Update:
This appears to be an unexpected issue for Sony and not a sneaky attempt to make games no longer playable on PS3 and Vita. An email was sent out on March 29th, 2022 confirming the new PlayStation subscription service.
The email includes the line "any PS3 and PS Vita benefits (such as previously redeemed monthly games) will continue to be accessible." This suggests the issues reported below are a mistake on Sony's part and that games will be playable on the system in the near future. Hopefully, a fix is just around the corner.
Original:
A selection of PlayStation Vita games and PS3 games are being locked for players if owned digitally, leaving them unplayable due to falsely 'expired' records. While at first, the issues seemed to be with classic games, the issue is seemingly quite widespread.
First sourced and researched by Kotaku, there appears to be a massive ongoing issue with PlayStation Vita and PS3 games regarding a false expiry date on players' digital game licenses. The first instance picked up was from Christopher Foose. The player found that when redownloading his PSOne Classic version of Chrono Cross to his Vita and PS3, the licence had apparently expired on December 31st, 1969, preventing him from playing.
This has been reiterated by the managing editor of GamesHubDotCom, Edmond Tran, on Twitter. Trying to download PSOne Classics Chrono Cross, Tran found that the Vita version was removed from the store — though it ran fine when booted up. On PS3, Tran was told the license had expired on the same date as Foose, above.
As Kotaku notes, the primary line of thought was that this was a delisting mistake in order to push players toward the recently released (and apparently poorly optimised) version called Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition. However, thanks to the outlet digging around online forums, it appears that other games have similar issues.
The same issue has been found with the PSOne Classic version of Chrono Trigger, Rune Factory Oceans on PS3, PS Vita game Unit 13, the PSOne Classic version of Final Fantasy Origins, and the PSOne Classic version of Final Fantasy VII. One user reported issues with their entire library.
It is worth noting that Sony has not confirmed the issue, requests for comment, or responded to any requests for help on the official forums, on Twitter, or using the official helpline. One line of reasoning — again, remarked on Kotaku's article — suggests that the date used is the "Unix epoch." This mysterious date is used by engineers to "[represent] time as the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC."
PushSquare has speculated that the existence of the expiry date might be something to do with PlayStation Plus games. Each game downloaded via the service would have an expiry date that mimics your PlayStation Plus subscription end date, meaning you couldn't play the game without a subscription. The breaking down of this system might suggest an issue in Sony's databases for PS3 and Vita games, which wouldn't be a surprise for most PlayStation fans.
Vita has been quietly sunsetted by Sony after the store was awkwardly about to be closed, but after fan backlash it was reopened, and then made more difficult to buy things on. Some of us just can't let our little baby Vita die. You bet I'm hugging mine, praying to Shuhei Yoshida, Jack Tretton, and other PlayStation luminaries that keep giving it vita (life) in this harsh world. What do you think of this news? Is it something Sony will fix? Let us know in the comments.