Sony has abandoned its plans of shuttering the PS3 and PS Vita consoles. The company reversed its decision on April 19, which will allow owners of both devices to continue purchasing digital games and DLC on the platforms indefinitely. Sony will still shut down the PSP's online shop on July 2, 2021, but its change of heart to continue ing the PS3 and PS Vita stores will ensure gamers have easy access to hundreds of the publisher's legacy games. So why did Sony change its mind months before discontinuing the PS3 and PS Vita stores?
The PSN store for the PS3 was initially scheduled to close on July 2, while to PS Vitas was set to end on August 27, Sony announced earlier in 2021. A complete shutdown of the PS3 and PS Vita stores would also render digitally-purchased games and DLC unable to boot because of how the consoles internally game ownership. This domino effect led ionate gamers to vocalize their disappointment in Sony's plan, which eventually led the company to it it had "made the wrong decision."
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan published a statement on the PlayStation Blog on April 19 explaining the reasoning behind the company's initial plan. The breakdown was brief but revealed that Sony wanted to focus its full attention on its current devices and games. At the same time, it didn't consider the negative effects that closing the PS3 and PS Vita stores would have on preserving classic titles near and dear to gamers' hearts. Here's a portion of Ryan's statement:
When we initially came to the decision to end purchasing for PS3 and PS Vita, it was born out of a number of factors, including commerce challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on. We see now that many of you are incredibly ionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I'm glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations.
Sony's original plan to shutter the PS3 and PS Vita shops was the breaking point of several controversies piled up about the publisher in recent months. This seemingly led the company to reverse course in order to save face in the midst of the next-gen console war with Microsoft's Xbox Series X/S. Many issues with PlayStation devices highlighted a fundamental flaw in console makers' all-digital game markets: Although online stores make it easier to buy and play games instantly, s forfeit a large part of their ownership of these games. The most notable was the PS3's CMOS battery-dependent license checks, which would have made even already-purchased games on the console unplayable.
PlayStation: Sony Consoles' CMOS Issue
The PS3, PS Vita, PS4, and PS5 rely on internal clocks to if s actually own the games they want to play using the PSN. These clocks are powered by small CR2032 batteries (or CMOS) attached to the consoles' motherboards to continuously power the clocks, even when the devices are powered off. If these batteries ever stop working, s are required to enter a date and time as soon as they switch on their PS devices, which the consoles will attempt to with a remote PSN server. That's the fatal flaw in the system.
If Sony were to cease PSN for its devices and a s' CMOS battery was drained or defective, the hardware would be unable to confirm that s have paid for the titles installed on their PS3, PS Vita, or other systems. Full games and DLC that gamers purchased wouldn't boot, which means gamers don't actually own the digital copies of games they purchased. They effectively paid Sony to give them access to a title, which could be revoked as soon as the company decides to end PSN for certain hardware.
PlayStation: Sony's Game Preservation Controversy
This issue puts an Sony's PS1 games significantly more difficult, as these haven't been added to the PS4 or PS5 stores. Instead of archiving beloved games, publishers seem fine with moving on and not looking back, which is completely contrary to the common console marketing slogan of letting gamers play the games they want when they want.
To make matters murkier, a report recently revealed that Sony's management is singularly focused on delivering buy the PlayStation titles they love at full price if they want sequels for them. But the looming CMOS battery issue, why should gamers rush to purchase games at a that they might not have full ownership of a few years down the line?
Many mixed signals were coming from Sony's corporate strategy. On the one hand, it seemed like the company was turning its back on its cherished legacy franchises. Plus, its renewed push to only develop blockbuster titles sounds a lot like Sony telling gamers exactly how they want them to play, instead of giving them the option to play new and old games alike. The narrative around PlayStation consoles was quickly spiraling out of control, which likely led Sony to listen to its player base before it fell out of favor with its own customers.
Source: PlayStation Blog
