Sony takes PS3, LittleBigPlanet Vita servers offline forever

Little big planet the fans have a bit of good news / bad news this morning. After months of downtime, PS4 servers for LittleBigPlanet 3 are back online, with all community content restored and functioning as before. However, servers for all previous PS3 and Vita versions will remain offline indefinitely, having been shut down in an attempt to “protect the Little big planet community “and keep online services” secure “.

In May, Sony shut down the servers for the first three Little big planet games (and the Vita version) due to ongoing attacks and malicious messages left by pirates. The problems dated back to the end of last year, when Eurogamer reported that the ongoing DDoS attacks and unstable servers could be attributed to a single fan who was “unhappy with Sony’s treatment of the franchise.” Players have also reported that they are unable to read community-created content, and offensive messages appearing in the game.

Bottom line: It was a huge shit storm, which is why Sony shut down the servers on May 22.

Now, months later and without warning, the official Little big planet Twitter account announced that the Little Big Planet 3 PS4 servers are back online after another title update. But he also confirmed that the servers for the original PlayStation 3 trilogy and the Vita version are now permanently disabled.

“We have no doubt that this news will be a disappointment for many of you,” Sony said in a statement on Twitter. “Ultimately, this is the best way to protect the Little big planet community and to help ensure that our online environment remains safe.

In the follow-up tweets, the Little big planet account explained that the games will remain playable offline, that purchased and downloaded DLC levels in older games will still work, and that all previously downloaded community content will remain playable in the PS4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3.

The reaction of the community has been overwhelmingly negative. While some are grateful to the developers for backing up and retaining all of the old community content, many others have criticized Sony’s lack of transparency regarding ongoing server issues, extended downtime and downtime. today’s surprise shutdown of the majority of online gaming functionality.

Read more: LittleBigPlanet 3: The Kotaku Review

The whole situation is strange because Little big planet is not a small franchise from an unknown indie developer, but a popular Sony series that has has appeared in many forms on various PlayStation consoles. Seeing it being attacked so easily by pirates and trolls and then, after months of shutdown, being almost completely shut down except for the most recent entry is bizarre.

Today’s outcome looks less than optimal, but if there is a silver lining it is that at least all user-created content of the PlayStation 3 Trilogy remains playable in the PlayStation game. 4. To lose this would have been truly catastrophic.