Sony has confirmed that the UMD Passport offer, which launched with the PS Vita in Japan will not be available in the United States.
The service allowed PSP owners to pay a small fee and then download games they already own on UMD to their new PlayStation Vita.
Sony have given no explanation as to why the service will not be available. We assume this will also apply to Europe but we have no official word of that yet.
Source: Kotaku
tonyyeb
Booooo!
bunimomike
…bies
yogdog
Nom.
Youles
Its one thing to make that decision, but its another not to at least say why. A bit disappointing really.
Dwarfsmuggler
So first we find out the downloadable games will be overpriced in the U.S and now this.
Nice one Sony
Kivi95
It’s been said for a long time tht it would only be 10% cheaper.
Dwarfsmuggler
What about Uncharted? Why’s it good for one game but not for another
sparkyscrum
But some aren’t getting any discount like Uncharted.
lewis815
Because Uncharted is a very big title and I’m pretty sure they are aware that it well sell without a discount.
It’s nice that they are making things better priced on the store finally but I can’t blame them as a business for setting Uncharted at a price that suits them.
Dwarfsmuggler
But it won’t work. If it was chaeper to download I’d download it as I’m sure most people who are on the fence would. As it’s not i’ll go for the physical media.
shields_t
What a joke.
You would have thought they would be pleased to make a little extra revenue from people who bought UMD games ages ago. I guess maybe it hasn’t been particularly successful in the Japanese market.
Watchful
I’d have thought it’s more likely because of more legal hoops to jump through with more/different publishers being involved for the games.
Bladesteel
I wouldn’t think so. They could have done so for the titles they themselves own the rights to, and let other publishers decide for themselves.
I’m thinking they don’t want a deal like that to compete against sales of new Vita games. They really need the developers to make a profit to make the Vita an attractive device to make games for.
Smallville2106
Shame really. I suppose it’s a new system and a new generation so they want to be making bigger money on their new games and want them to be sucessful and selling.
yogdog
Makes sense from a business perspective, but I’d be feeling royally cheesed off if I’d bought a lot of stuff for a PSP.
Sympozium
While its nice to see that UMDs are vanished from Earth in favour for cartridges and digital, I don’t think its much of a big deal imo there’s only a few PSP games worth buying on the store for like £7.99.
Passport isn’t really a big loss for me.
SpikeyMikey23
I don’t feel so bad now that I sold my psp. if I still had it, then this news (if true for EU) would be very disappointing
Severn2j
Just another kick in the nuts by Sony.. As much I like the look of the Vita, Sony seem determined to put me off buying one.
JesseDeya
Wow, there is some classic Gen Y inflated sense of entitlement going on in this thread.
Bladesteel
I don’t feel entitled to this. The games still work one the PSP they were bought for, and they never promised me I would be able to play them on anything else.
However I do think that this is a stupid move by Sony. By allowing you to cheaply transfer your UMDs to downloads the Vita it would be a lot more attractive for PSP owners to upgrade. (But maybe I’m wrong and they’ll sell every vita they have the capacity to produce. In that case it makes perfect business sense)
Another thing is that these days international companies should expect a PR backlash if they offer something in one region that is denied others. If they can’t give the rest of the world the same deal it might have been smarter to not offer it to Japan either.