Old Playstation Stores shutting down soon (rumor)

[CriticalGaming]

Report: PS3, Vita, And PSP Stores To Be Permanently Closed In A Few Months

Hasta la Vita, baby.

www.thegamer.com

So it looks like Sony is taking the axe to PS3, PSP, and Vita digital stores. Which means any games that were exclusively digital on those platforms will be gone forever unless you buy and download now. It also means many exclusive titles on those platforms will be lost.

Of course this is a byproduct of the push for digital games. Eventually those games will be lost once the companies holding them no longer wants to support the old platforms. This is IMO the biggest reason why emulation is important, because it allows preservation of gaming history that not even the companies themselves even care about. How do you buy a game that isn't sold anymore?

I have been upset that it is physically impossible to by the FF7 prequel game Crisis Core anywhere. They never made it digitally available, and the only way to play it is to either somehow still have a 20 year old system working, and find a physical copy from somewhere....or emulate it.

It is also why I made sure to by a Disk edition of the PS5 because I like having the physical games. I could buy digitally and I do in rare occasions (mostly during covid), but whenever I can get a physical version I'd rather have that. And honestly once the PS5 becomes available on store shelves again I will be buying another one to save.

I don't know what it costs to maintain a library of titles available to the public, it probably isn't cheap and as shit gets older and nobody buys or downloads it anymore it is a lot like keeping the lights on in an empty house. But it is still sad to see shit like this vanish.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

If Sony/MS/Nintendo were smart they’d send out yearly or biannual surveys to user bases of what older games they want to see on the store, and anything that gets a decent number of nods would be entered as new backwards compatible titles, and their retro chambers or whatever they call them would keep growing. I’m sure they’ve all pissed away more money on less fruitful initiatives.

 

[laggyteabag]

I'm worried for the day if/when Steam goes under.

As someone who plays games on PC, physical copies of modern games just don't exist. If a physical copy is sold, it is usually just a code in a box, asking to be redeemed on Steam or an equivalent platform. If Steam becomes inaccessible, I will lose £1000s worth of games.

It is sad to see that a lot of PS3 digital-only games will disappear, but that is really the fault of Sony, for not having a gameplan for making PS3 titles backwards compatible. I'll be curious to see if this ever changes, in the future - though I doubt the PS3's architecture will make that easy.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Well guess I'm going to have to choose what of my Vita TV library to save............. ok lets be honest it's gonna be Peacewalker and like 2 small games or something lol

 

[gorfias]

Well guess I'm going to have to choose what of my Vita TV library to save............. ok lets be honest it's gonna be Peacewalker and like 2 small games or something lol

This isn't a bad price but I think they're used.




One day my card will crash and my Vita will become a paper weight. Until then it holds a decent number of games. I'll have to check out Peacewalker. Never heard of it before.

 

[bluegate]

This isn't a bad price but I think they're used.

One day my card will crash and my Vita will become a paper weight. Until then it holds a decent number of games. I'll have to check out Peacewalker. Never heard of it before.

Never heard of Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker? That's quite an accomplishment.

Also, I'm fairly certain that there are other ways of getting games onto these devices.

If and when the stores close, I'd say it's fair game to search out that avenue of game collection.

 

[Chimpzy]

Hmmm, that's a shame, but not unexpected. It's naive to think those servers will be around forever. Tho suddenly having put in all that tedious work dumping backups of my PS3 and PSP games feels a lot more justified. I suspect that if the stores go down, the emulation/piracy community, cuz there's a fair amount of overlap after all, might set up a concerted effort to salvage as much as they can.

This isn't a bad price but I think they're used.

120 bucks for 64mb can be considered "not a bad price"? ... ok then ...

 

[CriticalGaming]

120 bucks for 64mb can be considered "not a bad price"? ... ok then ...

Gigabytes buddy, not meg's.

 

[laggyteabag]

Gigabytes buddy, not meg's.

Even if it is GB, that is still horrifically expensive.

But, I guess that is proprietary storage, for you.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Even if it is GB, that is still horrifically expensive.

But, I guess that is proprietary storage, for you.

Oh yeah I guess. Those Switch ones are pricey too. I've never bothered with it though, just used the internal storage because I don't play mobile much.

 

[Chimpzy]

Gigabytes buddy, not meg's.

Whups, you're right. Still not great value for money tho. You can get a micro sd card up to 512gb for that amount if you shop around a little. Probably not the most high quality card, but still. Then again, lots has been said already about Sony forcing people to buy their overpriced proprietary Vita memcards.

Tho apparently there are micro sd to vita card adapters. Not sure how well those work. But if they do, they're like 10-15 bucks, so someone could get one of those and a good 256gb micro sd (or 512gb if you're not too fussy). Way more storage, about the same cost, and you can use the micro sd for other stuff too if you want. Or maybe an adapter and 128gb sd. Still double the storage, but money saved compared to the Vita card.

 

[laggyteabag]

Oh yeah I guess. Those Switch ones are pricey too. I've never bothered with it though, just used the internal storage because I don't play mobile much.

Fun fact: The Official Switch Micro SD cards are... just normal Micro SD cards.

You can put pretty much any SD card you like in there, and it will work just fine.

The only thing that the Official ones have, is a cute little mushroom stamped on the side - oh, and a x2 price tag.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Fun fact: The Official Switch Micro SD cards are... just normal Micro SD cards.

You can put pretty much any SD card you like in there, and it will work just fine.

The only thing that the Official ones have, is a cute little mushroom stamped on the side - oh, and a x2 price tag.

Well the New Xbox is doing those stupid fucking extra harddrives for like 200 bucks because they have to be a special shape. So it's not anything really new from these console companies and there is an argument one could make about the console companies wanting you to use their shit because then they can make sure you aren't accidentally ruining your console for using some randomly formatted drive or device. Especially when you figure that consoles are used by kids and not tech savy people so the ease of them just buying the "playstation" card or whatever is just good marketing because it will end up protecting more people than you'd expect.

 

[laggyteabag]

Well the New Xbox is doing those stupid fucking extra harddrives for like 200 bucks because they have to be a special shape.

Im conflicted with this one.

Yes, they are proprietary. This sucks, and is more than likely going to mean that these things are going to be expensive forever.

On the other hand, they beat cracking open your PS5, and installing an m.2 yourself.

I think both Sony and Microsoft really need to revaluate their expandable storage solutions, especially seeing as 1TB is getting smaller and smaller every year.

 

[Chimpzy]

There is an argument one could make about the console companies wanting you to use their shit because then they can make sure you aren't accidentally ruining your console for using some randomly formatted drive or device. Especially when you figure that consoles are used by kids and not tech savy people so the ease of them just buying the "playstation" card or whatever is just good marketing because it will end up protecting more people than you'd expect.

You could make that argument. But tech is so standardized nowadays, if they really wanted to, they could design a secondary drive bay you could just slide a regular sdd into, and have it give a warning if it detects the wrong type of drive or formatting, or better yet, have it automatically format the drive the right way. But that won't make them any money.

 

[CriticalGaming]

You could make that argument. But tech is so standardized nowadays, if they really wanted to, they could design a secondary drive bay you could just slide a regular sdd into, and have it give a warning if it detects the wrong type of drive or formatting, or better yet, have it automatically format the drive the right way. But that won't make them any money.

Yeah, I mean I still don't really understand the NEED for extra storage. I've been gaming since Atari and I've never needed secondary hard drives for consoles or handhelds because I simply don't keep shit installed that I've finished playing. And the idea of juggling 12 games at any given time just gives me fucking anxiety.

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah, I mean I still don't really understand the NEED for extra storage. I've been gaming since Atari and I've never needed secondary hard drives for consoles or handhelds because I simply don't keep shit installed that I've finished playing. And the idea of juggling 12 games at any given time just gives me fucking anxiety.

Storage requirements at the beginning of a generation, and at the end of a generation, are hilariously different.

500GB in 2013 sounded like a lot, but nowadays, where Call of Duty Modern Warfare is nearing 200GB just by itself, 500GB just won't cut it, if you are planning on having more than a couple of games installed at once.

Sure, you could delete a game when you are done with it, and reinstall it when you want to play it again, but downloading 100GB+ isn't exactly speedy, and I definitely don't envy those with a data cap.

Easily expandable storage is incredibly important, and I for one am interested to see how long ~800GB in an Xbox S|X or PS5 cuts it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Storage requirements at the beginning of a generation, and at the end of a generation, are hilariously different.

500GB in 2013 sounded like a lot, but nowadays, where Call of Duty Modern Warfare is nearing 200GB just by itself, 500GB just won't cut it, if you are planning on having more than a couple of games installed at once.

Sure, you could delete a game when you are done with it, and reinstall it when you want to play it again, but downloading 100GB+ isn't exactly speedy, and I definitely don't envy those with a data cap.

Easily expandable storage is incredibly important, and I for one am interested to see how long ~800GB in an Xbox S|X or PS5 cuts it.

As someone who has been using the Ps5 since launch and I've kept the 90GB FF7Remake installed the whole time, I've not had any issues with storage on the system even when I juggled a few games at the end of last year trying to keep up with impressions threads. I've never used up more than 50% of the harddrive even then.

I'll admit it's probably a problem because Call of Duty is bullshit too big, and usually when people play a live service game they need to have that game installed at all times while they may go off and play other games when not doing their MP live service thing.

But in terms of juggling single player games, 800gigs goes a long way and I've not had a problem as most games are well under 70GB.

The file size of CoD is just stupid bullshit.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Whups, you're right. Still not great value for money tho. You can get a micro sd card up to 512gb for that amount if you shop around a little. Probably not the most high quality card, but still. Then again, lots has been said already about Sony forcing people to buy their overpriced proprietary Vita memcards.

Tho apparently there are micro sd to vita card adapters. Not sure how well those work. But if they do, they're like 10-15 bucks, so someone could get one of those and a good 256gb micro sd (or 512gb if you're not too fussy). Way more storage, about the same cost, and you can use the micro sd for other stuff too if you want. Or maybe an adapter and 128gb sd. Still double the storage, but money saved compared to the Vita card.

A lot of the adapters need Henkaku third party software installed on a Vita to work.

Problem is mine is a Vita TV not a standard Vita.

 

[Chimpzy]

A lot of the adapters need Henkaku third party software installed on a Vita to work.

Problem is mine is a Vita TV not a standard Vita.

Ah, that's a bit of a bummer. Don't have a Vita, but I'm assuming Henkaku is some kind of custom firmware? Cuz if the store is going bye bye anyway, there's not much reason left to not jailbreak your Vita.