Sony’s Slowly Restoring Lost PS3 Avatars After Two Month Absence

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Update [Sun 7th Sep 2025, 12:30am]: In line with occasional mishaps that Sony experiences, it’s not always intentional to keep consumers on tenterhooks; rather, it seems to have accidentally tripped over a few wires this time.

In a refreshing update, let me remind you of an incident from July when we shared news about the unexpected disappearance of old PS3 avatars from users’ accounts. Guess what? Many of these much-missed avatars have now made their comeback!

It’s confirmed that we can reacquire avatars, including those for characters like Kung-Fu Rider and others from the previous generation. Although we won’t be using them, it’s satisfying to know these relics have been brought back legally. (We did pay money for some of them after all.)

The problem you’ve encountered with the Japanese company appears to be ongoing while they work on a solution, but rest assured, it seems like they are making progress towards resolution. Hang in there, good news might be just around the corner!

For more than ten years now, if you’ve been making purchases from the PlayStation Store, chances are you recall an era where you could buy personalized avatars for your PS3.

Originally, this feature was changed so that players could set their profile picture freely, but Sony continues to offer support for the original PlayStation Network avatars. On rare occasions, Sony issues free redemption codes for these classic avatars, as demonstrated by the Ghost of Tsushima anniversary celebration.

Indeed, while examining, we found some individual instances where players expressed concerns about losing their previous PS3 avatars. Curiosity piqued, we delved into the matter and, indeed, discovered that these avatars were no longer present.

Back then, we purchased several avatar characters for the PS3, like the ones for Kung-Fu Rider (do you recall that?) and PAIN. Now, we can’t seem to locate any of these in the Premium Avatars section on our current PS5 system.

We’ve got a lot more avatars available for selection, and honestly, we didn’t intend to replace our Demon Slayer one. However, it’s intriguing to notice that the older profile pictures are being phased out.

If you’re continuing to use your previously bought PlayStation 3 character model, it should function as intended. However, please be aware that altering it may lead to potential loss of access to it in the future.

It’s quite possible that this issue isn’t deliberate and it might be due to the aging hardware of the PS3. Regardless, we won’t make a big fuss about losing a JPEG purchased more than a decade ago for a small amount of money.

Some users report that their purchased PS3 avatars are still visible, but it seems our access to them (for now) might be temporarily unavailable.

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2025-09-07 01:07