Good day for PS3 and PS Vita, not so good for PSP Three weeks after Sony announced that it would close the digital storefronts for the PS3, PSP, and Vita, the company is reflecting on two things. In response to fan backlash, Sony announced that the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita stores would remain open indefinitely. The PlayStation Portable store, however, will close on July 2. If there's a PSP game you've always wanted to own, perhaps now is the time to buy it.

Information comes from the official PlayStation Blog. It was written by Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. In it, he gives a brief explanation as to why Sony wanted to close the store and why they decided to (mostly) backtrack on that decision.

"On second thought, ...... It's clear we made the wrong decision," Ryan writes.

"So today we say we are willing to keep the PlayStation Store operational for PS3 and PS Vita devices."

Ryan explained that there were both logistical and philosophical reasons behind the desire to close these stores in the first place.7]

"When we first came to the decision to end purchase support for PS3 and PS Vita, it was because of older device commerce support challenges and the ability to focus resources on newer devices, among many other factors"

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However, it is not clear whether Sony plans to support digital purchases on the PS3 and Vita indefinitely; it is quite possible that the PS3 and Vita stores will be around for the long haul. It is also possible that they are simply on probation. Sony wanted to shut down these services because they had few users, and it is unlikely that demand will increase as time goes on.

There is also the issue of PSP purchases: it is not clear why the PS3 and Vita stores are worth keeping online, but the PSP store is not. it is possible that the PSP store has significantly less traffic or requires more resources to keep running. It could also be that the PSP store is not as well maintained as it could be. Either way, Sony could change its mind between now and July 2, but players should not bet on last-minute saves in the PSP store.

Sony's fickle attitude toward older games is indicative of a larger conversation in the gaming space. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to preserve and further improve older games, including a major push for backward compatibility with the Xbox Series X/S. Nintendo and Sony, on the other hand, have limited backward compatibility on older systems and taken their old game stores offline. This is a salient issue for retro gamers and an enormous problem for the preservation of gaming history.