Summary
- Sony, via its PlayStation brand, is attempting to preserve over three decades of gaming history.
- Over 200 million files are being transferred to data tapes, then are placed in mineshafts for long-term preservation.
- Some of the files date back as far as 1994, with builds of PlayStation 5 material being constantly added.
As the larger gaming world continues to trend more toward an all-digital future, the preservation of games becomes increasingly important. That importance is increased tenfold when you factor in the potential for games to be delisted, as was the case last year with The Crew. So much so that Ubisoft began working on offline modes for The Crew 2 and Motorfest following intense backlash.
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That much seemingly isn’t lost on Sony and its PlayStation brand. As it turns out, Sony is currently attempting to build a large-scale preservation vault where 30-plus years of history can safely reside for generations to come.
There Are Over 200 Million Files Being Archived
In a new story shared online by GamesRadar, it’s been revealed that Sony is working on the PlayStation Studios Vault, an operation that is preserving over 200 million files on data tapes that not even top executives have access to.
“PlayStation Studios Vault is our solution for bringing all of PlayStation’s rich, 30-year history together in one place,” senior build engineer Garrett Fredley said during a GDC talk. “Not just backups, not just source code and source art, but everything that was ever related to a project we can possibly find, from documentation to audio assets and prototype information, anything under the sun.”
In other words, not only is the playable build of a game itself being preserved, but so is everything associated with it. Those assets are being uploaded to “staging vaults,” which have been centered in Las Vegas and Liverpool. There, SSDs allow developers to quickly upload files where they are then transferred to the actual PlayStation Studios Vault, a “cold storage” method that puts things on data tapes.
“All 30 years of history reside in our tape backups,” Fredley said.
That’s not the end of it, though, as those data tapes are then put in an actual mineshaft. “That’s not a joke,” he said. “They go into a mineshaft somewhere, so you can imagine how long it takes to get them back.”
Only a handful of people have any access to this mineshaft, including those on the preservation team and members of IT. Devs or executives who want access to any material must go through those parties.
All of that reads like something out of a Sci-Fi novel, but it’s a real-life thing being worked on by Sony, one that it seemingly hopes will preserve its lineage forever. As it stands, the oldest piece of material archived is a 1994 Arc the Lad build, with every current and future PS5 title being added constantly. Talk about pretty neat.
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