[UPDATE 06/05/22] In all the steps I attempted on my own end I forgot to add that disabling 2-Step Verification *may* still resolve the NP-9968-2 error code. The final step after turning that off, though, is to deactivate your consoles and then reactivate them, a step I was not willing to take given the content associated with my accounts on both PlayStation 3 and Vita.
So, your mileage may vary but Sony’s official line remains that “content cannot be transferred from PS3 consoles to PS Vita systems” any longer. Our original post from earlier in the day continues below.
Sony recently pushed a few major changes to the PlayStation 3 and Vita that have made accessing the PlayStation Store and making purchases more complicated. Worse still, the change has made a handful of Vita and PSP titles ostensibly inaccessible, but more on that in a bit. With the May 10th firmware update to both platforms Sony removed the ability to create new PlayStation accounts directly on the hardware. Anyone picking up a used console for the first time will now have to head to Sony’s account creation website to set things up.
The next hurdle that old and new users alike need to deal with is thankfully a one-time hassle. A new security measure requires you to log into your console accounts with a Device Setup Password that can only be generated from the web. Once logged back in you don’t need to keep generating new setup passwords, but it sure was a hassle to repeat the process for all my PSN accounts.
Like removing credit card purchases and payment options in the past, these changes don’t break the PlayStation Store but they definitely make things harder to access. Unfortunately, there has been one more change that has greatly complicated getting your hands on dozens of PSP and Vita titles that were already in a precarious limbo state before May.
After operating for the past 15 years and offering connectivity between PlayStation 3, PSP, and Vita, the store was bound to get… messy. For whatever reason there is a roster of titles that you can’t find by searching the store for them on the Vita. You could still find and buy the games from the PlayStation Store website until Sony annihilated that option in October of 2020. Even then you could still find the games by searching on a PlayStation 3 and then copying them to a Vita over USB, until now.
The latest update to Sony’s Important Notice page now indicates that “content cannot be transferred from PS3 consoles to PS Vita systems”. Sure enough, I get error code NP-9968-2 any time I try to copy anything from PS3 to Vita now. The error code isn’t even referenced on Sony’s own support sites but software developer Guillaume Fortin-Debigaré blogged about a similar situation back in 2020. At the time the issue wound up being related to his randomly generated PlayStation account password which included a space, something that Sony’s servers apparently won’t accept.
Since the firmware update in May though, it seems that the reliance on the Device Setup Password has broken the “handshake” that the PS3-to-Vita copy process relies on. In essence, Sony has patched out the ability to use USB and rendered a handful of titles that can only be played on the handheld inaccessible.
From TweetVitaReview’s full post, here is a list of games that can’t be found on the Vita’s PlayStation Store that can no longer be transferred to the handheld. Some of these have previously been delisted but most can still be bought and downloaded on PlayStation 3 … and then just sit there with no way to play them now.
Vita Games Available Through PS4 Cross Buy (Given that cross buy still works)
- BUNNY MUST DIE! CHELSEA AND THE 7 DEVILS
- Pic-a-Pix Pieces 2
- Football Game
Vita Games Available Through PS3 Transfer
- Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s
- ROMANCING SAGA 3
Vita Games only Available as a Bundle on the Vita Store
- Dead or Alive 5 Plus (Available via Dead or Alive 5 Plus and Dead or Alive Paradise Bundle)
- Alternatively find Dead or Alive 5 Plus Demo on the alphabetical list, and purchase the game from within the game
PSP Games Available Through PS3 Transfer
- Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos
- ALIEN CRUSH
- Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines
- Beats
- Blade Dancer™: Lineage of Light
- Bonk’s Adventure
- Burnout Dominator
- Burnout Legends
- Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded
- Capcom Classics Collection Remixed
- Capcom Puzzle World
- ClaDun x2
- CLADUN: This is an RPG!
- Crash: Mind Over Mutant
- Crash Tag Team Racing
- Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars
- Dante’s Inferno PSP
- Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days
- Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
- Driver ’76
- Fate/EXTRA
- Generation of Chaos: Pandora’s Reflection
- Gradius Collection
- Gun Showdown
- Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom
- I am an Air Traffic Controller Airport Hero Tokyo
- Indiana Jones and the Staff Of Kings
- Killzone: Liberation and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow
- Kurulin Fusion
- Mana Khemia: Student Alliance
- Neopets: Petpet Adventures – The Wand of Wishing
- Sega Genesis Collection
- Silent Hill Origins
- SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo and Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (Socom Available Separately)
- SOULCALIBUR: BROKEN DESTINY
- The 3rd Birthday
- Tomb Raider: Legend
- Tomb Raider: Anniversary
It speaks to how limiting Sony could make the PlayStation 3 and Vita experiences while still *technically* not closing the store outright. Demos, Timed Trials, Avatars, Themes, and trailers could all be pulled to streamline the store’s bandwidth. That would leave only paid content, forever locked at its original full price, to sit unpurchased until Sony is finally justified that ‘nobody is using the store anymore’ and pulls the plug.