Playstation Store Will No Longer Be Available on PS3 and Vita Starting This Year

Published 4 hours ago by

Sad news for those still using the PlayStation 3 and Vita consoles. The PlayStation store for these systems will be closed down starting this year in select markets, and globally next year. You'll still be able to download your purchased titles for the foreseeable future, but you won't be able to purchase new games. Here's the breakdown:

  • 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. (we'll likely get more information as the date gets closer)

  • In all other countries - PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027.

This means the PS3 will have had access to the PlayStation Store for over 20 years (about 20 and 9 months, to be precise). That is a really good run, especially when compared to the 3DS eShop, which released in February 2011, and the shop was closed in March 2023. If you want to get any PS3 or Vita titles on your systems, you have about a year to do it.

Quote From PlayStation Blog

After nearly two decades of supporting the PS3 console generation, we wanted to let you know we will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita. PlayStation Store on PS3 will close in select markets starting this year, followed by global closures for PS3 and PS Vita next year. That means new content purchases will no longer be possible once the PlayStation Store closes on these devices. To ease the transition, players will still be able to download previously purchased content after the closing date for the foreseeable future. 

As the PlayStation Store continues to evolve to support modern commerce systems, including updated payment processing standards, PS3 and PS Vita are no longer able to support these updates at the level required. As a result, we will need to close PlayStation Store on these devices in the timeframes as follows:

  • 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.

We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming. PS3 and PS Vita represent an important era in our PlayStation history, so this was not an easy decision for us to make. 

As we continue to expand the PlayStation experience on newer devices that most of our users are playing on today, we need to focus more resources on delivering the best gaming experiences on these platforms as we look ahead towards the future. 

To our amazing players, we want to give our heartfelt thanks for your ongoing passion and support, which has helped inspire us to shape PlayStation into what it is today. We are excited for the future ahead as we continue to push the boundaries of play. We look forward to having you on this journey with us as we explore new game worlds and new adventures that have yet to come.

What do you think of the PS3 and Vita stores closure? Did you purchase any games on those systems since the release of the PS5 (not counting disks)? Let us know in the comments below!

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Comments

  • Fun fact: The online servers for Ridge Racer 7, a PS3 launch title, are still online to this day, and you can still find people that are still playing it with not much difficulty.

    Sony has always done a really good job of maintaining the relevancy of their older consoles. Case and point, the PS2 was discontinued in January 2013... less than a year before the PS4 was launched.

    The PS3 is one of the strongest consoles of all time (not necessarily in power, but in terms of culture), so it's not that surprising to see that it's still up. This does truly mark the end of something meaningful, and it's impressive that it lasted as long as it did.

    Staff

  • Another major announcement from Sony today. I wasn't even aware you could still buy games on PS3 so I'm quite impressed that it was up for as long as it has been - thanks for that info.

    It makes sense. Downloads still allowed is great to see, and the way it should be until all the consoles are dust, but I am curious how they aren't able to push an update to their stores to modernize them even a tiny bit. I'm not going to pretend like I know a lot on the compliance side for processing payments, I pay companies to do that for me, but I would have guessed a small software update would be able to push a store update; PS3 last received the 4.93 OS update back in March of this year so it's not like they can't update things on the device.

    But, that's also likely a large undertaking to make a big change to something not a lot of people are still using. More risk vs reward since it will likely take multiple developers and the Q&A process... yeah like I said, it makes sense this is being shut down lol.