Sony is retreating from shutting down Playstation 3 and PS Vita

Earlier this year, Sony announced that older Playstation Portable (PSP), Playstation Vita (PS Vita) and older Playstation 3 have come to the end of the road and from summer. It no longer supports purchases Games and game content on the Playstation Store.

In a blog post Sony CEO Jim Ryan has written that the company is reversing the decision, after seeing a huge commitment from the players. He admits they made the wrong decision, but Sony is happy to continue keeping this part of gaming history alive for its users.

When we first came to the decision to end purchase support for the PS3 and PS Vita, it arose from a number of factors, including trade support challenges for legacy devices and our ability to focus more of our resources on the newer hardware where the majority of our players play. Now we’re seeing many of you incredibly excited about the ability to continue buying classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I’m glad we managed to find a solution to continue operations – Jim Ryan, VD för Sony

The decision should be based on the desire to direct more resources toward modern systems as well as the difficulties in maintaining adequate support and assistance for older consoles. However, the company only supports Playstation Vita and Playstation 3, and is shutting down Playstation Portable functions as planned. The PSP is the oldest in the trio and it has also been discontinued for a long time, but players can still download already purchased games to the PSP as normal.

It’s not clear from Ryan’s blog post if the in-game purchase continues to work, which will disappear in regards to the shutdown, but with the decision fully reversed, there will likely be ongoing support for it. Sony’s decision also allows game developers to continue launching new games for Playstation 3 and PS Vita.

Are you looking to continue using old game consoles?