PlayStation Plus dropping PS3 and Vita games in 2019 (update)

Time is running out for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita owners when it comes to the monthly PlayStation Plus slate — Sony will no longer include PS3 or Vita games in the lineup starting in March 2019, the company announced today.

February 2019 will be the final month to follow the six-game format that has been in place since the PlayStation 4 launched in November 2013: two games on each of the three platforms. Starting with the March list, which will go live March 8, 2019, Sony will only include PS4 games.

Sony said that the monthly lineup “will focus on PS4 titles and no longer include PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita titles.” Asked for clarification on the numbers, a PlayStation representative told Polygon that Sony will continue to offer two PS4 games per month — and no other free titles. That means subscribers will be losing two-thirds of the current monthly total.

Nothing else about PlayStation Plus is changing, according to Sony. The terms of the arrangement — that customers must have an active PlayStation Plus membership to play the “free” games — will remain the same, as will other benefits of the subscription, such as cloud-based storage for save files. And subscribers won’t lose access to PlayStation Plus titles that they’ve already added to their library.

“Many of our fans are playing on the PS4 platform, with the increasingly vast number of PS4s in homes around the world,” said Sony, as a way of explaining its decision. The company had sold more than 73.6 million PS4 consoles worldwide by the end of 2017. Sony launched the PS3 in November 2006, and the Vita in February 2012 in North America. And it’s nice to see the company providing a year’s notice on the platforms’ retirement from PlayStation Plus.

“We’ll continue to prioritize the benefits you receive through your PS Plus membership, such as online multiplayer, online game save storage, PS4 monthly games, and exclusive PS Store discounts across content and network services,” Sony added.

Sony is cushioning the blow a bit by offering a stellar lineup of free PlayStation Plus games for March 2018.

Update: A representative for Sony told Polygon that after February 2019, the monthly PlayStation Plus lineups will consist only of two free PS4 games. We’ve edited the article to reflect this.