
In case you missed it, Sony plans to shut down the PS Store for two of its older platforms over the course of the coming year.
PS3 and PS Vita will both close their digital storefronts, meaning you only have a limited amount of time left to make any last purchases.
Some games were only released on these platforms digitally, while others are either extremely rare/expensive to buy in physical form, or were never brought forward to PS4 and beyond. Simply put, a number of games will be impossible to get hold of after these PS Store closures.
So, with the clock ticking, here are some digital PS3 and PS Vita games we recommend you consider buying before it's too late.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of every game affected by the closures, but we may update this page to include more in the future.
Digital PS3 Games to Buy Before the PS Store Closes

- Awesomenauts ($9.99/£7.99)
- Blast Factor ($9.99/£2.49)
- Bomberman Ultra ($9.99/£7.99)
- Calling All Cars! ($9.99/£2.49)
- Costume Quest ($14.99/£9.99)
- Critter Crunch ($6.99/£4.99)
- Cubixx HD ($9.99/£6.49)
- Double Dragon: Neon ($9.99/£6.49)
- Echochrome 2 ($14.99/£3.99)
- Everyday Shooter ($9.99/£3.29)
- Faery: Legends of Avalon ($7.99/£6.49)
- Final Fight: Double Impact ($9.99/£7.99)
- Flight Control HD (£3.99)
- From Dust ($14.99/£11.99)
- High Velocity Bowling ($9.99/£3.99)
- Joe Danger ($14.99/£9.99)
- Joe Danger 2: The Movie ($14.99/£9.99)
- Linger in Shadows ($2.99/£2.49)
- Luftrausers ($9.99/£7.39)
- Lumines Supernova ($9.99)
- Mega Man 9 ($9.99/£7.99)
- Mega Man 10 ($9.99/£7.99)
- MotorStorm RC ($4.99/£4.99)
- Noby Noby Boy ($4.99)
- Pac-Man Championship Edition DX ($9.99/£7.99)
- Pain ($9.99/£6.49, avg. physical price: $50+/£50+)
- PixelJunk 4am ($9.99/£6.49)
- PixelJunk Eden ($4.99/£6.49)
- PixelJunk Monsters ($4.99/£3.99)
- PixelJunk Racers: 2nd Lap ($6.99/£3.99)
- Proteus ($9.99/£6.49)
- Rain ($14.99/£9.99, avg. physical price: $50+/£45+)
- Retro/Grade ($9.99/£7.99)
- Stacking ($14.99)
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People ($14.99/£11.99)
- Super Rub 'a' Dub ($6.99/£3.99)
- Super Stardust HD ($9.99/£6.49)
- The Last Guy ($9.99/£3.99, avg. physical price: $50+/£40+)
Digital PS Vita Games to Buy Before the PS Store Closes

- Dokuro ($2.99/£2.49)
- Don't Starve: Giant Edition ($14.99/£11.49)
- Eufloria HD ($14.99/£7.99)
- Frobisher Says (Free)
- Luftrausers ($9.99/£7.39)
- Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken ($6.99/£5.09)
- Severed ($14.99/£11.99)
- Silent Hill: Book of Memories ($29.99/£12.99)
- Superdimension Neptune VS SEGA Hard Girls ($19.99/£34.99)
- When Vikings Attack ($9.99/£3.99)
When Do the PS3 and PS Vita PS Stores Close?
Per the PS Blog, here is when these consoles will lose their respective PS Stores:
- Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting August 2026.
- Additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting late 2026.
- In all other countries, PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027.
How Do You Buy Games on PS3 and PS Vita PS Stores?
Unlike more modern consoles, buying games via the PS Store on PS3 and PS Vita cannot be done using typical payment methods. You cannot directly use debit/credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and so on.
However, you can still make purchases by adding funds to your PS Store wallet. Once this is done, you can use the money in your digital wallet to complete transactions and buy PS3/PS Vita games.
Here's how to do it.
Browser
- Log into your PlayStation account via the PlayStation website.
- Access the PS Store. Click your profile picture in the top-right and select Payment Management.
- Click Add Funds. Choose a payment method, then how much credit you want to add to your wallet. Click Add Funds again to complete the transfer.
PS5
- Log into your console.
- Go to Settings > Users and Accounts > Account > Payment and Subscriptions, then choose Add Funds.
- Choose a payment method, then how much credit you want to add to your wallet.
- Click Continue, then Yes to complete the transfer.
PS4
- Log into your console.
- Go to Settings > Account Management > Account Information > Wallet, then choose Add Funds.
- Choose a payment method, then how much credit you want to add to your wallet.
- Click Continue, then Yes to complete the transfer.
Will you be making any last-minute purchases on your PS3 and PS Vita? Tell us in the comments section below.





Comments 69
With fewer options to obtain games legally, non-legal options become more and more attractive.
I wonder of this article's title is indicative of how effective the "PS should keep physical" is going to be...
Sad times. So what will be the only way to preserve these games other than buying a million memory cards ? I suppose it won’t be possible ?
Laughs in homebrew ps3/vita
As I PS3 owner, I can tell you these psn prices are NOT sale prices.
In case someone doesn’t know, Sony stopped putting PS3 games (on psn store) on sale around 2018.
I'm sorry. The last thing I want to do right now is give Sony more money for digital games.
I know this isn't actually saying to buy more digital games and push those digital sales numbers up , at a time like this !? 😂
I recently purchased the DLC packs for ridge racer vita via the PS3 store as there’s nowhere else to get them from. We are going to lose so much stuff
@pepsilover2008 can you still sign into PSN using this and sync trophies ?
I would like to add Yakuza 5 on PS3 top game.
This is why Sony's all digital future is not good.
@MrStark oh yeah I went on there for DLC stuff for games I already own and the prices of games are literally insane on there lol
@B_Lindz That's fine. We're just sharing a list of games that aren't available anywhere else. This is your last chance to get these.
Can someone remind me what happened to the 3DS shop?
In addition to the digital only games, for fans of older JRPGs this is the cheapest you'll find Xenogears or Persona 2 (among many others) anywhere.
There's no telling when or if the original versions of some of these PS1 JRPGs will ever be offered again. Hop on them while you have the chance.
@Oram77 It closed. And now there's plenty of games you can't get any more.
@RainbowGazelle Thank you
How long have people had to buy these games? 20 years lmao
If you already have them they still work , and can still be downloaded
@Anthony_Daniels that doesn't fit peoples fake out rage narrative
Drakengard 3 and Siren Blood Curse are essential for those who, like me, love strange Japanese stuff. The former is absolutely worth checking out if you're a Nier fan and can stomach a technical ***** show. I love it. Awful, strange, perverse, but an ultimately fascinating game.
Siren isn't as good as the PS2 titles, but it's an early example of episodic gaming in the AA HD space and does some cool stuff. It's now expensive physical.
There's also some banger PS1 titles to grab like Silent Hill 1 and Breath of Fire IV. Obviously you can emulate these, but they're cheap here.
Oh, and God of War HD Collection 1 and 2. C'mon!
Ah, and Persona 3 FES. And Rain. And Puppeteer. And Ico HD.
@GamingGod Nope, but i'm not really a trophy chaser tbh.
+1 for Drakengard 3 for PS3. Although, research it first.
@get2sammyb thanks for the list. One thing that comes to mind in our digital future are the many PS3 games that we bought digitally years ago and now can't access unless we have a working PS3 console. Will Sony fix PS3 emulation on the PS5 and allow us to download and play our purchases?
well, another reason why an all digital future sucks. And it's not just the fact that many of these games are going away forever - it's also the fact that there has not been a sale on Vita or PS3 in what, 8 years? Completely controlled by Sony. You want a 15 year old game, there it is for £30 or £50.
Removed - flaming/arguing
@pepsilover2008 ta for the info bud
I tried to buy Legend of Dragoon, but it seems that Sony have removed all the PS1 classics from the store without telling anyone. Maybe they did it ages ago and I missed it.
I can still redownload Silent Hill and Suikoden 1&2 though, which I bought previously.
Removed - flaming/arguing
What's the point of buying them if you don't own it. Just get yourself cracked console and install them from the ship
Physical the way to go on PS3 even if some of the best games are pricey or about to be even more pricey than before especially if there wasn't many physcally made for certain games, same with PS4 very soon I bet. Weirdly picked up the less superior versions of Evil Within and Far Cry 4 on PS3 recently, just felt like it even when already enjoyed the better PS4 versions before. Luckily held onto a few 3rd party and nearly all 1st party games physically for PS3 and 4. Best to get them physically now just incase go up in price more
Edit exact same can be said about physical PS5 games
i still use my ps3 online so i cant use emulators
Just hoping able to earn trophies on PS3 for many years to come even if have to get a new battery in the DualShock3 or replace the CMOS battery at some point
Id like if you guys added to this article with all the games affected by the closer.
I would add: Bionic Commando Rearmed 1 & 2, Rocket Knight, Castle of Illusion, DnD - Chronicles of Mystara, Hard Corps - Uprising, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 & 2, Gunstar Heroes, Soul Calibur 2, Rayman 3, Oddworld - Stranger's Wrath, Prince of Persia trilogy, Ratchet - Gladiator, Call of Duty Classic, Medal of Honor trilogy, RE4, God of War - Chains of Olympus & Ghost of Spart.
PSP/Vita/PSTV: Muramasa Rebirth, Adventures of Mana, Ys 7, MGS - Portable Ops, Prinny 1 & 2 | JPN exclusives: Shining Hearts, Strike Witches, FF Reishiki (Type 0), Tales of the World - Radiant Mythology 1-3
I would pass up on all the PS1 classics. Back in 2010, they might've been appealing, but the emulation is just too bare-bones at this point. Go with DuckStation or ODE.
The JPN Store has a nice selection of PC Engine games (with save states), but unless you can put up with some noticeable input lag, there's no need to bother.
Removed - flaming/arguing
I don't know about Vita EU store but i think the US store search feature is broken. I tried searching Mega Man, FF, Ys etc but they didn't appear. Although they still appear from PS3 store.
@Anthony_Daniels
Most of these aren’t 20 years old. But thanks for drawing attention to the disparity between the lifespan of digital games and the lifespan of physical games. If I want to buy a physical game from 20….30….40 years ago I can do. Yet soon nobody will be able to buy these games. They will literally disappear. Impossible to see how that’s a good thing.
This just reinforces how this is my least favorite console generation by a huge margin. I’m aware tons of stuff has already been delisted, but there’s extremely little on this list I’m even remotely interested in. Something got lost in the post PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation, and it hasn’t really been reclaimed yet. I long for the days when games were just games and not some vehicle for trying to either make a sale or make a statement.
Should add suikoden 3 to that list
Bought everything i wanted, but Dead space 2 DLC will be my last purchase, and maybe metal slug anthology for PSP to play it on PS VITA.
Removed - flaming/arguing
@electrolite77
You're in an incredibly small minority im afraid, no business of even medium size is gonna bother to cater to
Not many people are buying copies of return of the king or need for speed underground 2 off eBay because there's no legit way to play those on modern devices.
Just as such not many people would go out and buy fat princess if disc copies existing on eBay . It's all very well saying preservation but it's business not a charity museum these companies are running, no ones buying it,.sega are not paying millions to Disney or Ferrari so they can bring back out star wars trilogy or outrun 2 for the sake of game preservation. It's just business, and that's where emulation comes in to cater to this very small but noisy audience
Sorry it's all very well and romantic and cute but business study data and see the trend, they're not actively trying to kill themselves.
And I'm not gonna be overly misty eyed and pretend it's a big deal for me that I can't turn on my PS3 and buy somethin I never had intention of buying digitally when it came out or the decades since before the store was closed. Its fomo nonsense
The only issue I have with this whole thing is how/if ps5 and PS4 discs will carry over to the PS6 or we'll be asked to leave those stuck behind, that's an issue.
But it's a progressively dull conversation this digital debate . Won't be engaging in it anymore
Good day sir
Could you guys review PixelJunk Eden 2 on ps5, which was released recently? You recommend PixelJunk Eden from ps3 - I played the original & it was amazing, how does the second game hold up.
Aren’t we supposed to buy physically, i’m confused…
Tokyo Jungle is worth grabbing
Ah dang, why does Mexico store have to close so soon? Now I need to buy a few dlc for some games I have.
Wish we got one last Big sale for these stores.
@MrStark
Yep, that's definitely the rub for anyone who is reluctantly resigning themselves to considering a big "stock up splurge" before the shutdown.
Some of the prices are after a price drop in a few cases, but otherwise still lots of full price games on there.
I myself will have to think about it and see what I want to grab before it's too late. That said, I will probably hunt a lot of discs, ironically, before overpaying for the PSN versions. Vita on the other hand........
I guess once it's closed, piracy will become perfectly acceptable. We'll just call it preservation.
Any chance you'll give us a preservation tutorial?
@twitchtvpat
I wouldn't call it fake outrage and calling out store closures like this is more important then ever with the recent news that came alongside this.
Making light of it and calling out those who are showing concern helps nobody.
@Anthony_Daniels
That’s a lot of words to say ‘I am more interested in my chosen profit driven multinational corporation and their skewed justification for a business move that will actively hurt consumers than I am actual video games.’
@Max_the_German nope. If you can't buy something legally, you're not suddenly entitled to it. Buy something you can.
Now if you buy something and they remove it from the store, then finding other ways to acquire the product you paid for seems right and should be (if it's not already) completely legal.
@Anthony_Daniels Of course PS4/5 discs won't carry over to PS6. Sony's not running a charity after all, in your own words. 😉 Maybe stop gloating and realize why the death of physical media is such a big deal. To pay more money and receive Less features, in other words to willingly kneecap oneself, makes no sense. And the people who defend the corporate juggernaut f-ing them over makes even less sense.
Severed is excellent on the Vita. Drinkbox made it for Vita first and it shows.
@naruball "Now if you buy something and they remove it from the store, then finding other ways to acquire the product you paid for seems right and should be (if it's not already) completely legal."
It's not already legal. The StudioCanal example from last week - if you paid for those you were only buying licences that are revocable at Sony's discretion.
This is the possibly worst case scenario in an all-digital future that I don't think Sony's defenders on the physical thing are paying attention to: Let's imagine Publisher X wants to remaster Game Y, when they launch Game Y Remastered, they could cancel Sony's licence to make the Game Y available (not just for future purchase, but also for download to customers who have already purchased Game Y, as StudioCanal's example shows). If you wanted to play Game Y again, the only option would be a new purchase of Game Y Remastered.
It's not an unfeasible situation. On PC a similar thing happened with games like Warcraft 3 where the original was taken off of stores and couldn't be bought once the Reforged version launched. It's just one small enshittification step to make it so the original cannot be downloaded at all, forcing players to buy the new product if they want to keep playing.
These games have always been digital and you’ve had decades to buy them. I stopped buying discs many years ago. As have most people.
@StrickenBiged yeah, that really sucks and I don’t see any way to stop it from happening. Not enough people are speaking up. But something tells me they’ll be complaining about it when it starts affecting them
Thank you for the list! I’ll have to look through the list later.
Could you do a list for DLC and ps1/ps2 classics? That would be very handy.
Given they are closing the store I wish they’d give it a send off, maybe one last update to make it work and a blowout sale.
Why would anyone spend money on this knowing they can revoke the license any time they want? As if they demonstrated they can be trusted 🤣
The biggest BS about the PS3 & Vita stores over the past.......???....decade or so is that there's never any sales. You're locked into full MSRP for games that are generations old. And don't tell me there's no way for $ony to put these games on sale or somthing to that effect. This is a prime example of just one reason why $ony getting rid of physical games is an absolute slap in the face to their consumers.
Speaking as someone who owned two Vita's, if everyone had been as keen to put skin the game and actually buy a Vita, as they are to complain about this (not so much on this site but all over the web), the Vita wouldn't have flopped in the first place.
@Old-Red I am in a different region than you but I found that searching the genre collections (so RPGs) pulls up the classics games. Bought a bunch of ps1 and ps2 games today. My plan is to camp on a genre, and buy until I run out of games that I want and then move on to the next genre. I will also be upgrading the hard drive at the end of the year.
On Topic: I am more miffed that there are way more classics games than I realized. Many that I paid more buying physical or won’t buy because physical is too high. Hate to say it but this notice has been good for me. I’m either filling in library gaps or getting cheaper backups of physical games. After going through the store it looks like most of the games I need to buy are classics anyway.
I am proud to say that I own many of the games on this list.
A great list! Thanks for compiling it, it's extremely useful. I think I own a lot of these so I'll just make sure I back them up and have them on hand. Some absolute gems in there
Think I already have most of the games I want for these two systems, the ones I don't can, fortunately, be bought physical, which I prefer anyway. Definitely going to be looking into some PS1 and 2 classics on PS3 (if they're still there) and DLC I haven't bought yet for some games I own.
we need a DLC list as well
I also recommend getting Soul Sacrifice Delta, though unfortunately the free DLCs are unattainable due to the servers shut down (unless you try to emulate the game, of course)
Played the demo of Soul Sacrifice and it was something. It was alright.
I'd been waiting for the Neptunia Noire tactics games to come to Switch but nothing yet so I'll get it on Vita instead then.
That or maybe buy the digital versions of the Ratchet games, Sly I already have Jak on PS3 digital not physical and not the Vita versions.
I'll look at what's there.
I don't expect Alice Madness Returns syncing with the original Alice to be there so what do I expect in some cases of games like that not much.
Utawarerumono isn't there so can't that either. Got them on PS4 instead.
I'll look into whatever PS1, PSP and Vita games i can and move on. PS3 I want to but I have to hook mine up for PS store as haven't it's an offline system right now.
Got a year so that's something but sad for other countries of course.
Dear friend @B_Lindz
Can not agree more...
Thank you.
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