You know where on the PSP, PS3 and PS4, you can delete a game and not worry about losing your progress or vice versa. Well that is not the case on the Vita and that's a problem. This problem exists because someone at Sony thought it was a good idea to combine game data and save data without any form of save management functions on the Vita. Since there are no save management options available unless explicitly made available in game, we are forced to keep backup of entire games on our systems if we want to free up space on our Vita while keeping our saves. Worse yet, depending on the game we might need to re-download the game in its entirety if we need a fresh start and we all know how superfast PSN downloads are right?
Without any more ranting here is what you’ll need:
• Your PS Vita
• A PC (Windows 8.1 OS in my case)
• CMA, OCMA or QCMA** installed (is there a Mac/Linux version of QCMA? If not then you must use Windows)
• Your game downloaded/installed on your Vita
Now the instructions:
1. Backup your game to your PC via CMA or QCMA
2. Locate where the game is backed up, it’s usually located in ”C:\Users\[User]\Documents\PS Vita\APP\[appfiles]\” in Windows where [User] is your user profile and [appfiles] is a 16-character folder unique to your PSN ID or check CMA options for the Applications/Backup location.
- appfiles
- icon0.png
[spoiler]
- Yup. That Borderlands disk usage is correct.
- QCMA Backup.PNG (58.6 KiB) Viewed 1389 times
3. Copy your game backup somewhere you can easily find it. In my case the game is in a folder named “PCSE00465”, which is Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment [US]. You can also check a folder inside called “sce_sys” for the “icon0.png” to see which game folder you are in. This step is optional and mostly to identify where the game is and in case something goes wrong you can copy it back.
4. Make sure CMA or QCMA is closed.
5. *In the game’s folder, copy the “savedata” folder somewhere you can find it. This is, as the name states, your game’s save files.
Now, if you are trying to start fresh without re-downloading the game (deleting your save):
• Delete the game from your Vita (if you don't, the save will still be there)
• Delete the “savedata” folder from the game’s folder e.g. from my “PCSE00465” folder.
• Start CMA and copy the game from the PC to the Vita
The game should now start with all your DLC and updates without any save file.
To backup your save (minus the 3GB+ game), hold on to the “savedata” folder you copied in step 5 above and label it appropriately. You can then delete the game from your Vita and/or PC.
To restore your save, repeat steps 1 and 2 then copy your save from step 5 to the game’s folder(overwrite if necessary) then copy the game back to your Vita. Be careful as some games may need you to update the game to use your save like SAO so remember to re-download and install the updates and DLC.
*Note for step 5: The save files in the "savedata" folder are encrypted. As such we cannot manage the individual saves (in the case of multiple save slots) for games like Gravity Rush.
**Edit: I've recently started using QCMA and I recommend using this as it makes the process easier with the "Backup Manager" option.
Those with a PS+ subscription won't really need this since they can upload/download their saves.
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