back to article PSP owners must pay to port games to PS Vita

Sony has released details how PlayStation Portable users can continue to play their UMD titles on the upcoming PS Vita. Of course, the Vita lacks a UMD drive, so to play the old titles, Sony has come up with a device called UMD Passport, set to launch in Japan on 6 December and presumably over here in February 2012 when the PS …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Llyander
    Thumb Down

    Well no, not really.

    Unfair? Perhaps. Unexpected? Not at all. Isn't this what happens most times you buy a new console? Companies, especially Sony, seem less and less interested in any sort of backwards compatibility unless it's an excuse to make money.

    Look at the games on the PSN, or on XBL for that matter, allowing you to pay even more money to play older games on your shiny new system. Hell, MS even charges you to port your saves from your old 360 to one of the new Slim ones, so frankly this is par for the course.

    1. The Indomitable Gall

      The difference is that PSN and XBL don't know that you already own the games, so it's sold as a new game purchase and it's left to the purchaser to decide whether the convenience of the format-shifting justifies the price.

      In this case, Sony know categorically and beyond doubt that you do indeed own it already, and is setting the price for people who already own it. If it was an invariant £1 token fee, that would be one thing, but £19 as a reissue fee is preposterous.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Indomitable Gall

        those are for Japanese releases, and it not for all of them. The publisher (not Sony) will decide how much to charge for the digital copy (if at all). By Japanese standard, 19 quids isn't a lot for a game, and I did read in another article (else where) that the price is lower then that for many games (5 quids or less) only the big titles have gone higher then that.

        The price of 19 quids is the upper limit of the price, I don't know of any game that have gone / will go that far! The highest that I can find is P3P and it priced at US$ 19 (again, Japanese price).

  2. Richard Wharram

    Way to rebuild customer goodwill there Sony :)

  3. leon stok
    Meh

    rock<->hard place

    Free UMD via personal transfer would never make sense as an option.

    Since the UMD games do not have a serial code, you would get the game for every UMD you put in your PSP even if the same UMD has alread been 'converted'. I can see why this might not be an option.

    I was more hoping for an in-store trade-in option, where you put a UMD in a reader, log on to your PSN account, and the device shreds the UMD after successful activation. (or just hand them in and receive a voucher).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "in-store trade-in option"

      as long as that is an option and not the requirement I'll be fine. If Sony demand that we trade-in the UMDs, I would have protested this. I like to keep my games with me, even if I have no further use for them.

      I still have my PS1 games even though I re-purchased the digital copy on PSN (FF7,8,9). I still have my HL2 disc even though it have been activated it on Steam.

      Any way, can you imagine the logistics of trying to ship and process all the UMDs that have been sold? If they are to be traded-in, then they will end-up being sent back to Sony for disposal. Imagine the mess this will create!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can understand "why" they will do this

    as I wrote elsewhere, I can understand why they would charge for the digital copy. The PSP games didn't require any kind of serial number for you to be able to play them, and each disc is not uniquely identifiable. So to stop everyone from _sharing_ their PSP games with everyone else, this is the only alternative. (note, nothing is stopping the gamer from sharing the game anyway or selling it after getting the digital copy).

    My biggest concern is, what about the people that imported Japanese games, how will we get the digital copy? Those games are not available in the US of EU PSN, and creating a Japanese PSN account for the sake of getting those games doesn't sound practical. Plus, the PSP suffered from a simple flaw, it did not support multiple accounts, so gamers had to find a Wi-Fi or use MediaGo to switch between accounts if they want to play a game from another region. If the PS Vita suffer from the same flaw, this would be problematic for people like me.

    Any way, I -for one- won't be throwing away my PSP just because I got the PS Vita, heck, I am thinking of getting the PSP-E to replace my -still good- 2 years old PSP-3000. So beyond worrying about how to get the digital edition of my Japanese imports, I am happy.

    P.S. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Sony announce -few month after launching the PS Vita- they they sold more discounted _digital_ copies when compared to the actual UMDs sold.

    forgive my EngRish

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "US of EU PSN"

      an embarrassing typing mistake, I read it as 'or' while proofreading the post

    2. chr0m4t1c

      It's even worse for early adopters, I picked up a PSP in Hong Kong (because I happened to be there on holiday) before it launched in the UK.

      It plays UK UMD media without any trouble, but I cannot connect it to the UK/Europe PSN because it's not a European model and I can't connect it to the Asia PSN because I live in the UK.

      Don't you just love global companies? I like it best when they talk about being global, but carry on acting in a regional way.

      Mind you, as I haven't even powered up my PSP this year, I'm not likely to be getting a Vita anyway.

  5. CaptainHook

    Sony

    I'm still amazed people even buy Sony entertainment gadgets.

  6. Alan Bourke
    FAIL

    They can take this lark

    and their gouging proprietary Vita memory card format, and stick it where the monkey stuck the nut.

  7. Thomas 4
    Unhappy

    Listen, Sony...

    In other forums, I've been trying to tell people that mobile phone games won't wipe out handheld consoles and that they still have a good future ahead of them. Please stop making my job more difficult by doing dumb shit like *CHARGING PEOPLE FOR A GAME THEY ALREADY OWN*.

  8. Miek
    FAIL

    FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

  9. Joe Montana
    FAIL

    Screw the customers...

    It is behaviour like this which both fuels and justifies piracy..

    There is no way i would agree to paying again for a game i already bought, the mere suggestion is extremely insulting. Instead i would seek alternative methods to play the games, which nodoubt will be provided by a crack sooner or later.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Screw the customers...

      no one have ever promised you that the UMD games that you have bought for the PSP will be playable on another system. Yet Sony have made it work, with the limit being that the physical UMD itself can't be used to run the game on this new system.

      Any way, nobody is taking away your current PSP. Stick to it and stop making excuses for piracy.

  10. TS 1
    FAIL

    Fail here we come??

    Does Sony not understand the current situation in the games market? Does it want the Vita to fail? IMHO the cards are already stacked against the Vita due to the massive increase in phone gaming and this just sounds like another thing that will put people off buying the Vita.

    Yes I know games on phones aren't comparable for sheer grunt but casual gamers already having a decent mobile device that can play games well enough plus the constant increase in living costs and looming global downturn and depressed jobs market will make the Vita another purchase to many.

    This isn't the early 2000s, nevermind the 1990s when if you wanted to play games on the move then a mobile console was the only option. We all now have decent 'computers' already in our pockets with a possible tablet/iPad, an ebook reader and/or a laptop to cart around and a mobile console is just too much IMHO.

    I'm a PS3 owner and fan of Sony but I can't see myself getting a Vita except to play Uncharted: Golden Abyss and even then once it's finished will probably sell it due to money being tight and just not needing yet another device to complement the ones I've already got that do most of the same tasks.

  11. SpaMster
    FAIL

    Reporter fail

    How is this any different to buying old nes and snes games on the virtual console on Wii, we already own these games, but were willing to pay for them again to have it on our Wii.

    Calling it unfair? it's not really is it. I dont think nintendo would listen if you told them you had the original cartridge to Mario Brothers, so you dont have to pay for it for the virtual console would they?

  12. JeffyPooh

    Compare and contrast

    Apple's iTunes eco-system to the others (including Sony's). To give Sony credit, I don't recall having to purchase on-line credits as we *don't* do with the XBox.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like