Japan Says Goodbye To PS3, End Shipping After 80M Units

The Sony PlayStation 3 was a bit of a mixed bag in the video game community when it first launched. Starting at $600, the console was widely panned for being far too expensive, which gave the cheaper Xbox 360 a huge head start. Even so, it sold as many as 80 million units worldwide and now, its home country of Japan is finally saying goodbye as shipping there ends.

Sony didn’t really make much of a big deal out of it and publications only found out because the company’s Japanese website listed the shipping details of the 500GB PS3 as “ended.” All other models of the last-generation console were already scrapped years ago and this development basically marks the end of an era, which started back in 2006 when the console first launched, Gematsu reports.

At this time, it isn’t clear if shipments for the PS3 is going to end for the American and European markets as well. Then again, with the PS4 coming to the fifth year of its life, it wouldn’t be strange for its predecessor to fade into the dark as just as the PS2 had done.

Of course, a lot of this would depend on how in-demand the console still is. As Game Spot reports, Sony reported back in 2014 that some people were still buying PS3s despite the launch of the newer console. As a result, the company promised at the time that it would continue support for the unit for as long as it is profitable.

With that pronouncement, it seems the PS3 is definitely going to be axed in the US as reports of the console hurting Sony have been circulating since April of this year. This could have directly influenced the decision to end the console’s shipping to Japan and other markets might soon follow suit.