Former PlayStation CEO: It is 'Criminal' the Industry Isn't Doing More to Preserve Games - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 November 2023 / 5,659 Views
Former PlayStation President and CEO Shawn Layden in an interview with the Lan Parties podcast said the video game industry needs to do more to preserve its games and history.
"Preservation is important," said Layden. "I'm hoping that more people in the industry, certainly the big players, begin to realize that there’s an obligation and responsibility. This isn’t throw-away stuff we’re making.
"This is stuff that should be around for a long time because future generations will enjoy it in the same way that we have and it’s criminal that we’re not doing more to protect it."
Layden was asked about Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition and he expressed some concerns.
"My concern around consolidation is that often it impacts creativity," said Layden. "For instance, it takes some kind of small, independent, wild horse studios and brings them into a larger conglomerate and essentially time slows down the bigger you are, time slows down.
"I’m also concerned when studios get bought and instead of enabling a way to create their game, they maybe get absorbed into a larger enterprise that’s making a larger game, you know, how many studios are involved in making blockbuster games that will stagger the mind."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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He's right, there are countless games from practically every past console generation that cannot be played or purchased legally anywhere. Compared to just about every other entertainment industry, video games are woefully behind in terms of preserving their own history.
There are similar issues with film and TV... or more TV. Film is very easily preserved it seems and has been but TV is a lot harder. Just look at this list for BBCs Doctor Who alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_Kingdom#Doctor_Who
As media has changed and ways to store information has changed it has been far easier to save media but very hard to save media already lost. But back then attitudes were different.
There are many ways games are being preserved. Digital distribution helps but is still at the behest of the publisher or licence holder (See PT for that). Videos are a way to preserve gameplay and there are museums with copies of games but all this is just the end product. Code is easily lost and most the time it was just on some guys computer and deleted or lost if the computer is.
Yes of course, the further back in time you go the more lost media you will come across. That's partly what also makes the loss of so many video game so unfortunate, because in terms of technology preserving video games wouldn't even be that difficult.
There are just too many companies that don't care about that, so many games end up in a limbo where they are not available anywhere even if the company that made them has complete control of the IP.
Less games are lost than film by a massive percentage. However, many thousands of games are not available to purchase brand new digitally or from a standard retailer.
Much of Nintendo's first-party library is not available to buy or even play with a subscription. Stuff like the DS and 3DS I kind of understand if they are too dependent on the hardware. But with GameCube and Wii, there's no excuse. Even with Wii, motion controls can just be recreated with the JoyCons.
Obviously, this is so prevalent in gaming because the corporations don't want to pay the money for emulation (not a problem with film and television) and licensing (a universal media problem). They have the money; they just don't see it as fiscally lucrative.
I think part of that is also because video games are still a relatively young medium, whereas film has been around for close 150 years, so in a lot of cases video games just haven't had enough time to lose that many of them yet. In addition, in other mediums there is at least a concerted and focused effort to preserve their history, but when it comes to video games it's often independent companies and sometimes just solitary individuals who have to do that.
He's right.
I don't care much about playing older games, but yes I do understand the need of conservation.
Still wasn't Shawn Layden that decided for no BC on PS4 because gamers didn't care about it?
This is why I've long criticized the push for digital. There's plenty of games that are just permanently unavailable, and had no physical version. If you didn't get them while the getting was good, you ain't getting them, and even if you do have a copy, if you lose it for whatever reason there's a high likelihood that it's gone forever due to the closures of digital stores. This will be even worse if streaming becomes the only way to play games, as not only does it require a constant high-quality internet connection, but games can be pulled from the service for any of a number of reasons, with no guarantee they'll ever be available again. Meanwhile, the retro gaming scene is thriving because of the benefits conferred by physical media. Even if a title is long out of print, it can still be purchased physically.
I've said it many times before, but if the industry abandons physical media, I abandon the industry. I'll have over four decades worth of games to enjoy.
The other problem is physical games that require an internet download.
Take Jedi Survivor. On PS5, only about 60 GB is on the disc. The other 90 GB needs an internet connection. Simply put, the publishers don't want to pay and upload data for 2 discs (save rare examples like Red Dead Redemption 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth).
My concern around consolidation is that often it impacts creativity.
Smart dude.
Unfortunately I can't give you enough thumbs up to reverse the unfair downvotes you got here.
Those downvotes "consolidate" my perception that most of this site users are biased fanboys. As if that weren't true anyway: Look at cinema, today they mostly don't make actual films any more, but popcorn blockbusters with mass appeal and generic plots/characters. You will not see Being Jhon Malkovich never again just as you won't see Sekiro ever again.
Me before: I don't like Jim Ryan, but it's not like Shawn Layden in particular needs to return.
Me now: Bring him back (or at least have him as an advisor).
Can't say I'm surprised. Just pertaining to this topic at hand, Jim Ryan made it quite clear how he felt about game preservation. Wasn't until after he got the backlash that he changed his tune. https://www.vg247.com/why-would-anybody-play-this-says-sonys-jim-ryan-about-backwards-compatibility
People make me laugh. Shawn Layden released the PS4 with zero ablity to play PS & PS2 games, even though the hardware clearly could have done it. And thanks to hackers we found that it has the ability to play PS1 & PS2 roms actually in the firmware! But did he ever enable this feature for the public? No.
But he says a few words year after the fact and people think he's great even though he actually blocked this from happening!
Most people here seems to be confusing what Layden means by game preservation he's not simply talking about BC but preservation in the same way we go about preserving and archiving other modern media like film and tv and that entails more than just retaining retail games and their hardware and includes all the various components that make up or have made up video gaming gaming over the decades, stuff like source code, dev kits the multitude of different hardware including peripherals connectors interfaces, prototypes etc the list goes on ,and then there's the human side of the evolution of video gaming .
I'm not sure what the various players be they console or other have in the way of internal archives but ideally the implementation of something like an international museum /archive that brings structure and is the central plank of a network made up of various existing or future archives regardless of their size or focus, since at the moment the approach seems to be everyone doing there own thing with very little coordination.
Honestly, the community that creates emulators and stores ROMs does a better job then the game companies could do anyhow. Remember when Sony made the Playstation Mini?
For selling to us again, keeping source code, looking back at old ideas and reattempting them (some are worth bringing back, some to get inspired by t hen just 'we only exist to compete and put a spin on this and that trend).
BC or not archiving makes sense from a dev stand point and a player stand point. But it gets treated like they aren't even making anything special yet they are, any art can be generation to generation. Why are us small subgroup (then the current trend followers of such young gens, there is always anomalies out there of course) young people looking and researching old consoles for the sake of it. Our own small group of collectors on top of those older audiences that did grow up with them. Appreciating the past greats and the past overlooked.
A Vib Ribbon or MonsterRancher with CD swapping use cases. That's awesome. As a random example. Let alone tons of others in games hardware or software features. Who is doing that on PS5? We have games on the hard drive now, the disk is only a license? We don't have CD support on PS4/5 only on Xbox but still something cool would be nice in some other way or we can just appreciate what has been done and that's totally fine too.
Many older people that have archived some movies/games and many not on streaming services, many on disk or won't be. Many formats films have been on from VHS to more niche formats.
I look at old games for research not nostalgia, I played old games but so many obscure consoles have cool ideas even if eh marketing appeal doesn't mean they weren't good or innovating, big or low budget games and many with great ideas, gone.
Indies making only nostalgia ones is boring versus the ones actually making existing new or hopefully exciting ideas on other games that can be inspirations not only a narrow safe range of games to profit from old ideas of the Marios/Banjos yeah so why is it I find other platformers besides them with great ideas more exciting yet get ignored yet people make videos on them and see the potential they had?
Same with racing games. For me right now only tactics or hack n slash really stand out personally for current genres I have been enjoying the past few years.
The Retro Bird (get on my lawn) to quote if you will.
If Terminator 2 is so good with it's world, it's effects, its this and that why not other classic games, whatever other films outside the popular being preserved, some maybe did old 3D in movies, some spoof movies maybe, some gross out comedies, some whatever, all different angles of possibilities let alone old black and white films with something interesting in them for the time worth looking at to preserve.
yup
I don't have much love for Microsoft, but Microsoft has been doing a great job in this regard. On the other hand, as someone who has owned most PlayStation home consoles, I'm quite disappointed in Sony, although the PS5 was definitely an improvement. Then there's the smaller players of the industry, and... it's varying - very.
PlayStation has such an interesting history of BC.
PS2 played about 98-99 percent of PS1 games
PS3 started with playing about 98-99 percent PS1 and PS2 games. But partway through the life of the Phat, they removed PS2 BC support.
PS4 had no BC.
PS5 plays nearly 100% of PS4 games. Of well over 4000 games on PS4 (so Sony says) only 6 don't play on PS5.
And of course, we have Vita which plays hundreds of PSP digital games purchased on either PSP or Vita.
PlayStation went from the kings of backwards compatibility to sucking big time to being at least good again.
Yeah, it's really curious. I was really happy with how Sony handled things for a long time, then eventually got somewhat unhappy with the PS3, and finally the PS4 made me really, really unhappy. I don't really trust Sony in this regard anymore. Trust can be regained of course, but it takes time.
Conservation is important, but realistically very few people are going to care. It'll be like all the 100 year old books sitting in libraries completely unread today...
I'm confused. It seems like these days there are an endless amount of old games remastered, ported, remade, rehashed as a current gen game cuz the next game in the series is taking many many years, available as a compilation, or available on the online subscription services.
Doesn't really seem like this is a problem in the industry. If anything I think its a bit overdone!
He's talking about preservation in the same way that film and tv archives museums etc exist to preserve the cultural heritage of those mediums for posterity .
Playstation is the most capitalist game company. They are just saying what is politically correct to say.
Wait, wouldn't MS currently be the most capitalist game company ? I mean, they are the one with the most capital after all, by very, very far.
You're just talking to talk.
In the picture i clearly recognize Shawn Layden and Reggie Fils-Aime, real industry leaders. But that man in the middle... I don't really know him, is he the show's host or something?
You should know. After all, MS currently be the most capitalist game company. I mean, they are the one with the most capital after all, by very, very far.
So you should be very familiar with the man in the middle :) especially considering the ones you named are no longer in their "industry leading" positions for years now.
He’s the one with the company that actually has been trying to preserve games and let users bring older games with them to new consoles.
charge them, prosecute and lock them away.
