Sony pulls a 180 degree turn after the response to their choice to cut the PlayStation Store services from their seventh generation hardware. In late March, sources speculated that behind the scenes, Sony was going to close the PlayStation Store for the PS3, PS Vita, and the PSP. When that report was confirmed, it set off a firestorm of backlash from the community, fearing this will deal a considerable blow to Sony's ability to preserve many exclusives that are still tied to only those consoles. The Vita, for instance, saw its support end in March 2019, but software continued to be released for it from independent publishers and developers.

April 19th, Sony issued a statement from their blog page, announcing they will leave the PlayStation Store open on the PlayStation 3 and Vita consoles. 

"Recently, we notified players that PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita devices was planned to end this summer. 

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. 

When we initially came to the decision to end purchasing support for PS3 and PS Vita, it was born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on. We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I’m glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations."

Commendable that Sony listened to the feedback (otherwise known as angry tweets), it's worth bearing in mind that there's still no manner of transferring the exclusive portions of the PS3 and Vita libraries to the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 stores, meaning the digital copies of PS One Classics remain tethered to seventh generation consoles. Backward compatibility is something Sony doesn't intend to embrace, as CEO Jim Ryan [quote] "doesn't see why anyone would want to play old games". There is a strong attachment to classic games, and seeing Microsoft embrace it through access to their backlog through Game Pass Games With Gold. They don't govern as large a facet of the market as many would believe, it would still come off a gesture that the fanbase's requests are taken into consideration.

I wouldn't be surprised if this ordeal resurfaces again. Sony wants to move as many customers over to the PlayStation 5 as quickly as possible, how much longer will they consider keeping services running on aged hardware a viable solution?