PS VITA: Sony Announce UMD Passport.

Sony have announced a new system that will allow you to play your UMD games on your shiny new PS Vita. Sort of. They have announced a program called UMD Passport, which will allow you to register your PSP UMD games to your PSN account, then download them to your PS Vita at a discount price, as can be seen in this handy picture below. As you can probably see, the process is rather simple. On your PSP you download the UMD Passport program, once you insert the UMD to the system you are able to register it to your PSN account following the on screen prompts. The game will then be available for purchase at a discount on your PS Vita. You will also be able to easily transfer your PSP saves to your Vita. This can be done through your PS3 or PC via the PS Vita Content Management program, with the PC however yo will need to install a program called "Content Management Assistant for PlayStation." The list of games set to be avaliable at launch over on the Japanese site, as seen over at NeoGAF, is looking promising.

Guilty Gear Judgment (Arc System Works) 500 yen Carnage Heart Exa (Artdink) 500 yen Pachipara Slot: Pachislot Super Sea Story in Okinawa (Irem) 1000 yen Akiba's Trip (Acquire) 1000 yen Last Promise Story (Image Epoch) 1000 yen Persona 3 Portable (Atlus) 1500 yen Metal Slug Complete (SNK Playmore) 500 yen Higurashi Daybreak Portable Me, Mega Edition (Create) 500 yen Atelier Viorate: Alchemist of Gramnad 2 (Gust) 1000 yen Shutokou Battle (Genki) 1000 yen Dynasty Warriors (Koei-Tecmo) 500 yen Dead or Alive Paradise (Koei-Tecmo) 1000 yen Colin McRae: DiRT 2 (Codemasters) 1000 yen Ever17: the out of infinity (Cyberfront) 500 yen Nanatama: Chronicle of Dungeon Maker (Gae) 500 yen Ginsei Shogi Portable (Silver Star Japan) 1000 yen Kuru-kuru Chameleon (Starfish SD) 500 yen Hot Shots Golf Portable 2 (Sony) 500 yen Patapon 3 (Sony) 1000 yen Gran Turismo PSP (Sony) 1000 yen Nano Diver (Takara-Tomy) 1000 yen Princess Days Portable (Takuyo) 740 yen Secret Room Sacrifice (D3 Publisher) 1000 yen Promise This Blue Sky: Paradise in Hand (TGR) 100 yen Everybody Read: Masterpiece & Mystery & Horror & Literature (Dorasu) 500 yen Disgaea 2 Portable (NIS) 500 yen Phantom Kingdom Portable (NIS) 1000 yen Tsuyokisu 2 Semester Portable (Netrevo) 500 yen Pachislot Simulator, Secret Treasure Edition: Sealed Goddess Portable (Paon) 2400 yen The Convenience Store Portable (Hamster) 1000 yen Unchain Blaze Rex (FuRyu) 1050 yen Neon Genesis Evangelion Battle Orchestra Portable (Broccoli) 1000 yen Kanon (Prototype) 1000 yen I Conquer the Path I Believe In (From Software) TBA Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl (Marvelous AQL) 500 yen Maikomi Best: Mahjong Champion Portable: Mahjong Club Battle (My Navi) 530 yen Memories Off (5pb.) 500 yen Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Ubisoft) 1000 yen Tenshin Ranman: Happy-Go-Lucky!! (Russel) 1000 yen Other supporting publishers: Idea Factory Capcom Gung-ho Online Entertainment Konami System Soft Alpha Square-Enix Spike Sega Sonic Powered Chunsoft Nihon Falcom fonfun Media-5

Now, obviously only a number of these titles will appear in the North American and European side of things, but with many more titles promised to be added to the list I imagine everyone will be able to get their game on the PS Vita. The only downside to this is that I can see is that with the process costing around £4 - £12, with that bound to change depending on the game, and the process needing a PSP and UMD version anyway, I'm sure a number of people will just take to switching consoles rather than pay the money. For me it will depend on the game, I can think of a couple of titles that I would transfer over, but most I wouldn't bother with.