Sony Rolls Out PlayStation 3 ‘Save to Cloud’ Feature

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Want to backup your PlayStation 3 save games online? Now you can, courtesy of a “cloud” data synchronization option Sony’s about to roll out exclusively for premium PlayStation Plus members. The feature should drop tomorrow with PS3 system update version 3.60.

You’ll need to shell out the annual $50 PlayStation Plus fee for the privilege, of course, but if you’re game (or already enrolled), the new feature lets you sync your PS3 save data with Sony’s backend servers. I mean “cloud computers,” because it sounds cooler.

The upside of online backups are twofold: Protect your save data from critical system failures, and access that data from any PlayStation 3. If you’re traveling between systems, say yours and a friend’s, no need to copy the data off to a storage device like a hard drive or USB memory key. Just grab your games, hit the road, then access your data remotely on another PS3 by signing into the PlayStation Network.

Sony says it’ll offer gamers up to 150MB of data and 1,000 save files per account, which ought to be plenty, but the big news is probably the feature’s ability to backup “copy-prohibited save data.” Certain PS3 games create save files that can’t be copied for reasons I’ve never fully understood. If you’ve ever attempted to migrate your copy-locked Assassin’s Creed II or Demon’s Souls save files from one system to another, say upgrading from an original “fat” PS3 to a slimline new one, you’ve felt my pain.

A caveat: You can only restore previously saved data once every 24 hours. The time limitation’s probably designed to ease the strain on Sony’s PlayStation Network servers, but just remember, no peripatetic gaming, i.e. bouncing back and forth between PS3s in a single day cycle, for you.

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