Sony Introduces UMD-to-Digital Program, But It’ll Cost You

Meh. Sony have no obligation to make their new systems BC. They didn't (of sorts) with the PS3 and now everyone is releasing old PS2 games (with HD updates) for us to buy all over again. I don't see the problem. I will just continue to play my 50ish UMD games on my 2 PSPs and just buy new games designed for the PSV when I get around to owning one. It isn't like we are forced to buy the games again.

Honestly they probably don't care if you pass around a single used copy because you are paying $6.50-$20 for games that cost $10-30 new so to them it is basically a sale price where they get money that they probably wouldn't get anyway and with the reduced cost of digital games I am sure nothing would make the publishers happier than a bunch of people passing around a game and think they are getting one over on them while all the time probably making more profit on the digital version than they would the physical copy.

To play a game that I allready own, and can allready play on my psp, 20 dollars seems like alot just to play it on a slightly different handheld.

If there cheap enough (the digital versions), this seems like a good tactic to at least get some sort of revenue from some used game sales, or even convert some pirates if a used game + digital version is cheap enough.

@mariokart64fan said:

why are people complaining about getting a digital copy for free, you are not entitled to that, just play the game for the system you bought it for ,

Probably because this isn't 2007 anymore and companies should be far more open to letting users who have purchased their products play it across advancing platforms when the technology is there, which it clearly is here. Nintendo is by far the worst offender at the moment but clearly Sony hasn't gotten the message either.

Charging 20 bucks is a fucking joke. I could see paying a few bucks as a convienence charge, but even the 6.50 seems a bit high. Five bucks a game, no matter what the title, would be fair and probably still rake in a lot of money for Sony, who has to spend next to nothing for this service.

Well it sounds ok for the cheap games, but $20 just to turn something digital that you already own? What part of this is meant to discourage piracy? haha

Uhm... no thanks. I'll just keep my old PSP around for free.

why are people complaining about getting a digital copy for free, you are not entitled to that, just play the game for the system you bought it for , i thought vita ment new games you know what i say instead of whining about the vita how bout not buying one ? seams like the logical thing for you to do if it does not do somthing you want , thats like what many people who bought wii did- complain , and all i gotta say is, gonna complain dont buy it , end of story dont need to cry about it cause that aint gonna stop sony, microsoft or nintendo from charging , and like many has said just cause you bought the cd/umd version does not mean you get the dl copy for free , never worked that way , and im glad because you know what i dont want digital download for consoles, cause that will suck ,, -paying 60 freakin dollars with no manual or collection what so ever no thanks

@Sooty said:

@Captain_Felafel said:

So Sony is asking for money so we can pay them to move over content that we already paid them for? What?

Oh right, Japan. *Shakes head*

This isn't stupid because it's Japan. it's stupid because Sony. It's kinda understandable because they are having to pay to set up and maintain this service, but it would've been nice if they just provided it for free. Not much chance of getting free stuff unless your company is called Valve or CD-Projekt these days.

You do realize Sony doesn't own the publishing rights to everything ever published on a UMD right? Also that they didn't need to do this at all? Also you can keep playing the games you own on the system you bought them for? You could also sell your PSP games and use that money to buy the digital version.

So Sony is asking for money so we can pay them to move over content that we already paid them for? What?

Oh right, Japan. *Shakes head*

@Peanut said:

Fuck that. Paying $6-$20 for a game I already own isn't reasonable at all.

I bought Max Payne on CD Rom years ago. Therefore, Steam should let me have it for free!

I own a Super Mario Brothers NES Cart. The Wii Ware version should not cost me anything.

You own the UMD version. You do not own the Digital Version. Owning a CD doesn't mean you have the right to go on Itunes and download it without paying.

My suggestion is anyone that wants digital versions of these games should start hocking them on ebay and using the money they get from the sales to buy the PSN versions (or socking the money away to do so later). From where I am sitting, I see that i can buy a Vita, register my wife's copy of Darkstalkers and get that for my Vita on the cheap. Sounds like a win to me.

Well this doesn't fix my broken umd drive...or the fact that my favorite psp game probably still wont have a digital version anyway...eh I don't need a second stick!

@Vitor said:

@VinceNotVance said:

Not a bad idea. I have a small amount of I'd love to play on a Vita (mostly, Square's stuff like Crisis Core & Dissidia); it'd be nice not to have to dig out my PSP to play some games.

Doubt that one of my all-time favorite games, Chili Con Carnage, will see release through this program though, which kinda sucks.

Dude, that game was IMMENSE. Not perfect by any means but so much fun. Beating my score on each level and just doing crazy shit all the time was such a time killer.

Holy shit I remember that game. One of my best friend's barely plays and video games, but he fucking loved that game. I had it for Xbox and he played it every time he dropped by lol

I thought it was because Sony didn't have a plan like this in place that the PSPgo failed, not the other way around

Fuck that. Paying $6-$20 for a game I already own isn't reasonable at all.

Not to keen on paying more money to play games i already own, i won't do this.

i don't have to have that extra analog for the psp games i own, the only one that really benefited was the MGS PW one, they didn't really do shit with the GOW ones so i assume the 2nd analog wont even be an option which makes this sound even more ridiculous to me. To people who actually want this that's cool but i just don't have a need, i own 2 psp's and it's used to play psp games and vita will be used to play vita games. This would be like the 3DS not having BC with DS games and tried to pull this stunt, more people would be outraged but then again it's sony, this doesnt surprise me seeing as they ditched UMD with PSPGO and took out BC in the PS3s.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the 2nd PS4 model doesn't have PS3 BC.

I bet Sony WANTS you to hand those UMDs around- they've already been bought, and if they're getting another $6-$20 out of each digital download, that's just free cash.

Does this mean I will finally be able to play Kingdom Hearts and FF7:CC? I don't own any UMDs, and those games were only offered on UMDs.

@Captain_Felafel said:

So Sony is asking for money so we can pay them to move over content that we already paid them for? What?

Oh right, Japan. *Shakes head*

You did not pay for a digital license to a PSP game just by purchasing a UMD in the same way you did not pay for or receive a digital license to a downloadable version of Battlefield 3 just by buying a boxed copy of it for the PS3 or 360.

It's the same with Japanese games or Western games console & handheld, but you blame it on Japan due to some pretty obvious personal prejudices.

Why do people complain about the dumbest things...? You don't want to pay again? Fine, play the game on your PSP. That's still an option.

@gogobomb said:

why do they have to charge? they could easily let us do that for free

Sony cannot force publishers to let them give away digital licenses to their PSP games for free. That's why.

@Levio said:

Well then, I guess it's up to the users whether or not they want to pay Sony dollars for a process that costs less than a cent and gives them nothing they don't already have.

What is the conversion rate of Brad bucks to Sony dollars?

money money money

I don't see why anyone is complaining about the cost. Sure, it's $5, but you also now either have two copies of the game for multiplayer, or you can just sell the physical one and recoup costs.

It's more like buying games on Steam or GoG you already owned, but don't want to go through the hassle of getting to work on modern systems or going through a convoluted installation or activation procedure for, or worry about CD checks. Many people happily repurchase games on those services because it's so damn cheap and worth just knowing those old favorites are always going to be available. Same thing here. I've personally already started the process by repurchasing some games on sale on the PSN store that I owned hard copies of but were so cheap it was absolutely worthwhile, like Dissidia and Capcom Puzzle World.

...uggggh, as much as I'd like to convert my UMDs, I'm wondering why it feels like I'm basically REBUYING them! D:

Well then, I guess it's up to the users whether or not they want to pay Sony dollars for a process that costs less than a cent and gives them nothing they don't already have.

@Rattle618 said:

And people wonder why these assholes get pirated the shit out of them... they are basically making everyone buy their games again at a lower price. It`s disgusting.

Can't be worse than Nintendo basically making everyone buy their games again at a normal or higher price :-/

@msavo said:

Thank God. I have 12 PSP games that are digital, so they transfer to Vita seamlessly, and only two actual UMDs.Good thing those games won't be left in the dust, still have to beat Daxter.

Same for me, mostly because I came to the PSP super late. My UMDs are Rock Band and Birth By Sleep.

The PSP has some great games, if this encourages more people to check them out then I'm all for it.

It's not entirely the end of the world, but it still sucks. I think the fees are somewhat high, and you can bet SquareEnix is going to do that $20 transfer. But I'm going to only do it for the games I must absolutely have with me at all times, so nobody is forcing you to do your entire library (if it was available.) The fees seem to be a response to the idea that people will probably pass around a single UMD and have their friends get copies, it just insures that there's still revenue coming in from that, since you know people are going to do that.

I was excited about this because my PSP's UMD drive is going bad, but now that I have read the story, no thank you. I know that publishers want their money and all, but damn. I already bought these games once. I'm not paying for them again.

Well its nice to have the option. There are a few UMDs I might consider doing this for such as Jeanne D'Arc, this sounds like a better system to me then trying to mail your UMDs in or whatever bullshit but I can see why they are also charging for the service as it would be easy to exploit this system.

Kind of wish the low-end of that price range was a tad lower since that is no too far off from just buying the digital versions of those games but Japanese prices tend to be a bit higher and there absolutely no guarantee this is coming to North America. I mean ever since Sony Japan, America and Europe separated their marketing decisions a few years back we have been seeing some pretty different strategies from them.

why do they have to charge? they could easily let us do that for free

I wouldn't be surprised if they do nothing here.

I got a massive collection of UMDs from way back in the PSP launch period. Looks like I'll have to pick and choose the ones I'd like to transfer...

Where was this when the PSP GO came out?

It's a business, both Sony and the publishers need to make money. For example it was free I could take a friends game, which i don't own and never paid for, and put it onto my Vita system for nothing. Sony is losing money and the publishers are losing too. However I do feel the money value for the digital version is a little too high. Also you don't have to download ALL of your PSP games, only the ones you like the best. It not like your PSP is going to disappear once the Vita comes out you can still play those games.

@guiseppe said:

Should have been free. Or at least a small fee for the software and then the ability to transfer whatever game you may have for no cost.

It would make no sense to have a single, one-time fee.

The reason Rock Band has a single, one-time fee to import songs is that Harmonix knows exactly what songs are on say Rock Band 1, so you pay the $5, and Harmonix passes that on to record companies, because that money is basically required to update the license from "Harmonix may use these songs in Rock Band 1 only" to "Harmonix may use these songs in all future Rock Band games". So it ends up being a few cents for each individual song.

But you can't have that same flat fee for all your PSP games. It's the same thing, in that you're updating the license from "Sony may put this game software on a UMD" to "Sony may put this game software on a UMD and as a digital download". But in the Rock Band situation, Harmonix knew exactly what songs were in Rock Band 1, and which record companies would have to be paid. In this situation, some people may only transfer one game, some may transfer dozens, so setting a single, low fee likely wouldn't cover the re-licensing costs when you take into account how many publishers would need to be paid to account for the guys transferring dozens of games.

Paying on a game-by-game basis sort of sucks, but I'm pretty sure that's how Sony has to do it. Hell, you were paying on a song-by-song basis for Rock Band, but that worked out to the same fee for everybody because everybody's Rock Band 1 disc had the same songs on it.

"Or just wait until we start our PSP CLASSICS program and release them all for even more money. The choice is yours.~~"

@Captain_Felafel said:

So Sony is asking for money so we can pay them to move over content that we already paid them for? What?

Oh right, Japan. *Shakes head*

The money is going through Sony and they are facilitating the process, but the majority of it will go to the publisher. The variations in pricing seem to indicate that is who sets the prices.

I guess this could be viewed as a re-licensing fee akin to when Rock Band allowed us to export/import songs licensed from one game to another. Near the end of the article, Patrick points out a problem that I do not think they have a solution for, which is that a UMD can be registered to anyone since I am pretty sure they do not have a unique identifier. In that case, it makes sense that they would want to charge something. They aren't even obliged to do this program at all, but it is somewhat of a goodwill gesture to discount games they assume you own. That said, I do not think I'd pay more than $10 for a game I already purchased.

Well this is nice I guess. Can't say I'm going to throw money down for every PSP game I have just to play them all again on my PSP, but there's defiantly a couple I would like to bring over to Vita. Only thing I don't like is possibly being charged $20 to get a digital version of a game I bought (or being charged at all), but an option is an option.

@014 said:

Doesn't affect me since I don't have a PSP and am not planning on converting UMD's when I get a Vita.

Fascinating.

Not fond of having to pay, but if it means putting Tactics Ogre on my Vita I'll bite.

@014said:

Doesn't affect me since I don't have a PSP and am not planning on converting UMD's when I get a Vita.

Fascinating.

Should have been free. Or at least a small fee for the software and then the ability to transfer whatever game you may have for no cost.

So Sony is asking for money so we can pay them to move over content that we already paid them for? What?

Oh right, Japan. *Shakes head*

Well the price gap between games I guess is to put people off from buying the game pre-owned and then transferring it at a low cost instead of buying it full price from the store????

But then again does anywhere still sell PSP UMD games??????? :P

Rip off. Paying over $2 for a game I already own.

$6 is the low end? Wat.

It is nice of Sony to offer this, though those prices seem steep. The people that think Sony is forcing you to buy a game you've already bought are idiots. You can still play your UMDs on the system they were designed to be played on. The program affords you the ability to buy whole new digital versions of games for a cheaper price that can be played on the new hardware.