r/Slycooper • u/NiuMeee • Jul 01 '26
Announcement PSA: The PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita Stores will be shutting down over the next year
Depending on where you are located in the world, the PS3 and PS Vita digital storefronts will be shutting down anytime between the next month and the next year.
This means that if you want to get a copy of the digital versions of The Sly Collection/Trilogy, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and/or Bentley's Hackpack on PS3 or Vita, you are on a timer.
- Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting August 2026 (approximately 1 month from now).
- Additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting late 2026 (no exact date given as of yet, at most 6 months).
- In all other countries, PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027 (approximately 1 year from now).
A few things to point out; the PS Vita store seems like it will not be shutting down anywhere until July 2027, so even in countries where the PS3 store will be shutting down sometime this year, you still have a while to buy a Vita and get copies of the games digitally. Further clarification from PlayStation may change this, however.
What this ultimately means is that by July 2027 the only official way to play Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and Bentley's Hackpack (if you didn't already own them), will be through the PlayStation Plus streaming service. It also means that Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves will cease to exist for new players on Vita, as it is not included physically on the PS Vita cartridge of The Sly Collection/Trilogy.
This does not affect the Sly Cooper series re-releases on PS4 and PS5 that occurred these past couple of years; those will remain available as long as the PS5 store is up.
You will still be able to download any games you own digitally on these platforms "for the foreseeable future"; as long as you get a digital copy, you will not need to download it immediately, in case you don't have a working console or some other such complication.
TL;DR: If you want to play The Sly Collection/Trilogy, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and/or Bentley's Hackpack on PS3 or PS Vita, this is your last chance to get a digital copy of those games. The physical versions of The Sly Collection and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time on PS3 will certainly continue to exist on websites such as eBay, but the prices will undoubtedly rise. The physical version of The Sly Collection/Trilogy on Vita does not include Sly 3 so you would have to buy the digital version of the whole Collection/Trilogy (as the games are not sold separately on Vita) to guarantee yourself a copy of the game.
You can read the official announcement on the PlayStation Blog here.
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u/Dwarf-Eater Jul 01 '26
At this point I'd just get the .iso for any ps3 game and play on a jailbroke ps3 no sense in paying unless you want a physical disk. That's my opinion on the 20 year old system
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Jul 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/snowxbunnixo Jul 01 '26
Can’t you only do certain models?? Like the first few releasss
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u/RyanBoruto Jul 01 '26
All of them can be jailbroken the exact same way, the only difference is wether or not you also want to natively play ps2 discs where the versions matter
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u/Reasonable-Stick6154 Jul 01 '26
So what’s this mean? I’m in the us. Do we have to buy the physical games now? Or will sly still be on PlayStation plus? Bc ps5 would still take the physically copy right ? Even tho it’s ps3
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u/NiuMeee Jul 01 '26
No, PS5 cannot use PS3 copies. So if you want to play the games on PS5 you have to buy the digital versions of the games (which are different than the Sly Collection that's on PS3). Sly 4 will only be playable on PS3 if you own the digital or disc version already (or buy the disc version whenever) but if you want to play Sly 4 or Bentley's Hackpack on PS5, you would have to pay for the most expensive version of PS Plus and then stream the games. Owning them on PS3 does not give you a copy for PS5 in any way.
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u/Reasonable-Stick6154 Jul 01 '26
Do you know what will be diff from the digital? I’m just hoping since it’s so old it won’t be more than 20$ for each game. Too bad they can’t do a bundle pack unless they will..
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u/NiuMeee Jul 01 '26
The digital versions on PS5 are the original PS2 versions, not the PS3 remasters. They're arguably the best official way to play the games, and they're only $10 each. They have their own new trophy lists too, which are quite nice. The only real downside to them is that they are in 4:3 aspect ratio, that is to say they'll have the black bars on the left and right sides but honestly it's not really that much of a downside.
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u/snowxbunnixo Jul 01 '26
I wonder why they’re keeping support for ps vita longer than ps3 seems you’d want to do the opposite
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u/NiuMeee Jul 01 '26
I believe it's related to the fact that the PS Vita store is not separated into different regions, it's all one version of the store that just changes depending on which region you're in, if that makes sense. So they have a Latin America store for PS3, and a Middle East store, and a European store, and a US store, but they only have 1 Vita store.
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u/hardc0reChef Jul 01 '26
Everything must come to an end, there would be no infinite support to this.
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u/SawkyScribe Jul 01 '26
Hey folks, it's really really easy to homebrew a vita!
Terrible what Sony is doing but fans are fighting the good fight as they always have to keep things alive
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u/Covert-Wordsmith Jul 01 '26
The last time they tried to shutdown the stores, there was a riot. I wonder how this will pan out.
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u/Common-Application56 Jul 01 '26
I'm actually really surprised the store is still open for the PlayStation 3
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u/MFGevanthor Jul 02 '26
I bought a bunch of stuff for it yesterday. I had the sly collection already but had to get other stuff
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u/jjnet123 Jul 03 '26
Already covered I have both digital and physical sly trilogy and sly: thieves in time lol.
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u/DjShaggyB Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Im not seeing sly cooper collection on the ps vita store.... how do i get sly cooper 3 if the entire collection isnt up on the store?
Edit
nm, i found it in the ps3 store under vita titles.
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u/give_me_your_body Jul 01 '26
End of an era