With the launch of the PlayStation 4 back in November, I suppose it was only inevitable that Sony would begin to phase out support for the PlayStation 3. What I was not expecting, however, was Sony killing online support for titles in two of their biggest franchises. According to a post on the Official PlayStation Blog, the Resistance franchise and Gran Turismo 5 will see their online support removed come 2014.
Resistance: Fall Of Man, Resistance 2 and Resistance 3 will go offline on March 28th. Fans of GT5 will get a little more online time with the title, as it won’t go offline until May 20th. These titles join MAG, SOCOM 4 and SOCOM: Special Forces, which Sony previously revealed would lose their online features in January 2014.
I’m undecided how I feel about this news at the moment. On the one hand, although these titles are old, taking down online support for them does upset me. I’m sure there are dedicated gamers out there somewhere who still enjoy playing Resistance 2 co-op online or have no interest in purchasing the latest Gran Turismo just yet.
On the other hand, Sony is a business and if it costs them money keeping servers up for titles that are no longer popular, then they have every right to shut them down. It’s not like this is the first time such a thing has happened and it certainly won’t be the last either. It’s just an unfortunate side effect of the industry at the moment.
If you’re a fan of the Resistance franchise or Gran Turismo 5, make sure to put in some online time while you can.