Sony Shutting Down PlayStation Mobile Service Completely Later This Year

Following last year’s formal abandonment of PlayStation Mobile as an Android gaming platform, Sony has announced that the service itself will be shuttered later this year, in two phases.

The first phase will see the storefront and content download part of the service being shutdown on July 15th, whereby users with purchased games and additional content that have not saved copies to devices will be unable to access the storefront after that date, while the second phase will see the entire service be shut down completely on September 10th, with the dedicated Android and PlayStation Vita apps being made useless as a result.

Those that wish to download and save copies of purchased games for future use on supported Android devices need only to download all purchased games from now until September 10th. After downloading, the games only need to be authenticated by opening them as normal so long as there is a network connection. After initial network authentication, the games will remain authenticated for future use without involving the PlayStation Mobile app.

The initial goal of the PlayStation Certified program aimed to provide a familiar gaming experience regardless of manufacturer, but the service failed to find any sort of traction, as company infighting ultimately doomed it to an object lesson in the lack of direction that Sony has become known for in the past few years, with an arcane certification process and too few games to make the service compelling against the growing influence and popularity of free-to-play games.