Sorry in advance for such a lame question but I have owned a PS3 for just a week, got it specifically for Skyrim, always played ES 3 & 4 on PC, so I am a babe in the woods here!

When I started playing Skyrim, every time I'd save I'd save in a new slot, so to speak, so I had a long list of past saves I could go back to if I wanted. For some reason last week, without me telling it to, the PS3 started having me re-write my latest save over the last one rather than making a new space I could go back to. This almost caused me problems on the Diplomatic Immunity quest last night because I wasn't able to go to a past save when I really needed to!

My question is:

Why'd the PS3 start making me write over top of old saves instead of letting me save multiple files?
How can I go back to having multiple past saves as an option?
And if I ever wanted to delete past saves (but not my current save, obviously!) just to kind of clean up and save storage space, how would I do that?

Thanks so much in advance, and please go easy with me, I'm in my 40s and am totally new to game consoles!

How many save files do you have? It's possible that there is a limit. Skyrim also seems to have no problem in overwriting old save files without your permission.

You can manage all your save files by going to Game Saves (or something like that) under the games tab from the PS3's home screen and selecting Skyrim.

I have about 30-50 past saves, easily, all older than a week ago. I've almost been afraid to go poking around too much in the file settings for fear of accidentally erasing something that'd make me start all over.

Thanks for replying!

Wowee that's a lot of saves! I'd say that's probably why it won't let you make any more then. When you're in the save files menu you can see the playtime and character level you were at at each save, so if you're careful you should be able to delete the less crucial older saves.

I usually rotate around 3 saves. I don't think you need 50. How are you going to remeber what youve done on save 36? I do recommend saving at least once an hour and before any battle that you think may give you trouble. Every once In a while, create a new save and delete the older files. The PS3 will always confirm a delete and overwrite.