When news leaked out that the PS Vita will be tied to just one PSN account, there was a huge uproar amongst gamers as it was effectively a region lock that will prevent you from enjoying content from different PS Store regions.

The PlayStation Portable had this limitation (sort of) but there didn’t seem to be a loud argument against it. While it is possible to use multiple PSN accounts on the PSP, you would have to activate the account that the PS content that you want to access (games usually) is tied to, something you’ll have to do when for each content with a different PSN region origin.

From Sony’s announcement at a press event in Manhattan, Sony associate brand marketing manager Crystal MacKenzie says that the PS Vita will support multiple PSN accounts –just not the same way the PS3 handles it. The caveat is that each account is tied to the Vita’s memory card.

“Your PSN ID is bonded to your memory card and your memory card is bonded to your Vita,” MacKenzie said. “So if you wanted to change different PSN users but use the same memory card, you would need to go factory reset.”

Customers will be able to swap cards to use different PSN IDs on the same system, MacKenzie said. If you have more than one memory card, you can register a different PlayStation Network account on each.

“You can also use them both on the same PSN account as well,” she said.

On the upside, it makes things a whole lot easier for PS Vita owners to manage their content as you basically need one card for each PS Store you want to access.

The downside? It’s a pricey alternative, considering the Sony’s pricing for it’s propriety Vita memory cards.

source Wired