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PlayStation is currently building a large-scale preservation vault called the PlayStation Studios Vault to safeguard over 30 years of gaming history. This ambitious project involves preserving more than 200 million files and approximately 650 TB of data on data tapes that are then stored in actual mineshafts. ( GameFile )
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The preservation process begins at two staging vaults located in Las Vegas and Liverpool, where developers can quickly upload files to SSDs. These files are then transferred to data tapes for “cold storage” and transported to the real vault situated in an undisclosed location inside mineshafts.
According to Garrett Fredley, a senior build engineer at PlayStation, who discussed this initiative during a GDC talk entitled “Preserving the Past for the Future: A PlayStation Case Study”, this preservation effort includes “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.”
NEW: A tiny team at PlayStation has preserved 650 terabytes (and counting) of PlayStation Studios' game-making history- Release and pre-release builds of games, documentation, art, team photos, you name it.- A GDC talk about it ended with a terrific revelationwww.gamefile.news/p/playstatio…
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Access to this vault is extremely limited, with only a handful of people having permission, including those on the preservation team and members of IT. Even top executives must go through these parties to access any material. The oldest piece of material archived is a 1994 Arc the Lad build, with current and future PS5 titles being added constantly.
This preservation initiative comes at a time when the gaming industry continues to trend toward an all-digital future, making game preservation increasingly important, especially considering issues like game delistings and disc rot affecting physical media. While it’s unclear what plans PlayStation has for all this preserved material beyond ensuring its survival, Fredley indicated it will “probably always gonna remain an internal service and internal material.” However, there’s hope that some of this rescued material might eventually find its way into future remasters and collections.
This detailed report was originally shared online by GamesRadar.
