The day has finally arrived! Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time goes on sale today in North America. We are so stoked with how the game came together; this is a very proud moment for the whole team! The game is available at retail, and also as a download from PlayStation Network. You can get the PS3 version for $39.99, which includes the digital PS Vita version at no additional cost, or you can purchase the standalone PS Vita version for $29.99.

We are so happy that players can finally experience the joy of Salim al Kupar’s carpet ride and Tennessee Kid’s Crack Shot as they follow the gang’s adventure, twisting and turning through space and time. We love how the demos have been received by the Sly Cooper fans, but we have also loved watching a new, younger audience pick up and enjoy the Sly Cooper experience. It’s been hard keeping things under wraps for so long, but I can’t wait for players to uncover the latest plot twists first hand! Find out more in the launch trailer at the top of this post.

We are also pleased to announce the simultaneous arrival of the Bentley’s Hackpack, a new Sly Cooper companion game available for download on PSN! Based on Bentley’s hacking minigames from Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, the game gives players 60 totally new, controller twisting missions to take on, tons of nifty Sly Cooper loot to collect, and cameos from the whole gang, all wrapped up in Bentley’s signature arcade. We had so much fun making and playing the mini games in Thieves in Time that we just couldn’t stop and wanted to pass along the fun. The Bentley’s Hackpack is available today for either PS3 or PS Vita, for just $2.99. Purchasing either version of the game will allow you to download the game on the other platform at no additional cost. Check it out:

It’s been an absolute blast bringing Sly Cooper back and we’d like to thank PlayStation and Sucker Punch for giving us such an awesome opportunity!

Hello from Germany! I’d like to talk about the cool stuff we’re showing off at this year’s Gamescom for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

First and foremost, we’d like to introduce you to a new Cooper ancestor, Salim Al Kupar. You’ll meet Salim as Sly travels back in time to the enchanted world of ancient Arabia – a land of magic genies, flying carpets and lost treasures. Sly quickly discovers that Salim is nearing retirement and looking forward to taking a little break from thievery, but recent events have put an end to those plans! Now Sly and the gang will need to goad the slightly recalcitrant Salim back into action as they work together to restore his legacy.

We’re also giving you a look at a brand new mission in Arabia so you can see Salim in action. We find him on a quest to free one of the members of his band of thieves from a strange imprisonment. To do so, he must use his signature ability — the Cobra Climb. This technique allows him to rapidly ascend vertical ropes, chains or poles to quickly evade an attack. This comes in very handy as he makes his way through this snake-infested rug shop.

Something else that Salim puts to very good use in this mission is his own personal flying carpet! While Sly has the paraglider, Salim gets his own exclusive flying transport. The magic carpet gives Salim the ability to glide his way across gaps and evade his enemies with ease and Arabian style.

We are also showing off some unique cross-play features for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time that will utilize both the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStaion Vita versions of the game. We’ve already talked about the cross-save feature, which will use cloud saving to transfer your game from one device to the other. Here at Gamescom, we’re showcasing some pretty cool Augmented Reality features using the PS Vita system to help you collect some valuable items as you play through the PS3 version of the game.

While playing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time on PS3, you’ll need to recruit an assistant in your quest for collectibles, armed with a PlayStation Vita and the PS Vita version of the game. Following true Sly tradition, Thieves in Time is absolutely packed with stuff for players to collect as they tear their way across space and time, from clue bottles to treasure challenges, Sly masks to costumes; but sometimes these items can be quite difficult to locate. You now have a secret weapon! Using the PS Vita system as a set of X-ray goggles, you can look into Sly’s universe to help track them down. Simply point the PS Vita at the TV screen and press the button to lock onto the image, and the X-ray overlay will pop up and highlight all of the hidden treasures in orange throughout the world. The PS Vita player simply taps on the front touch screen to display a pointer on the TV that will show you where to look for the hidden loot!

You can also use Augmented Reality to help you collect ancient hidden art treasures as you play through the game. There are dozens of beautiful tapestries, paintings, mosaics and other ancient art works scattered through the game. You can use the camera on your PS Vita to snap photographs of these as a way to “collect” them and earn more money. Just point your PS Vita at the TV to aim, press the button to take the photo and bingo – Sly collects the loot!

When we started developing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time for PS Vita, we were looking to create these kinds of new and engaging ways to have the two PlayStation systems interact with another, but you would essentially need both versions of the game to truly experience the entire Thieves in Time adventure. So, we’re really excited about the promotional pricing announcement for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time that Sony made this week at their press conference. If you buy the PS3 version of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (through traditional retailers or via PlayStation Network), you will be able to download the PS Vita version of Thieves in Time from PSN at no additional cost. That’s a pretty awesome deal!

We’ll have lots more to come on the Sly Cooper front as we head toward our February 2013 release date. Even though Sly officially launches early next year, we are also still hard at work to make sure that everyone will still get a chance to play in the Sly Cooper universe this Fall – stay tuned for more news on that very soon!

First off, a look at new gameplay. As every Sly fan knows, Sly Cooper and Carmelita Fox have a long and torrid history — a history that’s destined to continue in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. The game picks up where Sly 3 left off, and Sly is feigning amnesia so he can be with the love of his life, Carmelita. But when he rejoins the Cooper Gang on their time-traveling escapade to restore his family’s legacy, you can be sure Carmelita will quickly become embroiled in their wild adventure.

Carmelita is radiant on the PS3, and the powerful graphics hardware allowed us to make her much more detailed and expressive than in the past titles on PS2. She is, of course, a fully playable character in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and so we also spent a lot of time evolving her gameplay. We have gone with a more precise over-the-shoulder aiming technique that allows players to lock on the targets quickly and easily. You can see how this can be put to good use in the multi-layered boss battle.

Now for more big news! Ever since we revealed the game, fans have been asking me about PS Vita, arguing that Sly would be a great game to take on the go. I completely agree…and I can now confirm that Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will be shipping this fall on BOTH the PS3 and the PS Vita, on the same day.

The portable version will contain all the same awesome Sly Cooper action you will find on the PS3 along with cool Vita-specific features that incorporate the front and rear touchscreens and motion controls. The game will also feature cross-save capability, so you’ll be able to save the game from either machine and then pick up right where you left off — whether you’re at home or on the go.

So there you go! We are thrilled to finally show Carmelita in action — she’s a big fan favorite and I know everyone will love how she looks and plays in the latest installment of the series — and to be announcing the PS Vita version of the game. It’s been a crazy ride over the last few months, but when we see the results we know it was worth it. :D So stay tuned for more PS Vita details including date and price coming very soon.

Thank you all so much again – keep the letters coming, everybody here loves to read them. 2012 will be a big year for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, so stay tuned!

Soooo I kinda let the cat out of the bag in one of my replies to a recent Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time blog post, but I thought I would make it more official here: The Sly Collection is heading to PSN as a PlayStation Store download! Look for all three full games to be available for download in the US on Tuesday, November 29th.

The Sly series is such a PS2 classic; they are still as much fun to play today as the day they came out. And in their new, remastered form, all three titles feature Trophies, wide screen HD running at a smooth frame rate (60 frames per second!) and they are all playable in stereoscopic 3D. You can purchase the Sly Collection for $29.99 or you can buy the individual titles for $9.99 each. Speaking from personal experience, Once you play one, I know you will want to play them all!

So if you have not had a chance to play the new Sly Collection on Blu-ray, or you just want to revisit your favorite boss battle in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus or finally complete all those Master Thief Challenges in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, then check them out on PSN on the 29th. But no stealing!!

BTW: If you are way ahead of the curve and picked up The Sly Collection on Blu-ray, don’t feel left out — the PlayStation Move-enhanced minigames are still exclusive to that version, so enjoy!

There is no better way to get in some excellent thieving practice in advance of next year’s launch of the fourth installment in the series – Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (short of breaking and entering your local mob run private art collection). You can learn more about Sly’s next, new for the PS3 adventure in my recent blog post, which shows off Rioichi Cooper, Sly’s playable ancestor in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Rioichi’s ninja mastey will make for some great sneaking techniques, so give him a look and let us know what you think!

When we played the old Sly Cooper games on the PS2, we loved the stories about the Cooper clan ancestors and their various thieving abilities. Something that is really exciting and fun for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is that you can not only travel back in time to meet these ancestors but you will also have the ability to play as the Cooper Clan ancestors! As you proceed through the game each episode you encounter features a new time period with a new playable ancestor. Each new member of the Cooper clan has their own unique and powerful abilities that opens up a whole new range of game play in the huge environments. This is one of the coolest aspects of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time – meeting these characters, learning more about them, and then getting to experience a whole new set of kick-ass game moves and skills that you have never seen before. Each time a new character in production comes on line and is added to the game, they instantly become my new favorite character of the series!

The first ancestor we want to show off is Rioichi Cooper, the master of the Ninja Spire Landing! We were introduced to him back in the original Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus and learned about his cool Ninja ability. Now, when you get to play as Rioichi, you will see how much more powerful the original master’s techniques are. For instance, by focusing his energy Rioichi can execute his Leaping Dragon Technique and span great distances between spires.

Rioichi, it turns out, is not only an uber-Ninja but is also the inventor of sushi, his famous restaurant providing the perfect cover for a night-stalking ninja thief. We really wanted to explore the character of each of Sly’s ancestors (they are all very different in both ability and personality), and this leads to some very entertaining dialogue as they meet and get to know their descendant and his crew. But of course, once Sly is united with his ancestor he becomes one of the gang, hanging out in the hideout ready to venture out for some Ninja Thieving fun at a moment’s notice.

Keep your eyes peeled for the December issue of Game Informer magazine, Tim Turi stopped by the studio last month and took a look at Rioichi in action so you can get to read about his impressions of the game there. Anyway, that’s it for now, but don’t worry, I will be back soon to talk about new characters and other cool stuff in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time as we head towards the new year!

In case you missed it last week, here’s a broadcast segment we did with the PlayStation.blog live from the SCEA booth on the E3 show floor. We knew Jeff Rubenstein was a big fan of the series and this was the first time he had a chance to see what we had been up to. He had a bunch of great questions for us, and a bunch more that we’ll be answering over the next few months!

Seven of us founded Sanzaru Games back at the beginning of 2007 and since then we have been hard at work, steadily increasing the size and quality of the games we work on. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will be our third game with SCEA; last year we released The Sly Collection for the PS3. It’s been great to work with the SCEA world class production team behind Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, inFAMOUS, UNCHARTED, Resistance and, of course, The Sly Cooper series!

We realized back in 2008 when we pitched the idea of working on the next Sly Cooper that it was a pretty crazy idea, but we absolutely love the series and are glad that once people saw our hard work they responded enthusiastically.

A question I was asked several times at the show was “Isn’t it a huge amount of pressure to take on such a big franchise like Sly Cooper?” I think my answer really sums up the spirit of Sanzaru: we are infinitely more excited about the fact that we are working on something as cool and fun as Sly Cooper and this excitement feeds on itself as people are constantly coming up with cool new ideas to incorporate into the game. So while I wouldn’t describe the process of making such a big game as easy we are more excited to see how it all comes together.

So thanks again for the support and stay tuned for more cool announcements about the game over the next few months!

It seems like E3 was just yesterday and I was rolling out details on The Sly Collection to you along with some screenshots. This time I am back with not only more screenshots but a very cool new video put together by my good friends at SCEA that re-introduces the story behind Sly Cooper and his gang. But, most of all, I’m here to let you know when you can purchase The Sly Collection: the game ships just under 2 weeks from now on November 9 for the totally sweet price of $39.99!

The Sly Collection is a single Blu-ray disc that includes all 3 of the original Sly Cooper games: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. All three games have been completely remastered to play back in widescreen HD and 3D.

But wait; there’s more! We are also including a set of 4 custom minigames playable with the new PlayStation Move in full HD and 3D. We wanted to add a little more multiplayer fun to the Sly Collection and with the advent of the PlayStation Move motion controller we figured this was a perfect opportunity. There are 4 minigames on the disk, one each for Sly, Bentley, Murray, and Carmelita. Each minigame captures an aspect of the character and presents it in a way that’s great fun to play with the PlayStation Move, but you can also enjoy with your DualShock controller. And of course like everything else in The Sly Collection you can play it all in 3D! (cue echo effect)

We at Sanzaru Games are all huge fans of the Sly Cooper franchise; it has been an honor to work with the super cool folks at Sucker Punch to bring the Sly Collection to you. Sly, Bentley and Murray are such great characters and the games have such a great sense of humor, we can’t wait to see them thrust back into the spotlight. So without further ado, check out the latest trailer and delve further in to the Sly Cooper legend!

The game will feature all three titles in the Sly Cooper series: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus; Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves and Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves. They have all been remastered in HD with up-rezed textures and full 16:9 widescreen rendering to deliver the most vibrant, crisp Sly Cooper experience yet. Sly Cooper 3 will also be playable using the latest 3D televisions, which are extremely cool — I wish there was a way to demonstrate it online, but I think the best thing to do is to swing by your local Best Buy (or whoever) and checkout a demo of the Sony Bravias. It is a very nifty new way to experience the game and from the moment you see it you will be hooked — I know I am! Players will also now be able to earn Trophies as they play through the games and yes, I can confirm officially that there will be three platinum trophies awarded, one for completing each game. We will also be adding a series of cool PlayStation Move mini-games to the collection. We’ll have more information on the mini-games in the coming weeks.

We are all big fans of the Sly Cooper series and the opportunity to work with Sucker Punch and Sony to bring the games to the PS3 is awesome. Sucker Punch created the amazing Sly Cooper universe and we have learned so much from working with them — their kung-fu is very strong as I am sure you can tell from the spectacular game inFAMOUS! The guys have been super helpful getting everything together for us to work on and things are coming along great.

So that’s it for now, we will definitely have more info on the game to share shortly, so watch this space!

Cheers,
Glen

P.S. Go try a 3D TV — they rock!

Seven of us started Sanzaru Games in January 2007 with a mission to bring together a group of talented individuals to share a common vision to develop fun to play, visually stunning and technically spectacular console games. Over the last couple of years the team has grown to nearly 30 and will continue to expand as more talented and experienced developers are drawn to the studio. The name Sanzaru refers to the famous 3 wise monkeys – the founding philosophy for Sanzaru Games is that great games are a function of good design, beautiful, clear visuals and a strong technology base to deliver these. Should any one of these three pillars be missing then the game will suffer.

We are all huge fans of the Ratchet and Clank series of games and when Sony talked to us about helping bring Secret Agent Clank to the PlayStation 2 we jumped at the opportunity. Insomniac has created one of the most awesome and enduring console game experiences ever and it has been an honor to help add to the series!

High Impact Games put together an awesome game and we wanted to make sure that all the great gameplay moments from Secret Agent Clank were preserved from the original PSP title. We have therefore focused a great deal of our time and energy on rebuilding all the levels, characters and effects to take advantage of the additional power of the PlayStation 2. Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea of the visual changes.

Also given the different controller we wanted to bring back the lock-strafe camera mode seen in previous games, since a lot of us have enjoyed using it to great effect to blow stuff up over the years! We hope you all have as much fun playing the game as we have had making it, and we look forward to working with Sony to bring you more action, adventure and blowing-stuff-up good times in the future!

Cheers,

Glen