Sony to continue selling PSP games in the PS3 and Vita stores

In March, Sony received widespread backlash for announcing plans to close the PS3 and Vita stores and eliminate the ability to purchase PSP games from both stores. The criticism led Sony to reverse course in part, promising to keep the PS3 and Vita stores open, but the company held its commitment to end "PSP commerce functionality" on July 2. While it wasn't clear precisely what that meant at the time, Sony has shed a bit more light on the situation: You will still be able to buy new PSP games from the PS3 and Vita stores, but you won't be able to purchase new DLC, according to the UK and US company support pages (via Kotaku).

Here are the three new updates Sony made to clear things up, including that it will remove the ability to search or download DLC from the PSP store on July 6:

What does it mean?

When the PlayStation®Store for PlayStation®Portable (PSP) was closed in 2016, you could still search and make in-game purchases. However, from July 6, 2021, you will no longer be able to search or purchase in-game.

What about the PSP content we already own?

You will still be able to download PSP content that you previously purchased. In addition, you can download your previously purchased PSP content to your PSP by accessing the Download List on the device.

What about the PSP content available for purchase in the PS3 and PS Vita stores?

You can still purchase and play PSP content available from the PS3 and PS Vita stores. However, you will no longer be able to make purchases through the in-game store for PSP content.

All of this only applies to games sold digitally, but it helps preserve some of the PSP's history and past catalogue since the PSP native store closed in 2016.

Compared to Microsoft, which uses multi-generational backward compatibility as a major selling point for the Xbox Series X, playing older games on Sony consoles can often be more complicated than simply inserting an old disc. For example, the Playstation 5 currently plays most of the Playstation 4 games. Still, if you want to play previous generation games on Sony's newest console, you will need to purchase a subscription to Playstation. Now, which allows you to play Playstation 3 games and Playstation 2 streamed from the cloud or bought remakes of the classics at a total price.

For the PSP, there is still a feasible way to buy games for the beloved handheld, at least for now, even that means buying the games from one of the two stores with entirely different hardware.