Earlier this year, Sony announced it was going to make the PlayStation 3, Vita, and PSP stores go away, which was met with immediate pushback from fans and the video game community at large. This resulted in the company walking back the decision, saying the PS3 and Vita stores would be staying online indefinitely. The PSP store would still be shutting down, but most (not all) of those digital games are still available to purchase on the Vita’s store, which is backwards compatible with digital PSP games. However, if the company can’t get rid of the stores, it is at least making them more cumbersome to use.
As Kotaku pointed out, PlayStation’s support site now says that, starting October 27, the PS3 and Vita stores will no longer take credit card or Paypal as means for purchase. As such, there are only two ways to buy digital games and content for either system. One is to buy PlayStation Store credit through cards at retail stores, or by purchasing digital codes through separate online stores like Amazon. The second option is that you can use a credit card through something like the PlayStation App, or on a PlayStation console that still supports the use of the most universal form of digital currency (a PlayStation 4 or 5) to add the funds to your wallet, then buy them on a PS3 or Vita.
In other news:
- Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Datamine Hints at Characters Who Aren’t Timmy Turner
- DC, Please Just Announce Injustice 3 at DC FanDome, I Need the Win
- Paradox Interactive Cancels Unspecified Number of Unannounced Games, 15 Still in the Works
The entire thing is roundabout and annoying, and if read in a less than generous way, comes off like a weird, passive-aggressive way to kill the PlayStation 3 and Vita stores by making fewer people willing to use it, to begin with. Although, Sony’s been forced to undo more than one bad decision this year. So, we’ll see if Sony sticks to its guns with this in the coming weeks.
