Btw, does this mean the legacy store on PC is back? I really don't want to use the PS3 store.
That's what frustrates me about this whole "commerce support challenges for older devices". It's not really the interface of the legacy devices I'm so worried about.
If the different versions of PSN are a burden of outdated infrastructure, move all the software onto the new platform, add secure application transfer to the current console for older platforms (PS3 had the ability to download PSP and PS Vita games and transfer your purchases from the console to a portable, for some reason they never built that for PS4 and obviously not for PS5 but the protocol exists on the portables already to switch into Receiver mode; cabling a PS3 to a PS5 would be a little silly and also unwieldy as far as having 2 video signals going, but so be it if the alternative is no more PS3 games,) and shut down the old stuff that's costing a bunch or is a pain to maintain. Then, put the entire digitally-purchaseable library of PlayStation product back on the web for purchase, for PlayStation 5 and for whatever other piece of hardware comes down the line...
Not only was this ending of legacy PlayStation consoles a loss of availability to some great games, but it was a pretty clear marker that the history of PlayStation games was no longer to be maintained. PS5 not only can't play PS3 games, it can't play the PS1 games and PS2 games and PSP games that PS3 could run. (PSP on PS3 in PSP Minis form, at least, although Sony had a limited PSP-on-PS3 emulator built that it never really exploited but that supported a surprising number of games.) PS4 didn't either, but even after the whole run of PS4, many still thought that was just an outlier that would be overcome some day. I don't know how we got through a whole console lifespan thinking, some day, that PlayStation was going to finally get those emulators ported to PS4 or the next PlayStation (maybe a PlayStation Classic that wasn't just a ROM box, but a real PlayStation console or portable piece dedicated to PSN software PS3 and below... one can dream...) and all our gaming collection would be back online to play. (Or heck, not even to play, just to feel secure that it was there if we ever wanted it, in our PlayStation library that we've been building for 15 years and were looking forward to enlarging more and more in the years to come...) That of course never happened with PS4, and Sony gave us little hope that things would change with PS5 (despite the patents and the skirting of the question and all that,) but there was always still a wish for hope.
Closing the web store for old platforms, then planning to close the PSP/PS3/PS Vita store, that a signal that hope was at an end for legacy games in PlayStation's future, and I don't understand why Sony didn't (and in some days still doesn't) understand the value of that. It's worth more than the low game sales tell you it's worth. It's worth more than whatever couple of months of effort it would take to migrate old software onto the new servers and use PS5's and current PSN's fulfillment services* to sell old games. It's got to be worth more than the server costs (especially servers that still need to be on for re-downloading anyway, right?) It's worth more than you're data tells you it's worth about how little the majority of owners use their old consoles and handhelds. Good will on loyalty gives back more than the numbers tells you it's worth.
(*Granted, there could be some kind of "mechanical rights" agreements for what can and cannot be used in selling older PS games under a certain contract. There must be way, way more to the mechanics and the logistics and the legalities and the costs of all this than us gamers at home know about. Maybe there's a hurdle too high that we don't know about. But goddamn, Sony, we're expecting you to try with everything you've got if you expect us to continue calling ourselves "PlayStation gamers".)