Can I move saves from a Japanese game to another PS3?

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So you've been playing Japanese PS3 games on your American PS3 and now you're getting fancy and want to bring the game over to a friend's house and show off. Will this work? The answer is yes of course!

The PS3 is designed around USB connectivity. The controllers plug in through USB and you can also connect USB thumb drives and portable hard drives. This gives you the ability to copy game-play saves to an external device and transport it from one PS3 console to another, even for Japanese games!

Imagine you're stuck traveling to visit family for the holidays and you want to play your Japanese games on your cousins US PS3. You know that the US PS3 can play Japanese PS3 games so there's no problem there, but what about your save games? Simply copy them to a USB stick or external hard drive and bring it along.

To do this you'll want to visit the Saved Data Utility. The Saved Data Utility will show you all the saved games on your American PS3. Find the save you'd like to copy and hit the triangle button. This gives you three options, Copy, Delete, And Information. Choose copy. Then select the destination, in this case the USB device you plugged in. That's it! The Japanese PS3 game save copies from the console to the USB device and it's ready to play in another PS3.

You are not restricted only to copying Japanese game saves from your US PS3 to another, you can also download them from the internet! Since USB is a universal format that appears on computers as well there is nothing to stop players from copying their save games to the computer and sharing them with others. There are many sites online that offer PS3 save games for download.

However, that does not mean that all save games will work. Since the save games are created by one user, and another different user is downloading and using it, some games will detect that the save game is form a different user and prevent you from using it. It may also interfere with your ability to get trophies since you are not the player who generated the save game, it's not fair for you to get the trophies associated with that save game. Other than that, save games are perfectly transferable between systems AND users, including Japanese PS3 games on American PS3s.

Downloaded saved games can be a way for you to enjoy elements of a Japanese game on your US PS3 without any Japanese knowledge. Maybe it's hard for you to finish the game, or unlock some of the secrets. If someone else has already done this for you, all you need to do is download the save and take a look. Keep in mind that a lot of the FUN of a game comes from exploring it on your own. You'd be surprised by how far you can get in a game that you can't read simply by trial and error, guess work, and not giving up!

So keep in mind that even if you are playing Japanese games on a US PS3 you can still:
- Copy games from one console to another
- Download save games from the internet.

For more information continue to my next article Where to buy Japanese PS3 games for your American PS3? Alternatively you may want to return to Can the American PS3 Play Japanese PS3 Games?