Closing of PSN store and Preservation of DLC

[layzee]

As some of you might have heard, a week or two ago there were rumours that the PSN store as we knew it would be closing soon and the official announcement was made today/yesterday. At the same time, access to the old PSN store (with the PS3/Vita/PSP content) from a desktop computer was blocked and now redirects to the revamped store (with only PS4 and PS5 content). The only way to access, purchase and download the old content is via the PS3 (ending July 2), Vita (ending August 27) and PSP consoles (also ending July 2). The problem: the user interface on the PS3 (which I used) is slow as molasses and unwieldy as hell. Makes browsing the store a massive headache compared to browsing from a PC.

I'm into game preservation so I'm just doing what I can to grab some stuff before they disappear especially gameplay-related DLC (extra stages, scenarios, characters, etc). I believe most or all of the free DLC has been backed up and they are making some progress on the USA region DLC. However, I'm into the paid Japanese-region DLC of which a decent chunk does not appear to have been preserved yet by NoPayStation and No-Intro. I'm not sure whether there are other people are pursuing the same thing as me.

In any case, I've gone ahead and bought a 10,000 yen Japan PSN card and slowly going through the DLC available and purchasing/downloading anything that stands out. I'm just one person with limited funds so I can really only buy DLC from the game franchises I'm interested in (see end of post). First and foremost, I focus on games that has not been ported/remade/remastered to other consoles (i.e. unique).

In terms of what kind of DLC I will buy, it will be prioritised as follows:

1. Major gameplay-related content (e.g. extra stages, characters, scenarios, etc)
2. Minor gameplay-related content (e.g. extra equipment, etc)
3. Cosmetic-related content (e.g. extra BGM, costumes, voices, etc)
4. Themes
5. Avatars

So far, I have bought the Japanese DLC for the following:

Hard Corps: Uprising (Konami) (945 yen)

Extra Characters
追加キャラクタ Leviathan
追加キャラクタ Harley
追加キャラクタ Sayuri

Akumajou Dracula: Harmony of Despair (Konami) (~2500 yen)

Extra Missions
全ての始まり
多くにして、一つなるもの
蝿の王
月風魔伝

Extra Characters
シモン・ベルモンド
リヒター・ベルモンド
マリア・ラーネッド
月風魔

Extra Music
BGMパック1
BGMパック2

I'll update this thread as I buy more stuff. I cannot stress enough how annoying it is to browse the PSN store with a PS3.
Looking at some of the Tales of... (Namco Bandai) and Legend of Heroes (Falcom) games, the total cost of DLC for a game could be more than 10,000 yen... more than the cost of the game itself.
I haven't figured out how to transfer the DLC files from PS3 to PC yet but I'll leave that for later.
Some more discussion on the topic: https://forum.no-intro.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3716
List of game franchises I'm focusing on: https://home.exetel.com.au/layzee/temp/ps3gamelist.jpg
Worth mentioning is that some DLC is only obtained directly from the game itself and not the PSN store: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/929675-mega-man-powered-up/77883327

 

[layzee]

I went through the DLC list and I wrote down anything that I was even remotely interested in:

PSP
Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
God Eater
Metal Slug XX
Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity
Senjou no Valkyria 2
Senjou no Valkyria E3 Extra Edition

PS3
Akumajou Dracula: Lords of Shadow
Arcana Heart 3
Asura's Wrath
Biohazard 0 / Revelations / 5 / 6
BlazBlue Central Fiction / Chrono Phantasma / Continuum Shift
Dark Souls
Dark Souls 2
Dead or Alive 5
Dead Rising 2
DMC
Drag-on Dragoon 3
Dragon Quest Builders
Dragon's Dogma
Final Fantasy XIII-2 / Lightning Returns
Front Mission Evolved
Guilty Gear Xrd
Kagerou
Kamaitachi no Yoru
King of Fighters 12 / 13
Legend of Heroes series
Lollipop Chainsaw
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
Metal Gear Solid 5
NieR Replicant
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden 3
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
Persona 5
Persona Dancing
Psycho Break
Rockman 10
Rockman 9
Senjou no Valkyria
Shirokishi Monogatari
Soul Calibur 5
Star Ocean 5 (13)
Street Fighter III
Street Fighter x Tekken
Tales of Berseria
Tales of Graces f
Tales of Vesperia
Tales of Xillia
Tales of Xillia 2
Tales of Zesteria
Tekken Tag Tournament
Tokyo Jungle
Ultra Street Fighter 4
Vampire Resurrection
Vanquish
Virtua Fighter

Vita
Biohazard Revelations 2
BlazBlue series
Catherine Full Body
Darius Burst
Dragon Quest Builders / Heroes
Dragon's Crown
Exist Archive
God Eater
Grand Kingdom
Itadaki Street Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy
Kagerou
Kamaitachi no Yoru
Legend of Heroes series
Metal Max Xeno (3)
Persona 3 Dancing
Persona 4 Dancing
Persona 5 Dancing
Phantasy Star Nova
Seiken Densetsu 2 Secret of Mana (1)
Senjou no Valkyria
Soul Sacrifice
Tales of Hearts R
Tales of Innocence R
Tokyo Xanadu
World of Final Fantasy
Ys 8

I made another purchase:

NieR Replicant (Square Enix) (880 yen)

Extra Missions
15 Nightmares (the English DLC calls it The World of Recycled Vessel).

I'll probably grab Drag-on Dragoon 3, MGS Revengeance, and Lightning Returns next. Maybe some Dissidia 012 stuff, Asura's Wrath, and Metal Slug XX after.

Any Star Ocean 5 fans here? I noticed how when you browse the SO5 DLC page, for a second or two the number on the left would say "15" but then it turns into "0" so no DLC for SO5. Some brief research shows that SO5 had DLC (e.g. extra items and equipment) at time of release. What's the story here? Are the DLC gone for good or can it still be gotten in-game? And are these items unique?

This DLC bug happens on other games too. Apparently Metal Max Xeno was supposed to have at least 3 DLC and Secret of Mana has at least 1 DLC. Both currently display zero DLC.

Another thing: Tactics Ogre (Square Enix) for PSP. The Japanese version has DLC but only one: "Extra Scenario 3". Apparently you need to beat the game to get the other DLC? How does that work? The English version of the game already has the DLC built in. Same thing with Lord of Arcana (Square Enix) - only one DLC: "Download Quest Pack Vol. 16". Where are all the others?

One last minor thing: when I browse the PSN store for too long, it slows down to a crawl and eventually crashes.

Anyway, that's enough for today.

 

[Anthony817]

I wish somebody had those

 

[deadlegion]

Lord of Arcana
^DLC pack 16 should have all previous DLC packs included iirc. Probably not the only game that does that.

 

[Illty]

Don't forget about patches and updates. Those are important as well.
Luckily sony consoles dont exactly patch the games themselves, patches, dlc and other updates tend to go in their separate folders in the filesystem, so you can have both the untouched game and the dlc/patch itself.

They have apparently already started removing them too, for like 30 or so games.

 

[Pinta77]

Yeah, this is a real bummer. Especially since I got the PS3 at the tail end of it's life as it is.

I've got a handful of sega games downloaded, but I'm going to have to go through and make sure I have all the DLC purchased. I know I dont have the DX DLC for Sonic Adventure yet

 

[weldedale]

Sony is shutting down their servers and you guys are just rewarding them for doing so by buying stuff beforehand, seems a little silly.

 

[Tyree_Cooper]

That's terrible but it was just a matter of time. I just got a PS3 a year ago or so. Does it mean even patches will be gone? I hope there's a way to install them manually.

Does anybody know if region 3 has exclusive stuff that may be lost? Like a bunch of exclusive physical releases no other regions had. If those have specific updates/improvements, I don't know what will happen to them.

 

[deadlegion]

On reddit there's something about sony reversing their decision, but only for PS3 and vita.
Think it's unconfirmed.

Edit:
I'll also mention something else unrelated here, Bloodborne network test version has patches available now in case anyone is interested.

 

[DBloke]

PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita Will Continue Operations

Players will be able to continue to purchase games on PS3 and PS Vita.

blog.playstation.com

The stores will remain open for now

 

[Pinta77]

I was pretty excited to hear it would be up for awhile longer, but just in the past few days I had some issues.

I thought for sure I had Ducktales remastered downloaded on my PS3 (I have the little icon) but when I went to play it, it said I have to download it again and... well it's not on the PSN store anymore.

Also seem to be having some real problems with DLC characters I purchased on the game Tekken 7 on PS4. I just bought them today, and they still aren't working due to some sort of license verification issue (I think). If I cant figure out how to fix it when the servers are up, it's going to be a nightmare when the servers are down.

I'm not going to buy stuff on the PS3 shop anymore. I'm going to look into hacking it and just pirate everything. And I'll probably eventually do the same with my PS4. Maybe that's what they want us to do.

 

[DBloke]

I was pretty excited to hear it would be up for awhile longer, but just in the past few days I had some issues.

I thought for sure I had Ducktales remastered downloaded on my PS3 (I have the little icon) but when I went to play it, it said I have to download it again and... well it's not on the PSN store anymore.

Also seem to be having some real problems with DLC characters I purchased on the game Tekken 7 on PS4. I just bought them today, and they still aren't working due to some sort of license verification issue (I think). If I cant figure out how to fix it when the servers are up, it's going to be a nightmare when the servers are down.

I'm not going to buy stuff on the PS3 shop anymore. I'm going to look into hacking it and just pirate everything. And I'll probably eventually do the same with my PS4. Maybe that's what they want us to do.

This happens and always happens, Outrun 2/2006 are no longer available due to such things

 

[cta]

Yup. At least with Ducktales we got an early enough warning (of the license running out, or whatever it was), iirc it even went on sale (at least on Steam). That's not always the case.

It's still going to be in your download list though. Find and download it from there.

 

[DBloke]

Yup. At least with Ducktales we got an early enough warning (of the license running out, or whatever it was), iirc it even went on sale (at least on Steam). That's not always the case.

It's still going to be in your download list though. Find and download it from there.

It did get a psychical release, id rather nab that than have another download, the same cant be said about a lot of PS4/xbox1 games where the disc is only part of the game and just seems like DRM

 

[Doubles Advocate]

It did get a psychical release, id rather nab that than have another download, the same cant be said about a lot of PS4/xbox1 games where the disc is only part of the game and just seems like DRM

I think Hanlon's razor is probably the more likely scenario for games not fully on the disc. There were a few games from the 7th gen that released in an unplayable state, now it seems like something that happens twice a year at minimum.
Especially since the more times it happens the more proof publishers have that customers don't care all that much.