On July 2, Sony will officially shut down the PlayStation Store for PS3, making it impossible for PS3 owners to make any additional digital purchases. While the PlayStation Store for the PS3 is being shut down on July 2, users should still be able to download any games that they previously purchased, and Sony has said nothing about these gamers losing online functionality. However, that already seems to be happening, months ahead of the PlayStation Store shutdown date.
Various forums online have been compiling evidence that PS3 game patches are disappearing or are at least currently inaccessible to many users. The list of impacted PS3 games is growing, but some of the most notable impacted titles include Journey, LittleBigPlanet, and Battlefield 4. Players being unable to download patches means that they can't unlock PS3 trophies or play the games online, severely limiting their functionality.
At the time of this writing, it's unclear what exactly is happening with the PS3 game patches. It's entirely possible that this is just a bug caused by too many people trying to download PS3 games ahead of the closure. It's also possible that Sony is purposefully disabling patches for certain PS3 games, though it's unclear why it would want to do that. It hasn't been specified if ending support for patch downloads is part of the closure, so hopefully there is some clarification sooner rather than later.
This isn't the only PS3 issue that's cropped up since the PlayStation Store closure announcement. Fans have been reporting widespread PS3 error codes when trying to download games from the store or re-download titles that they had previously purchased. Some workarounds have been discovered to circumvent these issues for now, but Sony itself has not acknowledged the problems or done anything to fix them.
One of the most common error codes that PlayStation gamers have been running into is 80029721. PS3 error code 80029721 most commonly appears when players are trying to re-download games that they already own. The way to fix it is by enabling 2-factor verification on one's PlayStation Network account and then waiting some time for Sony's servers to recognize the change, though hopefully Sony addresses the problem ahead of the July 2 PS3 PlayStation Store shutdown date.
These continued problems with the PS3 PlayStation Store are making an already contentious situation that much worse. While it's possible the problem with downloading patches will be fixed, for now, anyone who is looking to make last-minute PS3 PlayStation Store purchases should proceed with caution.
Source: IGN