How Do Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo Preserve Their History?

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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How Do Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo Preserve Their History?

In an age of rapidly evolving technology, what are videogames' major players doing to preserve the old and obsolete pieces of their past?

Videogame design is a funny thing sometime. Nobody knows if early scribbles or notes on a cocktail napkin could become the next Zelda or Halo. Every time someone throws out design documents or concept art, or deletes source code, they could be irrevocably destroying a part of gaming history that we would never be able to restore.

As part of a Gamasutra series [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6301/where_games_go_to_sleep_the_game_.php] on the preservation of videogame history, John Andersen asked the Big Three - Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft - how they kept their videogame past secure and safe.

Microsoft's Ken Lobb said that for every game Microsoft Game Studios published, it stored multiple copies of the source code and production materials in "secure, temperature & humidity controlled locations" both onsite and offsite. Games published before 2000 were on older, less reliable hardware, admitted Lobb, but he said Microsoft had plans to transfer those materials to something safer and more modern.

Meanwhile, Sony Computer Entertainment of America said its IT and QA departments both had a hand in the preservation of production material, and were tasked with making sure everything was safely stored externally. However, SCEA also admitted that its storage methods varied between regions (Sony Japan and Sony Europe might be using completely different methodologies) and between third-party developers who worked for Sony under contract.

According to Sony, some of the more frustrating hurdles in videogame preservation have nothing to do with someone accidentally discarding potentially-valuable history, and everything to do with the inexorable march of technology. If you're storing software, video and audio that were designed to be compatible with a specific type of hardware, and said hardware was discontinued 15 years ago, you need to store the hardware and any relevant devkits alongside the source.

Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo regularly trots its gaming history out into the public eye as part of its popular Iwata Asks [http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/] feature. "Nintendo keeps a wealth of materials related to its past games, up to and including even original design sketches and documents," said Nintendo PR director Marc Franklin. "Preserving these games lets us reintroduce them to new players while giving older gamers a chance to relive their glory days."

While Franklin didn't go into detail about how Nintendo was preserving its history, we've seen the fruits of said preservation already - such as the original Legend of Zelda concept art [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97830-Nintendo-Releases-Original-Zelda-Concept-Art]. So clearly, the Big N is doing something right.

Videogame preservation is an incredibly important topic that is all too rarely discussed. It's good that the Big Three have plans to preserve their history, but what about smaller studios, or studios that go out of business? This is gaming's past and soul, and we need to think about what we're doing with it.

Check out the full thing at Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6301/where_games_go_to_sleep_the_game_.php].

(Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33449/Sony_Nintendo_Microsoft_On_How_They_Preserve_Their_Gaming_History.php?])

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LitleWaffle

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Jan 9, 2010
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How does Nintendo preserve their past games?

Which ones are their past ones? They all look the same to me.
 

SpcyhknBC

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Aug 24, 2009
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I think you meant storing things, not storying things, but I have problems spelling original sometimes. Interesting, not something I have ever thought about
 

bakonslayer

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Apr 15, 2009
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Does LucasArts have all of their old stuff lying around? I figure that they would have some really cool concept art or design documents or something. They have a long and rich history that is really worth chronicling.

This is really something I never thought about, though. It's really cool that these things can be historical pieces now!
 

Stilt-Man

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Dec 31, 2009
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I gotta say, this is pretty interesting. I never gave this much thought before. Now I'm curious to see what all is contained in these archives.
 

Wicky_42

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Sep 15, 2008
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Could have sworn I read an identical story months ago. Maybe New Scientist? Yeah, it was a story mostly about the Zelda art, had a full gallery of it. Eh, Deja vu.

If they are serious about preserving those old games then they've basically got to redevelop them so that they are no longer ties to hardware constraints and have some sort of universal emulator, maybe per system or something, to allow the software to be run on any hardware. Otherwise the old hardware's going to fall apart and the software corrupted - you need flexible copied that can be played and tested periodically, really :/
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
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LitleWaffle said:
How does Nintendo preserve their past games?

Which ones are their past ones? They all look the same to me.
Straying Bullet said:
Sounds awesome alright but Nintendo doesn't really has past games. All of them look alike or rehashed/re-used in different genres. Nothing big or original to keep!


Bur seriously, I hope that third-party publishers do that same thing. I want people 200 years from now to somehow be able to play Saint's Row 2.
 

icyneesan

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Feb 28, 2010
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It would be nice of the big three could construct some sort of Super Video Game Museum and invite various other publishers and devs that have had large hits also display concept art and alphas/betas for the general public.
 

FogHornG36

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Jan 29, 2011
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Onyx Oblivion said:
LitleWaffle said:
How does Nintendo preserve their past games?

Which ones are their past ones? They all look the same to me.
Straying Bullet said:
Sounds awesome alright but Nintendo doesn't really has past games. All of them look alike or rehashed/re-used in different genres. Nothing big or original to keep!


Bur seriously, I hope that third-party publishers do that same thing. I want people 200 years from now to somehow be able to play Saint's Row 2.
thats good and all, but when we are talking about Nintendo you would, it would be saint's Row 20 and you will have a new choice of hats.
 

HentMas

The Loneliest Jedi
Apr 17, 2009
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Considering the number of roms and emulators going on the web, i can safely say that the "preservation act" is in full force by the people, not the companies that made the games, check any abandonware site and you can find games as old as pong

i dont think "secured locations with humiditi blablabla" are as reliable as the deep sea of the interwebz
 

Carlston

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Apr 8, 2008
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Last I checked, they hate the past.

Mostly past games and consoles. They violently are against them.
One of the piracy/rom debates with a Nintendo exec he out right said "If people can get hundreds of free old games, no one will buy new ones. If we were allowed we'd have them stop working all together in three years time. Who would want to play a old game?"

So in the same breath he claimed it killed new game sales yet no player would want the old game...

I have partaken of roms, and normally found myself playing a game for 30 seconds before i recall how much I disliked it and deleting it,but it did refresh my gaming memories.
 

skitskat

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Apr 14, 2009
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i work in a museum of computing, so i do alot of this chronicling stuff as it is anyways :p

SO MUCH STORAGE!!!
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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FogHornG36 said:
Onyx Oblivion said:
Bur seriously, I hope that third-party publishers do that same thing. I want people 200 years from now to somehow be able to play Saint's Row 2.
thats good and all, but when we are talking about Nintendo you would, it would be saint's Row 20 and you will have a new choice of hats.
First off, extrapolating from the current release pattern of Saint's Row games, Volition and THQ will be at roughly Saint's Row 80 in 200 years.

Secondly, "new hats" my ass. Nintendo games always introduce new content and gameplay mechanics. More so than most video game franchises out there. If you can't see it you're likely blinded by their series' iconic thematic elements. On the flip side, the farther a game is from being unique to begin with, the less you have to change for the sequel in order to make it look new.

EDIT: And while Saint's Row games have had a development cycle of roughly 2.5 years so far, Nintendo tend to have cycles of 4+ years for their current generation iterations of their major franchises.
 

samsonguy920

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Mar 24, 2009
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Makes me wonder if Activision and EA are so preservationist.(Though granted both of those go through separate(most likely under their ownership) developers these days, but they have some of their own work to call their own.) Would be something to find out that in some dark safe somewhere, one could find concepts to River Raid.
(Nope, no link. You geeks gotta do the homework yourselves and if you don't dot your i's or cross your t's, then you don't get recess.)

Carlston said:
Mostly past games and consoles. They violently are against them.
One of the piracy/rom debates with a Nintendo exec he out right said "If people can get hundreds of free old games, no one will buy new ones. If we were allowed we'd have them stop working all together in three years time. Who would want to play a old game?"
And it is no wonder why:
Straying Bullet said:
Sounds awesome alright but Nintendo doesn't really has past games. All of them look alike or rehashed/re-used in different genres. Nothing big or original to keep!
 

manaman

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Sep 2, 2007
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Should you ever find your self in Redmond and you are interested in this stuff its worth swinging by the NOA campus to give their displays there a look over. There is also a wealth of advertising history in their facilities in North Bend, but that location isn't exactly open to the public. Nintendo at least seems pretty proud of its history.
 

Roxor

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Nov 4, 2010
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Why not set up a super-archive site for computing history? Store accurate ROM dumps (or ISOs, or whatever executable format the program used), scans of promotional art, source code, alpha and beta versions. For platforms, store hardware documentation, schematics, and Hardware Description Language implementations of the components.