Square Enix has been making games for over three decades, birthing huge franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and now the company is looking to digitize and preserve each and every one of them.
In a recent interview with Game Informer, Square Enix president and chief exec Yosuke Matsuda said the Japanese developer-publisher is working on making its entire game library available digitally.
That’s good news for players keen to revisit some of their favorite Square titles, and also a notable development for anyone interesting in seeing the classics of yesteryear preserved for future generations.
As you can imagine, however, bringing together such a vast library of games is anything but straightforward, especially when some of those older titles have been misplaced.
“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but in some cases, we don’t know where the code is anymore. It’s very hard to find them sometimes, because back in the day you just made them and put them out there and you were done — you didn’t think of how you were going to sell them down the road,” explained Matsuda.
“Sometimes customers ask, ‘Why haven’t you released that [game] yet?’ And the truth of the matter is it’s because we don’t know where it has gone.”
It’s a detail that shows precisely why it’s so important to catalog and preserve video games, especially those vintage releases that might one day be lost to the annals of time.
Although Matsuda didn’t offer any hints as to when the project might be completed, the fact that work is already underway is a huge step in the right direction.