We’ve heard rumors about this for a while, which led to an eventual confirmation. Now, it has finally happened. The PlayStation 3 is officially dead in its country of origin. The official Japanese PlayStation website has amended its listing of the 500GB PlayStation 3. This was the last remaining model still being shipped. Now, the product page says shipments have ended.
This has been a long time coming, and was to be expected considering how far we are now in the current generation. A quick search reveals very few games still releasing for the platform, largely comprising multiplatform sports titles.
It is worth noting that this is a Japanese announcement, meaning the PS3 could still be shipping in other territories. However, as history shows, this likely means there isn’t much time left before we see this same news repeating itself in localized form.
The PS3 had a good run, with last generation being as long as it was for a variety of reasons. The PS3 launched in 2006 to mixed results, while Sony ultimately revised its whole approach to games over the system’s tenure, eventually leading to gradual success and an explosive PlayStation Store launch.
Source: Gematsu