Nice. Sony is smart enough to NOT unceremoniously kill off the PSP when the Vita launches in North America, but they are doing something about the rather massive stock of leftover PSP’s and first party UMD’s I hope every publisher with a decent PSP back catalog gets into. Three more UMD Dual Packs are headed to retail in January 2012 and all come highly recommended whether you’re a newly Xmas-gifted PSP owner or a die-hard with the 1000 to 3000 series that hasn’t yet played these gems. To those who somehow don’t know why Sony is still dealing with UMD’s with the Vita about to land in February, there are a few simple reasons.

Not everyone will run out and buy a Vita on day one and in fact, a LOT of folks will become new PSP 3000 owners this holiday season. It makes all the sense in the world to give those new PSP owners the chance to build their libraries at a great price (these Dual packs are supposed to retail for about $15 each) while also realizing that not EVERY new PSP owner will have access to PSN/PlayStation Plus.

Additionally, my own game retail experience tells me that many late adopters to consoles and handhelds are often families on budgets who also may not have high speed connections and/or willingness to sign up for a paid online account (or even a “free” account in some cases). You could say that both Sony and Nintendo at least have that advantage over Apple and other device manufacturers in that neither company makes owning an older product seem like its users are cave people if they don’t immediately rush out and spend more money on a new product with incremental upgrades (or elements that should have been included in the first place)