File photo. Sony Corp's President and Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai is silhouetted during a corporate strategy meeting at the company's headquarters in Tokyo February 18, 2015. (REUTERS/Issei Kato)
Sony’s PlayStation Mobile platform has had a rocky history, and now the final boulder has come thundering down: It’s over for PSM, the company wrote in an announcement on its Japanese language website (here’s a Google Translate version).
The service will remain active for a few months, although users won’t be able to purchase new content after July 15. For a few months after that, customers will be able to re-download any content they might have purchased in the past, as this will cease to be available when the platform is fully shut down for good on September 10.
Related: Was this the beginning of the end for PlayStation Mobile?
PlayStation Mobile appeared troubled from the start, with Sony waiving the publisher license fee in May of 2013 in an effort to attract more developers. This obviously didn’t go as well as the company had hoped. After dropping Android support last year, the platform remained available for indie developers targeting the PlayStation Vita, though pickings were slim.
While this certainly doesn’t mean we’ll see more indie games on the Vita, it’s worth pointing out that Sony publishes a healthy amount of indie games on the PlayStation Store proper, and 2015 is still shaping up to be a good year for PlayStation fans.
Get a daily look at what’s developing in science and technology throughout the world.