"This was not an easy decision for us to make"

Sony is closing the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita.

Sony said the store will close in "select markets" – Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, plus Additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries later this year – and globally next year, in July 2027. That means new content purchases will no longer be possible once the PlayStation Store closes on these devices.

"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," Sony explained. "As a result, we will need to close PlayStation Store."

The company added: "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."

The PS3 launched in 2006 in the US, 2007 in Europe, and was discontinued in 2016. The PS Vita launched in the US and Europe in 2012 and was discontinued in 2019.

Earlier today, Sony confirmed plans to discontinue physical discs for new games launching on PS consoles from January 2028, intimating that its next console could ship without a disc drive.

A new report now also claims Xbox, like PlayStation, is set to "drop the disc drive."

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