Sony has opted not to roll out the UMD Passport program for the PlayStation Vita. This news is a major blow to those thinking about purchasing a Vita.

The Passport program basically allowed gamers to insert UMD-based games into their PSN units and register them to PSN accounts. Once registered to their PSN accounts, they could then upgrade to the Vita electronic download version for a small additional fee. Sony has never said how successful in Japan this program was (or was not).

Originally, gamers were told that the Passport service would be a part of the PlayStation Vita launch when the handheld starts to arrive in North America on February 22nd. Now, Sony has backed away from that, has pulled the program and isn’t explaining why. As for the expected European rollout of the Passport program, we suspect that it likely isn’t going to be available there, either.

So, if you want to be able to use or play your old UMD games on your Vita, it looks like you will have to re-buy them. This is not the best news for the potential buyer or for Sony, as we do think this news will impact sales. If we were Sony, we would want all of the Vita sales we could get.

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