Being of an older generation, PS3 and Vita continue their move towards being phased out completely as Sony disabled account management on the platforms.

The newest updates for the PS3 and Vita, versions 4.89 and 3.74 respectively, sees reduced functionality for both devices.

Most notable of the changes in these updates is that users are now unable to create and manage PSN accounts from the consoles themselves. Sony has instead recommended that users of these devices manage their accounts from a PC or their mobile devices.

Last year it was reported that the stores for the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita were to be shut down during the summer. That did not come to pass for the PS3 and PS Vita after backlash from fans caused Sony to reverse their decision. However this did not mean the older gaming devices would be safe forever.

This continues a line of updates that has reduced functionality for these consoles. PayPal and credit card methods were removed back in October globally.

Though this did have an additional effect on the Japanese market due to requirements of a credit card in order to verify one’s age to purchase Cero Z (equivalent to ESRB AO) rated games. This meant that those titles were effectively impossible to buy after the update.

There was also a bug relating to some users being unable to find the store pages of some games as the license “expired” on the year 1970.

What do you think of this news? This update continues to show Sony’s plans on eventually shutting down their old stores in attempts to have more people upgrade to their latest consoles.

Unfortunately it does seem to have the issue with certain games that only existed exclusively on the PlayStation Store will be gone and lost forever in a legal sense. Hopefully if these plans do continue to go forward, users will find a way to archive those games.