The PlayStation console's past will live on thanks to Sony PlayStation's new team.
According to a post from a newly recruited member of the PlayStation team, Sony has created a team responsible for the preservation of last-gen console games, per Games Radar.
The newcomer in question, Garrett Fredley, hinted at the team's existence on his Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
Game Preservation Team Details
Although specific information is sparse from Fredley's announcement, he did say in his Twitter account that he recently started his first day at PlayStation as a Senior Build Engineer as one of its initial hires for the preservation team, which PlayStation seems to have formed lately.
Fredley also mentioned in his tweet that game preservation was his first career passion, adding that he is "ecstatic" to go back to his roots. He also added on his LinkedIn account that game preservation was his entry point into the world of Software Engineering/Dev Ops.
PlayStation's new Senior Build Engineer for its preservation team was previously Electronic Arts' Software Engineer and Assitant Technical Artist from June 2016 to July 2019 and was a Software Engineer for SkyBox Labs and Kabam.
It isn't clear what role Fredley will play for PlayStation's newly formed game preservation team. However, he did mention that the team would "ensure [the video game industry's] history wasn't forgotten."
Although Sony or PlayStation has yet to release an official statement, the company seems to be interested in bringing back games from past console generations, such as Crash Bandicoot, the original Resident Evil games, especially the Outbreak spin-off series, Shadow of the Colossus, the first four Metal Gear Solid games, and others.
Links To The PS Plus Rebrand
Sony forming such a team may be connected to Sony's rebranding of the PlayStation Plus (PS Plus or PS+) subscription service. You may remember that Sony was reported to have included access to classic games as one of the PS Plus Premium's benefits on the rebranded version.
Although the term "classic games" has a broad definition, Sony's creation of a game preservation team may mean that these classic games mean video games from the console's previous generations, such as the PlayStation 1 through 3.
However, as there is still no official announcement, these will only be speculation until Sony says so.
PlayStation console users in Asia would be the first to experience the new PS Plus subscription service, with it rolling out in the region on May 23, followed by Japan on June 1.
Games preservation has been a hot topic for PlayStation console users since in April 2021, when Sony Interactive Entertainment almost took down the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita's access to the PlayStation Store, per a PlayStation Blog post.
Another concern PlayStation console users have regarding video game preservation on the platform is the bug that caused certain video games to be unplayable due to them "expiring" decades ago.
If video games from previous PlayStation console generations are actually preserved we may soon be able to play the console's classic games hopefully with improved graphics (albeit artificially), and improved frame rates.
