Sony has decided it will not shut down PS3 and PlayStation Vita online stores

South Korean tech giant Sony has announced that it will be keeping its PS3 and PlayStation Vita digital stores open for the foreseeable future after rumours were that Sony would be shutting these down.

Despite the news, Sony has announced that it will be shutting down the PSP Store from 2nd July 2021.

Wrong call to close the store

“Upon further reflection, 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,” Jim Ryan, President and CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment, said in a blog post.

“PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021, as planned,” Ryan added.

The blog post also added that if these stores were to be closed permanently, it would have resulted in more than 2,000 digital exclusive games disappearing from the platform. These numbers don’t count any of the PS Vita games due to be released in the coming months.

The CEO of the company admitted that he had made the wrong decision and would no longer be shutting down the two stores. This means that most of the games in the PS3 and Vita line-up will be saved.

Earlier, the company has announced to shut down its PlayStation Store for the PS3 on July 2 and for the hand-held video game console Vita on August 27.

Difficulty providing commerce support

The company said that the move to discontinue services to the storefronts was “born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices” along with a desire to focus more on newer products (like the PlayStation 5).

The PlayStation 5 is the latest console from the company has many people around the world have found it tough procuring the gaming console due to its shortage. It is believed that the second restock would be enough to meet the growing customer demand.

As for the older generation console, Sony had launched the PS3 in November 2006, and more than 80 million units of the console have been sold globally to date. The more portable PlayStation Vita has sold over 10 million units.