THE BUZZ: At Sony’s Tokyo Game Show press event, SCE president Hiroshi Kawano hinted that the company might be looking for a solution to allow consumers who own PSP games on UMD to play those games on the upcoming PS Vita.

Yesterday, Japanese-focused website Andriasang posted information from a Japanese retailer who claimed to have been in attendance at a recent Sony-hosted Vita sales briefing. There, Sony supposedly had printed information detailing more about this idea, specifically in regards to how PSP owners would be able to play their current PSP library on the new hardware. Unfortunately, the contact refused to give those exact details, instead saying that the information would be released at a later date.

Following that, in an interview with Dengeki PlayStation, SCE development head Yoshio Matsumoto mentioned that the company is looking into possibly offering a service where UMD owners could purchase and download the game from PSN for a “special price”.

At this point, it’s unclear if the two ideas are related, or separate possible plans that Sony is looking into.

EGM’s TAKE: As somebody who owns a number of UMDs for games that will undoubtably never be released as digital downloads (due to being too niche), I’d love to see some sort of UMD attachment for the Vita. Sure, it’d be awkward to use, but it’d be nice to have it there for when I want/need it.

Barring that, even if it’s nothing more than being able to re-purchase digital versions of the games that are available for a discounted price, at least that would be something.

Source: Andriasang