that isn't recent.

Hell Jim Ryan (Current CEO of Playstation) is even on record saying why would people play older games. Really sucks and I've felt for awhile that current Playstation is as bad if not worse than PS3 era Playstation.

- - - Updated - - -

Im so happy i primarily play on Xbox. I dont have to fear things like this.

Yes you do.

The backwards Compatibility is very limited on the Series S&X/Xbox One and seeing how Microsoft has already shutdown a lot of the games online. I wouldn't be surprised if the Xbox Store on the 360 is soon to fallow.

Don't try to console war here.

- - - Updated - - -

It does make you wonder if some people who bought a digital only PS5 are seeing this do the rounds and feeling the shadow of an expiration date on their console hanging over it in a more precient way. Sure it won't happen for a long time but all those PS5's are one day going to be about as stagnant and pointless as the PSPGo is about to be.

As someone who own's a Series S I fully agree.

I got my Series S for Game Pass to play indie titles and Gears 5 Online. The vast majority of Indie titles doesn't have physical releases so for me that isn't a waste. I've also considered a PS5 Digital for the few Online Only games (FFXIV,DBD,Outrides) that I play.

The huge problem consoles have with going digital only compared to PC is that with PC there is always a workaround you can do. With consoles sooner or later that system will be a costar.