Despite Microsoft shutting down its online store for the Xbox 360, Sony has kept the PlayStation 3’s online store operational — at least until recently.

The PlayStation Store on the PS3 has started experiencing issues, with players seeing a message that the service is “undergoing maintenance” when trying to access it.

What makes this situation puzzling is that Sony has said nothing about this maintenance, and when you check the PlayStation Network status page, it indicates the PlayStation Store isn’t having any problems. While this may be true for the PS5, the PS3 is definitely facing issues.

I tried to open the PlayStation Store on my PS3, and every time I tried to access it, after a few seconds of browsing, an error message appeared saying, “This service is currently undergoing maintenance.” When I clicked OK on the message, the store immediately closed and returned me to the PS3’s home screen.

Some functions of the PS3 PlayStation Store still work

It’s unlikely Sony is shutting down the store without notice

While you can’t browse or buy games on the PlayStation Store on PS3 right now, you can still scroll down to your downloads and see any games you’ve purchased. If you’ve bought games from the store, you can still download and play them, which is a relief.

According to Delisted Games, this maintenance issue is affecting the North American, European, and Japanese PlayStation Stores on the PS3, so it’s a worldwide issue and not limited to one region. Users on Reddit first reported this issue about a day ago, with some expressing concern that it might be the start of the end for the PlayStation Store on PS3.

“Today I tried to get on and it let me browse for a minute before kicking me off, saying there was maintenance. I hope it doesn’t go down,” one Redditor said.

Most users think it’s unlikely Sony will shut down the PS3 store without warning. Redditor Piett_1313 said, “They will not shadow shut the store down” and that “They are very likely having server issues, this would definitely not be the first time.” You can check out the original Reddit thread below.

It’s unclear when the PlayStation Store on PS3 will be back up again, and why this happened in the first place. Pocket-lint has reached out to PlayStation for comment, and will update this story if we hear back. To reiterate, this issue only affects the PlayStation Store on the PS3. There are no reports of any issues on the PS4 or PS5.

On the bright side, the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita is still reportedly working fine, so if you want to buy or download any games there, you should be able to do so. Hopefully the PlayStation Store on the PS3 will be back up and running soon and Sony isn’t thinking about shutting it down anytime soon. There are still quite a few games on there I want to buy, and I’m guessing many other PS3 players are in the same boat.

If you’re feeling nostalgic about the PS3, I recently wrote about my experience buying one for the first time in 2025, which you can check out here.