PSP UMD games to be playable on Vita

[Fabrizo]

From the-magicbox:

Sony announced that 600+ PSP titles will be playable on PS Vita at launch, although PS Vita does not have a UMD drive, as long as the you have the software on UMD, you will eventually be able to play back the games on PS Vita. Sony will announce official plans in near future.

engadget:

Sony said they are working on a solution to bring your old games to your new handheld, mentioning "special download plans" that they will discuss at a future point.

Will be interesting to see how Sony handles this.

[Chaosblade]

Really interested in this. I hope it's not something messy like "send us the game and we'll put a PSN copy on your account." Not sure how users can prove ownership unless UMDs have some sort of unique serial code.

Glad they are still looking into the issue though, it's incredibly lame to only support digital titles with backward compatibility since that screws most PSP users pretty hard.

[Nephlabobo]

If this is true, it would be appreciated - better than having to make us buy them all over again.

[Lumina]

I'm not holding my breath for this one, they had a similar announcement back when the Go was announced and look what happened with that. Still, if it does become a possibility without having to actually get rid of the games, I'd be extremely happy!

P.S. Why would you have to buy them all again? You could always KEEP your PSP you know.

[Chestnut Bowl]

Sounds good, hope it actually pans out. Much better than having absolutely no BC.

[Sgt Phantomizer]

Really interested in this. I hope it's not something messy like "send us the game and we'll put a PSN copy on your account." Not sure how users can prove ownership unless UMDs have some sort of unique serial code.

Yeah, the rational part of my brain was pretty much asking that just as soon as i read the thread title. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Megamixer]

Even if it does come to pass, SCEA will more than likely drop the ball. They buried the PSP not long after its launch. They've dug up its corpse a couple of times throughout the years then quickly sent it back down under. I've ripped my own UMDs of games that aren't on PSN (MMPU, PSP, SO1&2, etc) so I already have digital copies, though I doubt they would at all be playable on PSV So bring on official legitimate copy conversion please!

[Lumina]

Would be amazing if they sold a "UMD reader" of sorts that would connect to your PSV via USB to upload the games from UMD to digital on your PSV, but yea I don't know how they'd ensure that 10 people don't use the same UMD to upload the game.

[Chaosblade]

Assuming they do get something worked out, there is still the issue of games that aren't available on PSN. There are a lot of them. Considering they are looking into "special download plans" I wonder if they are going to make those available to the people who own them on UMD and get them verified in whatever manner they decide on, but they won't be available for purchase on the store.

Makes sense from a backward compatibility standpoint, but at the same time there are probably licensing issues in there, so we might still be stuck without those UMD only games.

The first quote is what really got me thinking about this, it seems like the UMD only games are being taken into consideration.

[Fabrizo]

I don't know how they'd ensure that 10 people don't use the same UMD to upload the game.

Somehow I don't think that possibility would really matter. Most people would rather pay a few $ to get the convenience of downloading it directly from PSN then always be bugging friends to let them borrow their games to rip. Its late enough into the systems life atp that those who want to pirate already are, and the rest aren't going to all of a sudden change their ways when the Vita comes out.