News: PS Vita PSP Compatibility Not Backwards In Coming Forwards

Many of us rolled our eyes when we saw Sony’s official list of PSP titles available on PSN that would play nice with the incoming PS Vita.  Sure, there were 275 of them, but no Peace Walker, Gran Turismo or Grand Theft Auto:Chinatown Wars?  Well, there’s some good news, thanks to the enterprising folks over at NeoGAF’s forums who have tested a veritable bevy of PSP titles on their Vitas.

The list of confirmed compatible games is given below, but you’ll doubtless be pleased to know that PSP titles such as MGS: Peace Walker, Gran Turismo, every Grand Theft Auto series and all of the NeoGeo and PC Engine/TurboGrafx titles will work with your shiny new Vita come February 22nd.

If you’ve already purchased a compatible title, then you can re-download them by leafing through the purchase history of your PSN account on your PS3 and then transfer it onto your Vita using the magic that is USB cables and  the Vita’s Content Manager application.  It looks like you can’t download titles that aren’t on Sony’s official list directly onto your Vita just yet.

The double-awesome news is that all PSP titles get a bit of a visual overhaul (thanks to up-sampling and the Vita’s colour space) and that you’ll have the option to map the right analogue stick to replicate the functions of either the face buttons or d-pad of the virtual PSP.  If nothing else, that should make the aiming in Peace Walker a tad more bearable.  You can access these tweaks by tapping and holding on the front touch screen whilst playing a PSP game.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling from me – and you’re probably infinitely more interested in seeing which other titles should work on the Vita:

Ape Escape on the Loose
Burnout Legends
Capcom Classic Collection: Reloaded
Capcom Classic Collection: Remixed
Capcom Puzzle World
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles
Crush
Field Commander
Gradius Collection
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Gran Turismo
Hammerin’ Hero
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee
Jeanne d’Arc
Killzone Liberation
Kururin Fusion
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars
LittleBigPlanet
LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival
Locoroco 2

Mercury Meltdown
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Patchwork Heroes
Persuit Force
PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient
Pursuit Force
Puzzle Quest
R-Type Command
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Rock Band Unplugged
Sega Genesis Collection
Silent Hill: Origins
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Sonic Rivals
Sonic Rivals 2
The Warriors
Unbound Saga
Valkyria Chronicles II
Wipeout Pulse
All Neo Geo titles
All PC Engine titles

Source: NeoGAF Forums

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Comments

  1. Now if they’d just get PSOne classics up and running on the thing, I’ll be ready for a spending spree!

  2. Darth Nutclench

    Great news Dan. Is there a fix for owners of Peace Walker on UMD? Or am I shafted?

  3. Unless you live in Japan, it looks like you’re stuck with your old UMDs – which you obviously can’t use in the Vita! 🙂

    The other real shame about UMDs is that they’re even too small to be useful as drinks coasters.

  4. Darth Nutclench

    I may convert mine into ungainly novelty cuff-links.

  5. Darth Nutclench

    I’m on it…

  6. Diarmuid

    I wonder would they ever think about releasing an external UMD drive for the Vita. Unlikely but…

  7. nitanoonoo

    Just purchased chinatown wars and unable to download on ps vita and i have no PS3!!

    Any alternative?

  8. vladzengic

    I never had PSP console and never owned an UMD and I dont have PSN account(yet)
    but being a huge GTA fan (god I hate this word “fan” we’ll have to come up with some better one it sounds like we’re some kind of idiotic patients XD) i really need to have GTA LCS,VCS and CTW on my PS Vita.
    so,can I just download them from PSN without having their UMD copies? tnx

    • Yeah, you should be able to download them to your PS3 (assuming you have one) and load them straight to a Vita from here. I just did that for GTA:LCS, VCS and CTW, and I haven’t had any problems with any of them. The only game that I haven’t been able to move onto the PSV is ModNation Racers PSP, but I still have my PSP laying around for the time being.

  9. Lukas Heinzel

    Hahahahaha, Vita 🙂

  10. Peter

    Hey I just bought Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for my australian ps vita and it does not work. Please tell me that there is a fix to make it run on the ps vita or did i just waste $12.95?

  11. Pat

    To the people asking about downloading games that won’t work on your Vita: I believe what the article says is you have to transfer the game to your Vita via a PS3. So download it onto your PS3 then transfer onto Vita. If you don’t have a PS3, you could either get with the program and buy one or possibly log onto your PSN account on a friend’s PS3, download your game onto it, then transfer (not sure if that works, I’ve never done it but you definitely can on 360). Sorry if I’m totally wrong. But I hope that helped.

  12. Comphead

    The list mentioned here IS UNSUPPORTED GAMES THAT WORK THOUGH A PS3, if you want any of these games on a ps vita you WILL NEED a ps3 to do the transfer. Many of these games will most likely be added to the ps vita store a a later date. Here is the link to the OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED games on PSN this list should be updated wen new games work. http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/02/09/how-to-download-psp-titles-to-ps-vita/

  13. milo

    please make sure that these games are absolutely compatible with the ps vita because all around im reading comments saying they downloaded the game on ps3, but when they went to download it on ps vita it didnt come up so im scared that i might do the same and waste money. please answer back immediately thank you.

    • Hey milo,

      The original list in the article was based off of Sony’s official list and a number of community posts over at NeoGAF from people who positively stated that they had got those downloadable PSP games to work.

      I can confirm that, from running them on my own Vita, the following work:
      GTA: Chinatown Wars
      GTA: Liberty City Stories
      GTA: Vice City Stories
      LittleBigPlanet
      MGS: Peace Walker
      Gran Turismo

      Sadly, since I’m restrained by the financial limits of my pay check, I haven’t been able to personally test all of those on this list. It goes without saying, however, that these games will only work if the PSN ID on your Vita matches the PSN ID that downloaded these games.

  14. Carl

    Can anybody confirm if these games still work even with the new firmware 1.81

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