Sony is building a game preservation team

When Sony expanded PlayStation Plus It starts Next month, will Fold in PlayStation Now, which provides access to hundreds of games from older generations of consoles. Now, the company appears to be getting more serious about keeping the game.

According to Twitter and LinkedIn posts I spotted Chronicle video gamesSony has hired at least one engineer (Garrett Fredley, former build engineer for mobile developer Kabam) to work on a new preservation team. “Today is my first day as a Senior Building Engineer at PlayStation, serving as one of the first employees of the newly created Preservation team! Preserving the game has been my number one professional passion, so I am glad I am going back to those roots” Fredley Books. “Let’s go and make sure we don’t forget the history of our industry!”

It’s not entirely clear what the preservation team will be working on or what Sony’s goals are. Engadget has contacted Sony Interactive Entertainment for clarification.

Sony hasn’t always done a quick job of maintaining games. Many PS1 games worked on PS2 and original PS3 models can be played Many PS1 and PS2 games, but you weren’t able to play discs from the older generations on PS4. However, PS5 supports All but a few PS4 titles.

The company shut down their PSP digital storefront last summer, though reneged on a plan To close PS3 and Vita stores after a major backlash. There’s no guarantee that every PS3 and PSP exclusive will be added to the new PS Plus service, which won’t include Vita titles, so some games will be lost in the sands of time.

at 2017 interviewJim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, spoke about seeing the Gran Turismo titles on PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 at an event, and said something that’s still bugging him since then: “PS1 and PS2 games, they looked old, like why any Someone playing this?” Ryan clearer Last year, he was trying to make it clear how good the more modern look in the series was and that he had no intention of disrespecting PlayStation history. However, many took his initial comment to mean that Sony doesn’t care about older games.

It’s good to see Sony focus more on maintaining the game. non-profit organizations And fan led projects They led the charge on that front. PC gamers, of course, have access to titles that date back several decades (ie I was diving in and out of the game) half life Recently).

Microsoft understands that people still want to play old games on modern platforms and has put more emphasis on backward compatibility in recent years. Xbox Series X/S can play games from As far back as the original Xbox.

However, like Sony, Nintendo hasn’t been exactly as great at maintaining the game. Will 3DS and Wii U stores closed. Next year, it’s likely that not every one of those consoles will port to the Nintendo Switch. Future generations of gamers will not have access to many of these games.

Update 2:05 PM ET: Note that PS1 games work on PS2.