So what exactly is “Transfarring”? Well if you have a PS3, PSP and are getting an NGP then keep reading.
Transfarring is designed to “bridge [the] distance in gaming hardware” as Hideo Kojima put it during their Pre-E3 press event. The goal was to take a gaming experience, make it more unified and create a persistent experience. In his explanation, he discusses that the current two styles of gaming, at home and on the go, were “completely separated”.
The Transfarring experience, however, is not your typical, cloud-based, accessible anywhere, type of game save; it’s something far different. At it’s core, Transfarring is an “import/export” type of system. In a demonstration, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was running on the PS3. When it was time to move the game save to the PSP via USB, that data was “Transfarring OUT” from the menu; transferring the 1MB file took roughly 11 seconds. To prevent any version conflicts, when data is currently in Transfarred OUT status from the console, it shows up with the Transfarring logo on that game save. This ensures that you don’t accidentally play that mission, when your current progress is actually on your NGP or PS3. As you might have guessed, the entire process works in reverse from PSP or NGP to PS3 by Transfarring in.
Kojima-san however is an innovator, and has much more planned for his Transfarring system. Kojima-san referred to this PSP to PS3 connectivity as Step 1, calling it the “First phase in my transfarring system”. Kojima-san went on to say that for Step 2, he wants to bring PS2 class games to PSP and NGP and allow them to have the same interaction. Finally, the greatest step, Step 3, is to create all new PS3 class games that will have Transfarring support between PS3 and NGP on the day a game is released.
While it may not leverage PS3 cloud saves now, it definitely accomplishes Kojima-san’s dream of being to play your content as he described “24 hours a day whether at home or on the go”.
