Vita may not play Game Archive downloads

Attention potential PS Vita early adopters! Your game library just took a pretty big hit. As we all know, both of the Sony consoles available right now, the PS3 and PSP, have the ability to play Game Archive games. That’s what they’re referred to in Japan. Here, we like to think of them as PSOne Classics or TurboGrafx-16 ports. So you can hop on the PlayStation Store, pay between $6 and $10, and download some of your favorite golden oldies. That may not happen with the Vita.

Sony has a Japanese Vita FAQs website online now that addresses important questions. While it confirms that there is backwards compatibility with downloaded PSP games, it also has a teeny note at the bottom of the question that says the answer only applies to PSP games. It says it doesn’t include the Game Archives downloads. However, there may be some hope as Sony did say it will address the issue of all those PSOne and Turbografx classics you already own.

If this were a game of Battleship, then this news attack would have launched a direct attack on your cruiser.

You know what this means if Sony doesn’t give Vita owners PSOne Classics? There’ll be no Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Suikoden, Crash Bandicoot or any of those other awesome PSX games that have really held up well over the years. I’d list some Turbografx-16 games as well, but I never owned or played any games on that system, so I’m not terribly broken up by the prospect that they may not be available on the Vita.

In other news, Sony’s Vita FAQs does confirm that there will be a way for UMD-owners to prove they own a PSP game in order to get access to a cheaper, download version for their Vita. So yay for that.

Read [PlayStation Vita (Japanese)]