The death of the PS3 and Vita stores is greatly exaggerated – see Sony's mea culpa

PS3
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Sony's controversial PS3 and Vita store closures won't happen as planned, according to the company's PlayStation Blog. This sudden reversal won't spare its PSP store from being closed, however. 

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

Ryan continues by explaining the initial decision was decided due to a "number of factors" and that he's glad a solution has been found to "continue operations."

"Thank you for sharing your feedback with us – we’re always listening and appreciate the support from our PlayStation community," Ryan says in closing.

Changing courses with criticism 

The move to close the PS3 and Vita storefronts, preventing further purchases, came as a surprise even to some developers who were in the middle of working on new Vita games.

The web stores are still closed, so if you want to buy any games on these two platforms, you'll need to boot up the device and use the system storefront. The PSP store will still be closing on July 2, so you should continue grabbing any games there that you don't want to miss out on.

Looking ahead to newer PlayStation releases, some upcoming PS5 titles for 2021 include Housemarque's Returnal and Insomniac Games' Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.

Samuel Tolbert

Samuel Tolbert is a freelance games journalist. His bylines can be found at Android Central, Windows Central, iMore and TechRadar.