Update:
Sony has announced that it’ll be terminating online services for LittleBigPlanet Karting (PS3) on August 31 and for LittleBigPlanet (PSP) on July 31 in North America and Europe.
Original story:
Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia announced earlier that it will be shutting down online services for LittleBitPlanet series in Japan starting July 31. According to the notice (translated by Siliconera), this will affect game modes that require online services including “browsing and playing stages created by players, uploading your own created stages, online play, and the community function.”
Since this move will affect the entire series, there were concerns about online services being shut down outside of Japan as well. However, Community Manager, Steven Isbell, told fans via the game’s forum that there are no plans to shut down online services in any other region, and that the move won’t affect global servers. Here’s Isbell’s explanation in full:
The LittleBigPlanet servers are not affected by this.
They are global and service all players across the world.What is being shut down by Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia (SIEJA) are their online services for the LittleBigPlanet series.
This includes but is not limited to…
Update/Patch Distribution, Moderation, Localisation, Testing, Marketing, PS Store Support, Customer Service Support, etc… For players within their region and only their region.
Whilst the LittleBigPlanet servers will continue to be live; without Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia (SIEJA) Online Services providing such things as the necessary update distribution, localisation, testing, etc… that are required for LittleBigPlanet to run effectively.
It would very shortly reach a point where the LittleBigPlanet servers would be unable to continue to support SIEJA players because they would not be kept up-to-date with the rest of the world.
This is why the LittleBigPlanet server and the rest of the world will be unaffected because those services will continue to be supported within those regions.
If you have any specific questions, head over to the LittleBigPlanet forum here.
[Source: SIEJA via Siliconera, LBPCentral]
