It feels wrong to be discussing gaming content on a website intended primarily to promote and sell my books. But at the same time, given how influential my life as a gamer was in shaping me into becoming an author, I feel compelled to comment on Sony’s latest move on both digital and physical storefronts.
When it comes to owning media, I’ll prioritize physical content over digital content any day of the week. If I buy a second hand copy of a game for the original PlayStation, I can take it home and pop it in my PS1, PS2 or PS3 without any fear of not being able to play it. But when it comes to buying PS3 games, while you still may be able to buy the game discs second hand, there is a chance that certain content only got released digitally. In the old days, downloadable content (DLC) was just fun little bonus features. Like an extra level or weapon or vehicle intended to add to the primary experience. But as time went on, the phrase “slice and dice” DLC became a thing. You bought a disc, but 90% of the content was sold separately or at the very least accessible as downloadable content. This principle continued and arguably worsened during the PS4 and PS5 eras.
With the PS Vita, being a portable system, buying digital content at least gave you some practical convenience: carry a wallet game cards wherever you go or have everything saved to the memory card? Or SD2Vita if you want to look into hacking the device to get around memory card limitations, but that’s another story. For me, I found myself using digital and physical games on the Vita out of convenience: use digital games on the go, and use the physical cards when playing them at home on television using the PSTV micro console. Still, certain games had additional feature available as free or purchasable DLC. In some cases it was bonus levels or characters, but in some cases it features that should have come standard – like English dubbing for Western releases of Japanese games. So even if you are dead set on buying your games physically, chances are you will need to turn to the digital storefront for certain features. But what happens when the storefront goes away? This brings me to the topic of this blog.
Back in 2021, Sony announced plans to close the PS3, PSP and PS Vita stores. The backlash was so merciless, that Sony ultimately reversed their decision to close the PS3 and Vita stores. The PSP store still closed down, but the selection of digital PSP content available via the PS3 and Vita stores remained. Sony also shutdown PlayStation Video, a section of the online storefronts that allowed you to purchased digital downloads of movies and television shows. This admittedly was a feature that I got a lot of use out of, a convenient way of turning my PS Vita into a portable video player. But for now, the digital game stores seemed here to stay. That was until last night.
Sony has announced plans to shutdown the PS3 and PS Vita stores internationally in July 2027. But depending on your part of the world, it could come a lot sooner.
- Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting August 2026.
- Additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting late 2026.
- In all other countries, PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027.
While you will still be able to redownload previously purchased content “for the foreseeable future”, this effectively means that for any game with a large amount of additional content will forever be incomplete to second hand buyers. And if the game only ever got a digital release, it will essentially be lost to the ether.
Adding insult to injury, last night Sony also announced that from January 2028 onward, all physical game releases for PlayStation consoles will be discontinued, making all 2028 games purely a digital release.
In so doing, Sony is effectively telling us that: PS6 will be digital only; PS6 will not be backwards compatible with any physical media from legacy PlayStation consoles; and, given their plans for the PS3 and Vita stores, any PS6 games digitally purchased will have a shelf life. What happens when the PS9 is released? Will the PS6 digital storefront be shutdown too? And just how long is “the foreseeable future”? What happens when Sony decides to end the servers for your previously purchased library and you’re no longer able to redownload your games or movies for your PS3 and Vita? Or your PS4? Or PS5? Or PS6?
There is a precedent for such a scenario. The most egregious example that comes to mind is how Nintendo closed the Wii Shop Channel. In 2017, Nintendo announced their plans to close the Wii’s digital storefront on January 31st 2019. At the same time, they also announced they would be removing the store user’s ability to add Wii Points (the online store’s form of currency) on March 27 2018. The store only allowed you to have a maximum of 10,000 Wii Points at a given time, thus severely limiting what could legally be purchased digitally. If you had 300 Wii Points and a game cost 400 Wii Points, you wouldn’t be able to buy it or even add more points to do so after March 27 2018. And if you had any points left over after January 2019, they were wiped from existence along with your ability to redownload your purchases.
Microsoft is just as guilty. The Xbox 360 store was closed in 2024, leaving the only means of purchasing digital only Xbox 360 games being those that also happen to be available on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X storefronts.
This problem goes far beyond just videos games. In response to the ongoing real world issue of sexual abuse and exploitation in the movie industry, notably the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Disney quietly decided to remove a casting couch joke included in the gag reel played during the credits of Toy Story 2. As of 2019, the new physical and digital streaming releases of Toy Story 2 are lacking the scene of Stinky Pete flirting with Barbie dolls. Similarly, if you wanted to watch the original Star Wars trilogy on Disney+, your only option is the Special Editions with all the added CGI imagery and additional scenes that you either love or hate. If you want the unaltered theatrical versions, you’ll need to source out the discontinued 2006 DVD releases or the discontinued 2011 Blu-ray boxset. Further emphasizing the need for physical media while it lasts.
Even legacy literature is not safe from censorship or deletion. One of my key inspirations as a spy thriller novelist was of course Ian Fleming, creator of the James Bond novels. But as much as I enjoy his stories, there is no denying man was very vocal in his racist, homophobic and misogynistic views which often found their way into his characters or even the narrative. With such phrases as “And now he knew that she was profoundly, excitingly sensual, but that the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.” While I do not support such views, I also do not take offence to reading them. If anything, I look at them as a product the 1950’s and a window into the very different upbringing the author had to modern societies. But unfortunately, the latest re-releases of Fleming’s work have undergone heavy censorship to remove such political incorrectness, when really a simple disclaimer warning readers of such outdated views would have sufficed.
It’s quite a crappy situation to be in. Where if you want to buy something digitally, it is only available for as long as the sellers wish to keep the servers running. And now, it seems, we live in a world where even physical media is at risk of being taken away from us. At best, being replaced with a watered down or otherwise altered version of the original – such is the case with Toy Story 2, Star Wars or the James Bond novels). And at worst, being replaced with a digital version at risk of disappearing in the future – as is where we seem to be heading with PlayStation games.
Already the backlash on social media is brutal. It is my hope that Sony not only reverses their decision to discontinue the PS3 and Vita storefronts and physical media entirely, but they do what they should have done from the beginning of the PS4 era. Hackers have already shown that the PS5’s discontinued Linux mode is capable of emulating certain PS3 games. The PS5 can already play digital rereleases of PS1, PS2 and even PSP games. What Sony should do release a firmware update that allows for native emulation of PS3 and PS Vita games, and a ‘deluxe’ disc drive to restore physical backwards compatibility of PS1, PS2 and PS3, possible PSP and PS Vita too but that might be my wishful thinking.
For the record. As long as I’m alive, my books will always be available physically and digitally for those who like either options, and my writings shall never be censored for as long as I’m alive.
