Sony has reportedly put together a game preservation team at PlayStation, according to one of the team’s initial hires, Garrett Fredley, in a LinkedIn announcement post. The Canadian developer says he’s excited to join the new team at PlayStation but shared no details on what his role would entail.
The new position is a full-circle moment for Garrett Fredley as games preservation is his passion as it was his “first foray into the world of software engineering / dev-ops.” The developer now has a lot more experience under his belt, including working with Electronic Arts from 2016 to 2019, where he “solely led the preservation efforts for the FIFA franchise, resulting in the complete archival of multiple titles.”
PlayStation has confirmed nothing, but if true, the move is welcomed as Sony has been criticized for its lack of approach to game preservation. Last year the company announced it would be closing the PS3, PSP, and PSVita stores but would later mostly reverse the decision. The company still ended up closing the PSP store in July with 35 digital-only games no longer purchasable.
The relaunch of PlayStation Plus will give Premium Tier subscribers access to the earlier PlayStation generation games, which a recent rating has hinted Syphon Filter’s past might be making a comeback. This includes PS1, PS2, and PSP games but PS3 as well; although access is only limited to streaming, hopefully, the new team could find a way for PS4 and PS5 players to play PS3 games locally.
