PlayStation 3 and Vita owners have been unable to play classic PS games for the past few days, as an apparent glitch is listing older titles as "expired". The issue has caused original PS games to show an expiration date of December 31, 1969, which has raised concerns over Sony's maintenance of its digital storefronts - even for customers who have already purchased and downloaded the games.Affected players have made Sony's support channels aware of this, but none of the suggested fixes are working. Users are being told to do everything from re-register their console, to doing a complete factory reset, all to no avail. Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy 8, and Fez are among the games that are reported to be affected by this expiration date, although one Reddit user says this has happened to their entire library. As reported by Kotaku, the bug isn't allowing players to re-download the titles they can't play, just re-purchase them. In the case of games that were downloaded through PS Plus, it seems that ending/restarting your subscription doesn't work either. Adding to the confusion, there's not even much consistency. While one player is able to play Final Fantasy 8 just fine, another can't boot it up at all. Like in the case with Chrono Cross, they are told that it expired 12/31/1969. Curiously, they can play Final Fantasy 7, which they bought at the same time.
It's unclear if this is a connected problem, but players are also reporting that they are unable to sign into PSN. With both of these issues in mind, some players are, quite understandably, worried that Sony is planning to phase out its older consoles once more, after its initial attempts proved so controversial.
Despite many players reporting the issue, and coverage on major news sites, Sony is still yet to respond. Its support account on Twitter is mostly concerned with helping PS5 players, and has not offered any public advice for those affected.