Game preservation is a hot topic right now, on the back of Sony's decision to end physical discs for new PlayStation games come 2028. It came up during a recent shareholders' meeting at Square Enix, where the company stated it has ways and means of keeping releases available to some extent, even if they aren't necessarily what fans would like.
A questioner raised how, although Square Enix is publishing a lot of remakes and such at the moment, much of the original software is unavailable on modern systems. Likewise, a number of live-service and phone-only games, which are often very difficult to preserve meaningfully without publisher help, have been shut down. The question finished by asking what the general policy is towards keeping media available.
"How we enable customers to enjoy a game after service has ended depends on the nature of a title," Square Enix's response starts. "For instance, for the Nier series, we share information through official livestreams. For other titles, we preserve cutscenes on video streaming platforms."
Square Enix then gives a broad platitude about finding ways to maintain availability. "We will continue to create pathways befitting each title to ensure that players are able to enjoy them even after service has ended or the story has reached its end," the answer finishes.
To be blunt, as nice as it is that cutscenes are uploaded to YouTube, I don't believe this constitutes a meaningful effort when compared to making the actual game playable. Even for Nier, a huge series that's been involved in a long list of crossovers, you can only get the remastered first entry on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S or PC, not the original.
There are multiple other examples here. Kingdom Hearts itself is littered with them. The Game Boy Advance version of Chain of Memories is still relegated to those cartridges, as only Re:Chain of Memories, the PlayStation 2 remake, was included in 1.5 Remix.
Two entries in the franchise, 358/2 Days and the mobile game X, are only included in the Kingdom Hearts collections as extended films stitched together from their cutscenes. There are allowances here, since 358/2 is a DS release, making it difficult to port anywhere else, but given the evidence that Kingdom Hearts 4's first trailer directly references X, there's room for improvement in making sure fans can go back to these games.
As the industry pushes towards digital distribution, it's important to remind companies like Square Enix that preservation and physical media matter. Buy discs where you can, and where you can't, don't be afraid to demand the option. Your favorite game's future may depend on it.
