Few things are more important in modern gaming than preservation, and Sony has been at the forefront of that effort for some time, going so far as to store archived files in a mine shaft that very few people have access to.
With its PlayStation Protection Project making waves, Garrett Fradley, Senior Build Engineer for IP Protection at PlayStation, took to social media to share that the effort isn't stopping anytime soon.
“PlayStation's preservation journey is well on its way, and we're not looking to stop anytime soon,” Fredli wrote on Bluesky. “Being able to share our vision, work, hopes and dreams with Sony leadership was a special moment for our team, and I'm excited to see where we go from here.”
Along with the post, Fredli shared the project's logo, which for any longtime PlayStation fan, should have some familiar faces.
That logo features Sly Cooper front and center, Daxter from Jak & Daxter, Helghast from Killzone and Monkey from Ape Escape, among other PlayStation icons.
The spirit of Sly Cooper is alive and well in Yotei's Ghost
Tanuki's ghost.
As Push Square noted, the logo doesn't exactly mean that any of those franchises will be making a comeback. But it shows how valuable they are in Sony's eyes, and that a collection of material related to their past development can come in handy later, whether it's a re-release or a new project.
PlayStation is going to great lengths to preserve its history
A year ago, Fredly spoke at GDC to outline the massive effort, which has saved more than 200 million files.
“PlayStation Studios Vault is our solution for bringing together the rich, 30-year history of PlayStation,” Fredley said during a GDC talk. “Not just backups, not just source code and source art, but everything that was related to the project that we could possibly find, from documentation to audio assets and prototype information, anything under the sun.”
Everything related to the game's development, including the build itself, is stored and sent to “staging vaults” in Las Vegas and Liverpool. From there, the items are sent to the actual vault, where the items are stored on data tapes.
“All 30 years of history reside in our tape backups,” Fradley said.
The data tapes are then stored in mine shafts to which only a select few, including members of the conservation team and IT department, have access. Anyone who wants access to the records must go through them.
At the time of the GDC talk, the oldest game in the archive was 1994s Arc the Lad, with PS5 titles, in particular, constantly being added.
- issued
-
September 23, 2002
- ESRB
-
E For All // Mild fictional violence, tobacco references
- publisher(s)
-
Sony Computer Entertainment
- Engine
-
kinetica
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is proof the series should never have become an RPG
Edward Kenway is back, and his snarling Welsh accent is better than ever in the Black Flag re-sync.
