Sony explains lack of Vita UMD transfers for US, Europe

SCE Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida has provided info as to why Vita owners in US and Europe will not be receiving a UMD transfer program similar to the one Japan has in place.

Speaking with Wired, Yoshida cited two factors contributing to the decision: A more active market in Japan, and games generally running cheaper outside of it.

"The system has been introduced in Japan, where there is a much larger demand for PSP games," Yoshida explained. "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."

"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… Because people in Japan are not getting the digital copy for free, because it costs us money to develop and maintain the system so we are asking people to pay somewhere between $5 and $10 to receive the digital copy in addition to what they have on the UMD.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."

Yoshida concluded that with cheaper titles and much lower demand for PSP titles, there’s less demand to introduce the program anywhere outside of Japan.