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.
Well, promising something “forever” can become a huge liability. You never know how the world and tech may change. I think forseeable future is good enough in this case, but it’s possible I have been brainwashed to expect less from such corporations.
That being said, what they could do, was move all PS3/Vita games to their newer PS4/PS5 store, turn off the older store and only keep the bits required for signin and any validity check. And make a new store app for PS3 and Vita, with up-to-date security. This should make keeping everything patched up much simpler, and won’t need them to close the store.
This of course makes huge assumptions about how their system is. And while it can be done regardless, the resources required for the change can be huge, but I think this would have earned them lots of goodwill, even from people who don’t have PS3/ Vita. Specially when they are going all digital. A kind of sign that at least we would be able to buy and play these games for as long as we want.
They should just let people archive their purchased software onto physical media and install them on any other PS3 they use. Not like it’d be costing them sales or anything, since they’re removing the ability to give them money.