In a very surprising turn of events uncharacteristic of Sony and their usual no one plays older games on older platforms attitude, they have announced that they are no longer going to shutdown access to the PS3 and PS Vita stores. The PSP access is still being removed but 2 out of 3 isn’t bad… like the song says. So you know longer have to rush to sell all of your vintage beenie babies to buy up all that sweet digital content. Now you can buy a few here and there with bottle returns or selling some junk at your garage sale. I still wouldn’t sleep on it as you know this is a temporary reprieve, but it is certainly nice to see Sony recognize that they still have loyal fans on the PS3 platform, many of which love retro games and were not ready to lose access to the PSOne and PS2 classics.
“Upon further reflection, however, it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here. So today I’m happy to say that we will be keeping the PlayStation Store operational for PS3 and PS Vita devices. PSP commerce functionality will retire on July 2, 2021 as planned. “ Link to full announcement
I have included the info from my original article on upgrading the hard drive, still not a bad idea. As well as links to Radical Reggie videos on some great titles you may want to put on your wish list now that you have more time to save up the cheddar. Although, in light of this good news, it has come to light that the CMOS battery in the PS3-PS5 will need to be replaced before access is lost to PSN or you will not be able to play your digital content. So 2 steps for and 3 steps back… i think that is a song too 😉 .
INSTALL AND UPGRADE HARD DRIVE
- Backup Hard Drive – https://www.ubackup.com/articles/backup-ps3-hard-drive-4348.html (You can use an external Hard Drive or Thumb Drive. I used a general thumb drive and it was not recognized, then I used my Cruzer and it worked no issue. Also make sure the drive is formatted FAT32 and 1TB or less.) **Make sure to sync Trophy data**
- Setup thumb drive with PS3 software to install on new drive – https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/273210/set-up-a-new-hard-drive-for-playstation-3 (Again, see note in step 1.)
- Restore Backup – https://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/backuputility.html (Use restore option, do this before you download / install digital content or install / update from physical media.)
MUST HAVE GAMES TO DOWNLOAD
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSK8K27X2c0 – 50 recommendations
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk1i-55ETc – 70 more recommendations