When the PS Vita launched in Japan late last year, Sony introduced a UMD Passport service, offering new PS Vita owners the opportunity to bring over their PSP games via digital download for a small fee.

This service was not introduced anywhere else – and that’s for two big reasons, according to Sony’s game design boss Shuhei Yoshida.

“The system has been introduced in Japan, where there is a much larger demand for PSP games. When you look at the release schedule of new titles there are still lots of PSP games being released in Japan and being announced for release. Lots of people who are interested in trying Vita are also interested in playing PSP games that they might purchase before Vita comes out, and will not necessarily choose the digital version,” Yoshida told Wired.

“So there is a lot more demand to introduce a program like that.”

The other reason is apparently because PSP games are already much cheaper everywhere else.

“The other point is that when you look at PSP titles sold digitally in the States or Europe, games are sold for a really reasonable price. You can buy Final Fantasy Tactics for $10. That’s a great price. There are many, many games that are sold at an affordable price,” he explained.

“When you compare that to the price of games here, PSP games in Japan are sold at a much higher price, so people see the value in spending the $5 to $10 to get the digital copy. But when the games are already sold at a lower price in the U.S. we see less value in introducing that kind of system.”

So, basically, Japanese gamers pay more for their games, so they’ll pay more on top of that to transfer them to PS Vita, but Americans (and others) pay less for their games, so they won’t pay a bit more to have them on PS Vita.

LOGIC. Or something. What?

Related article

PSP UMDs not transferrable to PS Vita