Users discover how to access the old PlayStation Store and buy PSP, PS3 and Vita games

A new browser plugin has been released which allows users to browse the old version of the PlayStation Store and access PSP, PS Vita and PS3 games for download.

The new Firefox plugin, ‘Valkyrie PS Store’, allows users to access the old Store by utilising web pages backed up on archive.org. As demonstrated in the video below, the store is fully functional and allows users to purchase content and download it to their consoles.

It’s also possible to manually access the old PlayStation Store, for users on web browsers other than Firefox, which involves copy and pasting URLs into the archive.org site.

SIE launched the latest iteration of the PlayStation Store for web in October, ahead of the launch of PlayStation 5 the following month.

As well as a revamped layout, the new store removed support for purchasing PS3, PSP and Vita games and add-ons, plus PS4 apps, themes and avatars. The wishlist feature was also discontinued.

All of the above content is still purchasable via the PlayStation Store on specific consoles – until the PSP Store is switch off in July, that is – but since October it’s not been possible to purchase PlayStation content for these platforms via the web.

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Earlier this week Sony u-turned on a decision to close the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita digital stores. In a statement published on Monday, SIE president Jim Ryan said that the platform holder had realised it had made “the wrong decision” in planning to close the stores.

Users will continue to be able to purchase digital games on PS3 and PS Vita, but the PSP store will still close as planned on July 2.

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

“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.”

VGC analysis had suggested that around 140 PlayStation games would no longer be available for purchase in any form when Sony closed the PSP, Vita and PS3 stores as initially planned.

Now a far smaller number of titles – around 35 digital-only PSP games – could disappear following the July store closure.