Japanese Government Officially Involved in Games Preservation

[DonPanetta]

Anime artist turned politician Ken Akamatsu has announced that the Japanese government is in the early stages of discussing with industry experts about how to properly archive and protect classic video games for future generations. Details are pretty vague at the moment but it seems the Japanese government wants to be directly involved in the process of preservation much like how the library of congress catalogs certain media. Akamatsu belives the National Diet Library (Japanese version of the library of congress) should and could catalog all forms of digital media.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1547048482552262656

https://twitter.com/x/status/1566708932906729472

議員当選の赤松健氏が“過去のゲームの合法的保存”に着手。あらゆるゲームをプレイ可能な状態で後世に残す - AUTOMATON

赤松健氏が、過去に発売・配信されたゲームの保存に強い意欲を見せている。レトロゲームなど古いゲームコンテンツのアーカイブ化に本格的に取り組んでいることを述べた。

automaton-media.com

 

[CharlieG]

Interesting, but I thought Japanese gamers generally were a lot less into vintage/retro games than Americans? That's one of the reasons Famicom, etc. games are a ton cheaper than the US versions.

 

[Glorp]

Maybe they could start by not threatening lawsuits on people who just want to collect and share a few ancient game roms.

 

[highscoreheroes]

Curious to see how this goes.

 

[LordOfDoubleDee]

Yes! Good for them

 

[carolinamarcg]

Nintendo cease and desist to Japanese government in 3, 2...

 

[Dillweed]

YOSAKU BABY, COME ON

 

[Lurch666]

Be nice if they could get companies like capcom to release schematics for more of their old games.

 

[Steve Dodac]

We're preserving their games just fine without them.

 

[famicom]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on any open sourcing to the general public and things of that nature (like PCB schematics mentioned above).