Nintendo Is Officially Investing in Game Preservation

Published Nov 10, 2026, 10:23 AM EST Willa Rowe is a contributing writer at Polygon, covering games and entertainment. She is a New York-based journalist and critic whose work has been featured in Kotaku, Digital Trends, the A.V. Club, GamesRadar+, and more. She also co-hosts the Girl Mode podcast. The company is searching for an archivist that will ensure its history is ‘preserved for future generations’ Image: Nintendo via Polygon Sign in to your Polygon.com account Game preservation has always been one of the biggest problems facing the industry. According to the Video Game History Foundation, 87% of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered or lost. This has forced many who want to maintain that history to turn to piracy, a last resort that has become a necessity due to the minimal efforts of large corporations to adequately preserve their catalog of games and technology. Thankfully, one of gaming's biggest names is officially getting in on the preservation effort. A new job posting from Nintendo of America indicates that the company is now looking for a digital archivist. The person hired for the role will "design and implement a structured framework for organizing technical records, engineering documentation, source materials, and institutional knowledge related to legacy systems and platforms." Nintendo says the archivist will help ensure the company's historical records are "preserved for future generations." The position will be on a 12-month contract. In the past, Nintendo has drawn criticism from the preservation community. In 2022, the Video Game History Foundation publicly criticized the company for announcing it would be closing the Wii U and 3DS eShops. The foundation released a statement saying that Nintendo's decision was "actively destructive to video game history." The statement also pointed out that Nintendo is part of the Entertainment Software Association, which funds lobbying that prevents a number of preservation efforts. Why game preservation is so important for companies like Nintendo Image: Nintendo Preservation has steadily become a major topic of discussion among many in the industry. While organizations like the Video Game History Foundation have made amazing strides in archiving gaming history, including source code, manuals, magazines, and more, there is only so much that can be done without the direct involvement of the major corporations that own the intellectual property and hardware. In recent years, some companies have started to take preservation more seriously, with the likes of Sony and Blizzard announcing their own archives. Nintendo has an outsized footprint in the medium's history, so it is good news that it is getting in on the trend. Unfortunately, these corporate archives are still largely private and meant for internal use. That means the average gamer will still be unable to access most of the historical record and may have to resort to less-than-legal methods to play older titles not re-released on modern hardware. Still, something is better than nothing when it comes to preservation.