 Hey everyone before I get into this video Hey, we still have like a day or two left to enter our current giveaway going on copy a monster hunter rise $100 and $220 Switch PlayStation Xbox gift card steam gift card whatever for total winners Be sure to check the description or the pinned comment to enter now. We're gonna talk about something here I got I got some notes here on my phone about Sony because Yesterday Sony sort of sent the internet in a tizzy By confirming some rumors that I had some very interesting discussions with many different people on because This is something that people are using to argue against an all-digital future and by the way I'm totally fine if you're not into an all-digital future. I actually think the way things are handling the gaming today Is fine, but I mean technically this is about an era that wasn't all-digital either The problem of course being that a lot of games even today, especially today really From independent developers are digital only We already are in an era when there is a lot of digital only games and why is that well? It could be quite expensive to find someone to publish your game physically and yes We do have some people out there like limited-run games It does take some indie games and make them physical, but for the most part It's not really a realistic venture and even limited-run games can't do it for every game. It's just too expensive. So yes In the end a lot of games are only ever available digitally and likely will vanish from being able to purchase at least some day and that's what happened yesterday as PlayStation Sony Basically updated their discontinued PlayStation apps features and services talking about PlayStation 3 Vita and PSP Let's read what it says on Their official support page. I'll put a link to it down below which by the way This link really is only going to show you this information If you are on a desktop if you are on a phone for some reason I'm struggling to find this directly on a phone So I'm actually looking at a screenshot that I took up my desktop Because for some odd reason It's it's weird anyways It says here PlayStation 3 PS Vita and PSP store closure We are closing PlayStation store on PlayStation 3 consoles on the 2nd July 2021 and on PlayStation Vita devices on the 27th of August 2021 Additionally, the remaining purchase functionality for PSP will also retire on the 2nd of July 2021 What features can I use after the closure of the PlayStation store and purchase functionality on PlayStation 3 PS Vita and PSP devices? Features you will still be able to access you will still be able to re-download and play previously purchased game titles You will still be able to access previously purchased video media content You will still be able to redeem game and PlayStation Plus vouchers You will still be able to re-download and play claimed game titles through PlayStation Plus as long as you remain a member of the Service features you will lose access to you will no longer be able to purchase PlayStation 3 PS Vita and PSP digital content including games and video content You will no longer be able to make in-game purchases through games on PlayStation 3 PS Vita and PSP aka rip digital currency You will no longer be able to redeem PSN wallet fund vouchers Aka gift cards on PlayStation 3 PS Vita or PSP devices Once PlayStation store and purchase functionality for these devices close your PlayStation network wallet funds Will remain in your PlayStation network account But you will only be able to use your wallet funds to purchase PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 products on the PlayStation store on the web PlayStation app or on a PS4 or PS5 console. How do I access my own games? You can download your own content onto a PlayStation 3 PS Vita or PS Vita device by accessing the download list on the respective device So basically you'll have an ability to re-download games like always And I think this is this brings up kind of two major sticky points one the biggest concern is Is addressed by Sony and that is hey if you bought games, you're not losing your games I don't know if they're ever gonna make it so you lose your game someday But for right now if you have purchased games on PlayStation 3 PSP or Vita digitally You can still download your games and re-download your games if you got a new system. It doesn't matter So this is great news of course on the surface because hey the biggest thing for them to do is to make sure If you did spend money on these devices and you did buy things digitally that you still have access So kudos to them for making sure that you still have access now this gets into point two and this is where I I'm a little indifferent, but I also understand some of the frustrations and that is what Sony has done is made it so anybody who buys a Vita PlayStation or PlayStation 3 I should say or PSP after this summer Will not have the ability to gain access to the entire library of the system Now if you look at prior systems before we had digital content While it might be stupidly expensive you can pretty much get any game for any platform Yeah, it can again There are certain like NES games and SNES games that are just stupidly expensive But technically assuming you have unlimited funds You could buy original copies of these games and then bada bang bada boom play them on original hardware What's happening here is that well? I would say a majority if not maybe even all of the PlayStation 3 library is already available online through ROMs And thus you can play them on emulators some people on hacked devices PSP and Vita were famous for being hacked Devices that people were playing all sorts of games on I I think it's still of note that in general For especially for PlayStation 3 it's gonna be a lot harder to play these ROMs Locally now someone's gonna come in here and talk about how there are different hacks that exist out there Where people have pulled this off but for the general consumer that might just be looking to get into retro gaming That's not really going to be possible To just hack it up And make it work now people might be able to sell the PlayStation Network accounts Which is also technically illegal and probably will get those accounts banned eventually. I'm just I'm sorry I don't know that it does suck. There's an entire library of digital content that is exclusive to PlayStation 3 That is just dead in the water and here's the thing this isn't as bad as a Nintendo So Nintendo for we they shut down their services back in 2019 like January I think of 2019 or whatever for we the shop channel is entirely gone and as of today you Can't redownload your purchases. So Nintendo Did this as well in the same generation where hey look you can't even redownload your games You're just done now. Was there a ton of digital games on we not nearly as many as on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Because Nintendo's online was not very robust Despite the fact that Nintendo have one of the first early Online shops remember those we wear games and all like they had the first one of those first super early Online shops even before some of the other systems, but the other systems didn't better I had better storefronts better connectivity and so it just Digital content ended up blowing up on those systems Fast and even today PlayStation 5 PlayStation 4 Xbox and Xbox series X all these systems All these modern-day platforms from non-Nintendo Companies I have a much greater percentage of digital sales even compared to Nintendo and Nintendo had massive sales bump last year digitally because of COVID but in General these other platforms are always leaving the way obviously PC as an example is essentially Exclusively digital only you could still find some physical copies for certain games out there, but people don't even have disk drives I don't I haven't had a computer with a disk drive 15 years it's been a while since I even had like I feel last one I had was maybe a Laptop I have an old ASUS laptop some I think buried over there. It technically still turns on I only keep it because you can burn this was what it's one of those DVD Rewriteable disk drive so like you can actually burn discs and since my car, you know our car to technically still take CDs and DVDs and all that. It's cool to be able to burn some music on a disc I don't do it that often because it also takes a thumb drive So you can do that you can also just stream directly up your phone, but you know what I mean It's it's an option out there So that's why I kind of keep that computer lingering around in case I ever need to burn a disc The pain in the butt to use a computer since before SSDs were in every laptop Very very slow takes like with seven minutes to boot into Windows. It's I don't know Anyways, you guys probably remember those days. I think it's rocking Windows Vista or maybe even before Windows Vista Anyways, the point is That um technologies come a long way and with it so has the advent of digital gaming and now people are concerned because hey Sony took your shit away and it's honestly a valid concern That I don't know that there's an easy solution for In the end the PlayStation 3 Vita and the PSP after this summer if you are just getting into those platforms as a retro gamer Because you'd have to and it feels weird saying that the Vita is a retro system when it's like nine years old But let's just be honest. That's what these platforms are becoming. They're they're no longer sold no longer available new I mean you might be able to find a box one that's never been opened somewhere from a collector, but In the end these platforms If you buy them as a retro gamer and you're getting in the retro gaming with Sony platforms like these It's a lot harder to try to get a complete collection because you can't buy some games ever there are again I don't know how many because I tried looking up there There isn't a well-tracked list of PlayStation 3 digital games There are thousands of them, but there there's not a well-tracked list of like what ones We're losing access to because of this You know like what's the ones are specifically only ever released on PlayStation 3 that didn't come to other platforms that have better access So but it's another here nor there you buy the platform and you can't you can't get the you can't get downloadable content So any DLC that came out you can't buy that for the it's just It's it's not good There's nothing about this that is good and again this isn't Sony only I know this video with the title The thumbnail feels like oh my gosh, Sony's put on blast, but it's not just Sony Nintendo did this too back in 2019 it started in 2018 and then really put the You know and the hammered that nail and for you know just killing the Wii in 2019 so Yeah, Nintendo did it worse Sony's not as bad yet They Are probably going to shut down the ability to redownload these games someday either I know that's a pretty big jump in assumption to say that but From Sony side of things it's understandable why they shut down these shops for starters It costs money to maintain these shops It not just talking about server space because they're still offering the ability to download all these games So it's still taking up server space, but you actually have to maintain The not just the servers, but the actual shop itself you got to pay employees to You know make sure it's not getting hacked and all that jazz and hey If nobody's really buying games on it They're losing money, so they're gonna shut it down. So from a business perspective. It makes sense I'm sure they've looked at the numbers and seen hey in 2020 the king of digital years People weren't buying anything on PlayStation 3 Vita or PSP. So why keep the shops up? It's a very valid argument by the way I think the most important thing Sony has on lock you could still redownload games you bought That is the most important thing people aren't losing access to games that they purchased. Okay, that is the most important I can't stress the biggest thing that Sony's doing you are not losing access to the games that you purchased Thank God for now But it's still not good for those that You know we're thinking about maybe getting into these platforms down the line when they're more financially stable And they just want to go back to Sony's retro library Now credit to Sony. They do have a service that lets you play some of these games You know through their streaming service the problem for Sony is There's always gonna be issues with licensing there's a bunch of games published on PlayStation 3 that will never come back again We've seen this with other retro systems in the past from even on Nintendo side of things There are just some games. We're never gonna see again We're probably never gonna see home alone from the SNES ported anywhere too many licensing issues Look at all the issues we had with GoldenEye 007 from the N64 trying to get that game to fully come back We've had a remake, but we can't seem to get the original game Upgraded visuals too many licensing issues with that Including Nintendo who owns some copyright on it There's just a lot of things like that that exists throughout the history of gaming that we're just not gonna see some of these companies Don't even exist anymore Some of these indie studios that make games back in those days those early days aren't around anymore So like then you have those games as well that what do you do with them? Who owns the rights? Does anyone and Then I'll become public domain for what is that 50 years 100 years Yeah Again almost all these games that anyone's gonna care about or think about are going to be available as ROMs But that again is not a legal method of ownership It's also Hey, not the same as buying a game and just playing it on your system and people are gonna worry What's gonna happen with PlayStation 4 eventually are they gonna shut down that shop in nine years? What about hey, what about PlayStation 5 right now? If you're buying a bunch of digital which all the games I own on PlayStation 5 or digital right now What's gonna happen to those games in the future? Why can't Sony just make everything backwards compatible and just say hey You know what if you own a PlayStation 5 and want to play your PlayStation 3 library bring all your games over That doesn't solve by the way the fact that the shop is gone a lot of PlayStation 3 games I'm that shop will never come back. I at this point I Think Sony's you know can't win can't lose in an ideal world Sony just doesn't touch anything leaves it all alone But also it costs them money and from a business. They are a for-profit business. They need to think about money sinking I get it. I don't know that there's a good way. I think that the number one solution would be When you shut down the PlayStation 3 Vita and PSP shops that you allow those shops to basically just transition into You can buy these games now on PlayStation 5. I don't know again. There's still could be licensing issues with that I'm not really sure how that could work But it is something that I think would be the ultimate solution fine Shut down those retro platforms But make sure the entire library of that content especially digitally is now available on PlayStation 5 for purchase and put out Your own official emulator on PlayStation 5 to buy those games and then play them locally on the system that to me Is the best solution but also one of the trickiest. We've been over it licensing issues are still going to be a thing I'm not sure there's any positive way to spin what they're doing But at least you're not losing anything you've already bought so You got that. All right, you guys don't know you think well It's down in the comments below This is make you scared for digital purchases you have today on any platform from Nintendo to Sony the Xbox the PC Although PC's a little different PC always has workarounds for the name. Well, I got to go to the PC That's a whole other conversation on why digital content seems to be just fine on PC and it doesn't have these similar concerns Even some of those really really old games that struggle to run on modern operating systems and hardware There are workarounds patches emulators ways to force those games to run anyways Little different than gaming today Anyways folks, I am within a robot dance from Nintendo Prime. Let me know what you think about this down the council Well, and I'll catch you in the next video