Sony’s Slowly Restoring Lost PS3 Avatars After Two Month Absence
You’re ‘avin’ a laugh?!
Image: Push SquareUpdate [Sun 7th Sep 2025, 12:30am]: As is sometimes the case with Sony cock-ups, itâs not always trying to be tight to its consumers, it just tripped over a cable or three.
You may recall all the way back in July, we reported that old purchased PS3 avatars had suddenly been removed from consumersâ accounts. Well, now theyâre back â many of them, anyway.
We can corroborate that weâre once again able to access avatars for the likes of Kung-Fu Rider and other last-last-gen crap. We paid actual legal tender for some of these, so weâre happy to see them rightfully resurrected. (Even though weâll never use them.)
Your mileage may vary, as it seems like the Japanese giant is still in the process of fixing the issue as we write this update, but sit tight as it does look like this is getting resolved. Result!
Original Story: If youâve been spending money on the PS Store for over a decade, then youâll probably remember it was once possible to purchase avatars on the PS3.
While this feature eventually got replaced by the ability to make your profile picture whatever you want, legacy support for the classic PSN avatars does still exist, and occasionally Sony will release redemption codes for some free ones. (Ghost of Tsushimaâs anniversary is a recent example of that.)
However, we spotted a few isolated examples of fans complaining that their old PS3 avatars have gone missing, so we decided to take a look for ourselves. And itâs true!
We bought a handful of avatars on the PS3 back in the day, including one for Kung-Fu Rider (remember that?!) and PAIN. We canât find any of these in the Premium Avatars category on our PS5.
We still have plenty of avatars to choose from, and we werenât planning to swap out our Demon Slayer one anyway, but itâs interesting to see these ancient profile pictures nixed.
It seems if youâre still using a purchased PS3 avatar, then itâll work. But donât change it to anything else, because thereâs a good chance youâll lose access to it later.
Our guess is that this likely isnât malicious, and itâs probably just a symptom of the PS3âs increasingly creaky architecture. Either way, weâre not going to complain too heavily about the loss of a JPG we bought over 15 years ago for pennies.
We have seen some people say theyâre still seeing their purchased PS3 avatars, so your mileage may vary. It looks like weâve (temporarily?) lost access to ours, though.
[source resetera.com]
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. Heâs an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.
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