Kojima announces 'Transfarring' cross-platform saved-game system

It was widely reported before Konami's pre-E3 event yesterday that Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima won't be appearing at this year's expo. While that still seems to be the case, Kojima did reveal some interesting information at the end of the presentation (via pre-recorded video) about a new cross-platform saved game sharing system called "Transfarring."

In a nutshell, "Transfarring" will initially allow players to transfer saved-game files back and forth between the PSP and PS3 consoles, enabling them to progress though games using a single save file. The process is quick and straightforward, simply requiring users to connect the two devices with a USB cable. The example of "Transfarring" shown in the presentational video only took about ten seconds to migrate a save file between a PSP and a PS3.

Once the service launches, Kojima revealed that the next steps would be to add PlayStation 2 and Sony's next-generation portable to the "Transfarring" loop. In the case of select Konami PlayStation 2 titles that have PlayStation 3 counterparts, players will be able to use "Transfarring" to transfer a save file from the original game and continue playing on PlayStation 3, and vice versa. Kojima said that the ultimate goal is to develop new PlayStation 3 titles specifically with "Transfarring" functionality in mind.

Sony has already launched cloud-based saves for PlayStation Plus subscribers on PlayStation 3. While Sony's cloud-based save system currently just allows players to easily transfer saved data between different PS3 consoles, it also seems like it would be a more convenient way to share saved-game data between multiple platforms than "Transfarring's" wired approach. For multi-platform gamers though, the real benefit of "Transfarring" will be how it will tie Sony's different consoles together by making save files act in a platform-agnostic way.