PlayStation Vita suffers store outage

Sony appeared to have an issue with the PlayStation Vita store over the last few hours as an error meant players could no longer access the shopfront to buy games. Without any official word, servers appear to have now come back online.

PlayStation Vita owners have undergone scary times. Since Sony tried to close the store last year before reopening it due to fan backlash, Vita lovers have felt like they were walking on a tightrope. An incident over the last day made the rope wobble, but a resolution to the error means Vita-owners are still balancing firm in the strong headwind.

What happened to the PlayStation Vita Store?

We saw the tweet from 2old4gaming, but multiple reports from those on Vita island had also come through. Logging onto the store from around 4pm BST last night resulted in an error message NP-8099-6. Normally, 'NP' is shorthand for 'no problem,' but let us tell you the resulting issue from said error was a big problem indeed. The message read: "This content may not yet be for sale or is no longer for sale." The result was that the shopfront for PlayStation Vita games was shut entirely to potential customers. TrueTrophies can also confirm this was the case.

One salvation was that the download list still worked, meaning all purchases were still accessible and downloadable. However, that was not much consolation to the millions of Vita owners (note: numbers from an unofficial source) who shed a Red Seas' worth of tears as they thought Sony had finally pulled the plug on the store. That has turned out not to be the case thanks to recent reports.

Is the Vita Store back online?

Dry your eyes, Vita owners living on your island of handheld paradise. Sony hasn't shut the store — it seems to have just been a server error. The store is now back up thanks to some kind of magic probably conjured up from the collective love sprouting from billions of gamers and their ten-year-old handheld (note: numbers from an unofficial source). Everything is as it was before, so now we can all go out and buy Sid Meyers Pirates! digitally.

Are you okay? Are we okay? That was a wild and scary ride, huh? Let us know what you think Sony was up to in the comments. By the way, shout out to 2old4gaming who just released the fantastic book The Unofficial History of the PlayStation Vita.

PlayStation Vita

Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about PS5 exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favorite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.