Me, nearly [[Preserving and Rediscovering My Game Collection|two months ago]]: > This all started when one day last month I had a concern: I became very worried that the PSN for PlayStation 3 and Vita would shut be shut down with very little notice. I had recently started rebuilding my PS3 collection. I have an 80GB “Phat” model and realized I couldn’t download all the games I had digitally acquired over the years. > > Thankfully, Sony seems to have always made hard drive swapping in their consoles user friendly. I swapped in my original PS4 500GB hard drive and went download crazy. I also took out an old orange USB stick with all my old PS3 save data. And here is Sony [announcing](https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/important-notice/) the closure of the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita stores for later this summer: > We are closing PlayStation™Store on PlayStation®3 consoles on 2nd July 2021 and on PlayStation®Vita devices on 27th August 2021. Additionally, the remaining purchase functionality for PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable) will also retire on 2nd July 2021. Thankfully, this is more notice than I had feared. Regardless, the end of these consoles official support is upon us. I am glad I decided to upgrade and download all I wanted back in February. All my physical games are patched and my digital collection installed. Now I just need to pick and choose which games I’d like to snag before the final day. I was looking on my PS3 this weekend and filled up cart to the max limit of 10 items and was just breaking $100. No time like the present to talk with my wife and come up with a budget. I was looking at games I haven’t repurchased physically yet, like collections of PS2 games and the *Ratchet and Clank* PS3 games. Some are becoming more expensive, even before this announcement, but I am expecting prices for physical games to continue to climb. I had a few PS1 games in there as well, since this is the only way to play those games officially in 2021. I even bought *Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier* a few weeks ago, a PSP game I never played. Thankfully, Sony has promised the ability to still download previous purchases, but some day that support will go away too. I may buy an external drive and back up all my games locally too. It is a shame to see the end of these store fronts and all the beloved games, both AAA and indie, that were released on those platforms. Sony needs to step up their access to older titles. There is a rich legacy under the PlayStation umbrella: One Sony loves to celebrate in its games, like *Astro’s Playroom*, but ignores in the real world when it comes to playing those beloved titles.