With the next-generation of gaming consoles just around the corner, it appears that Sony is slowly phasing out support for its previous generations of games. A new report suggests that the company will be removing PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita games from its mobile and web storefronts this month.
French website Planète Vita has obtained an email that Sony reportedly sent out to its partners recently. The email states that Sony will be launching an overhauled PlayStation storefront on mobile and web on October 19. While the UI and features of this revamp haven"t been revealed yet, Sony states that from October 19 and October 28 on web and mobile respectively, the following content can not be purchased from storefronts:
- PlayStation 3 games and add-ons
- PlayStation Portable games and add-ons
- PlayStation Vita games and add-ons
- Apps
- Themes
- Avatars
However, Sony has noted that all of this content can still be purchased and accessed directly from the PlayStation Store on supported consoles, and none of it is being removed, per se.
While the plan to remove older games from select storefronts makes sense from Sony"s perspective - the company isn"t big on backward compatibility, the removal of apps, themes, avatars, and wishlists which are all actively supported on the current generations of consoles is certainly interesting. It is possible that the company is taking this decision because it has noticed low usage of these features on its mobile and web storefronts as compared to the console counterpart. That said, it is important to note that Sony has not officially announced these changes as of yet, and we"ll keep you in the loop if something emerges on this front.
Source: Planète Vita