Cognition Dissemination: Consider the Games Stuck on Old PlayStation Platforms

Sony has relaunched the PlayStation Store ahead of the PlayStation 5’s November 12th launch, complete with a new layout. In preparing the gaming audience for it, they provided startling news: They would make it harder to obtain PlayStation 3, PSP, or PlayStation Vita games. Any owner of those platforms who wants to purchase or download them can no longer do so through the web and mobile stores, and only through the system storefronts. Only PlayStation 4 content remains available outside the system, removing several categories, with space being made for PS5 titles in the coming weeks.

I’m having a hard time thinking this will stop here. In fact, anyone who thinks Sony will just make it harder to buy games for their legacy systems and leave it there for years is kidding themselves. This move will further lower the sales for games on these systems that likely weren’t selling that much following years of little (in the case of Vita) to no (in the case of PSP and PS3) new support in the last few years. They believe few people might care if these games disappeared entirely. As  Dia Lacina explained in a Vice editorial, this is a prelude to removing the option to buy these games entirely, and perhaps the ability to redownload purchased titles. It will basically be a repeat of what happened when the PlayStation Mobile store was closed, except with platforms people care about.

It’s easy to be nonchalant about this given how many games on the systems have received updated ports and remasters. Several even play better on other platforms, rendering the old ports obsolete. But as I said in the title: Consider all the games stuck on these platforms before thinking this won’t be a big deal.

Looking at my PS3 lineup, most games have been remastered for PS4, making the versions I own redundant. (Don’t ask me why I haven’t sold them or anything.) But several haven’t, including a number of major titles. Games like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Binary Domain haven’t received PS4 remasters, but are available on other platforms like Steam and Xbox through backwards compatibility. But a game like Metal Gear Solid 4? Not available anywhere else. I was critical of it in my review over a decade (!!!) ago, but it has enough memorable moments that I’d like to play through it again, and doing so wouldn’t take long.

Heck, some games stuck on PS3 were published by Sony themselves. Sure, Folklore is a smaller game that remains underappreciated years after its release, but it would be nice if more people could experience one of the best titles the late Game Republic developed. But the Ico remaster? The God of War Collection? God of War: Ascension? Every damned Ratchet & Clank game released on the system? Those were bigger games that have yet to be ported to future PlayStation platforms, but should be in order to archive them. It would be nice to catch up on the Ratchet & Clank games before Rift Apart arrives on PS5.

Not to belittle the lineups of PSP and Vita games stuck on those platforms, but most of them have better ports that play better on other systems. Looking at my lineup, there are still titles I’d like to see preserved on other systems, like Jeanne D’Arc and too many Square Enix games to count (Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, etc.). Several Vita games could use ports too, ranging from smaller games like Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines to larger ones like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, both Sony-published titles. Neither of these platforms were on par with PS3 in terms of software releases, and games that need remasters or ports.

The chance of Sony removing the option to purchase and redownload games from all three platforms is higher than it should be, and the options for the gaming audience to stop it are minimal. Not to mention the wide swath of players who flat-out don’t care about backwards compatibility or archiving software. But it’s still worthwhile to criticize the significant chance that a company will banish an entire lineup of titles into a shadow realm considering some will be lost for good outside resorting to piracy. Video game companies have been historically bad about archiving their software, and we should preserve what we have if these titles won’t receive ports or remasters.

It blows that Sony isn’t on Microsoft’s level when it comes to backwards compatibility in their platforms. The Xbox Series X and S from the latter company will play an array of Xbox One, Xbox 360, and original Xbox games when the pair arrives on November 10th. The PlayStation Now streaming service also won’t be a viable substitute for games from prior PlayStation generations thanks to some potentially not handling as well through streaming, and licensed titles or games with licensed materials being unavailable. Since the PS5 will play every PS4 game outside ten titles out the box, the hope is that they’ll be better about this from here on. This trend of leaving of leaving the lineups of old systems behind shouldn’t continue.

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