UMD Passport program not coming to North America

Sony informed Kotaku today that the UMD Passport program, first instituted in Japan, would not be available for North American users.

This program allowed gamers to put UMD games in their PSPs to register them, then download them at a discount on the Vita.

Unfortunately, this means that when Vita launches in North America, you’ll have no way to play the UMD games you’ve collected over the PSP’s lifespan — and you’ll have to keep your PSP if you ever intend to play those games again. Any PSP games you’ve downloaded/purchased digitally will still be available.

No reason has been given (as of yet) for not offering the program. It’s possible that, for some reason, it’s just not popular and therefore not worth offering in the U.S. and Canada.

Does this change your opinion of the device? I’d say I was bummed out, but I never owned a PSP, so it doesn’t really affect me that much.