After rumors started to spread of impeding PS3, PSP, and PS Vita store closures, PlayStation confirmed in March that each platform’s online storefront will indeed close for good later this year.
This public announcement was reportedly news to some developers speaking with IGN who say they’re now racing against the clock to get their in-development Vita games out the door before it’s too late.
According to emails shared with the publication as part of that larger report, those developers have just under three months to make it happen. Emails received by some Vita developers warn that games must be submitted to GQA by July 6 and to the Vita store by July 12.
The absolute last day any new game can launch on the Vita is July 20, meaning those final titles will only be up for sale for around a month before the store itself goes offline on August 27.
The full story at IGN, found here, discusses the upcoming shutdown with two developers that weren’t notified by PlayStation: one dev who canceled their game’s Vita port due to the news and another who has to decide to follow suit or to double down to get the game out the door in time.
This recently revealed and rapidly approaching development deadline is only one of the major concerns that sprung out of PlayStation’s store closure announcement. Others in the industry worry about the hundreds of games for PS3, PSP and PS Vita that are about to vanish, some of them for good. Data gathered by the team at VGC estimates that there are 2,200 digital-only games hosted across all three storefronts, including 500 PS1 and PS2 games re-released digitally for PS3, PSP, and PS Vita.
Of that 2,200, around 120 are exclusive to their PlayStation platform as well, meaning there will be no legitimate way for those games to be purchased once the PS3 and PSP stores go offline on July 2, 2021 and when the PS Vita store goes offline on August 27, 2021. Find more details on VGC’s data here.