PlayStation Has Set Up A New Game Preservation Department

PlayStation has reportedly set up new “Preservation” team, according to an employee who just joined it. Build engineer for Canadian mobile developer Kabam Garrett Fredley celebrated his new position as senior build engineer for PlayStation on his Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

“Today is my first day as a senior build engineer for PlayStation, working as one of their initial hires for the newly created Preservation team,” Fredley wrote, as spotted by VGC. “Game preservation was my first career passion. It was my first foray into the world of software engineering/dev ops, and into a world that so many are unaware of. I was just a novice back then, contributing any way I could regardless of my inexperience. Now, I’m back to it, no longer the novice I once was.

Sony hasn’t divulged any other details on its Preservation team or the goals of the group, but Fredley’s credits do include work at EA from 2016-19 that saw him lead preservation efforts for the FIFA franchise.

Sony’s current efforts towards preserving its past have been the subject of criticism, following the company’s decision to close the PS3, PS Vita, and PSP digital stores last year. Fan feedback saw Sony step back on most of those plans, as it pledged to keep the PS3 and PS Vita stores open for the foreseeable future. The PSP store wasn’t so lucky though, and it was shuttered on July 2, 2021.

Compared to Microsoft’s robust backwards compatibility efforts–which have recently concluded–Sony’s approach to offering legacy titles have also been criticized. The company’s new PS Plus Premium subscription does offer a selection of original PlayStation, PS2, PS3, and PSP games to play on PS5, but PS3 titles are only playable via cloud streaming.

Microsoft has employed a simpler method for older Xbox 360 and Xbox One games on the Xbox Series X|S, as compatible titles can be downloaded from the marketplace or authenticated via the original disc for a fresh download.