PlayStation fan archives every PS2 manual online, preserving them forever

A PlayStation mega fan and video game preservationist has scanned every single US manual for PlayStation 2 in 4K resolution, and it only took a sum of $40,000 to do it.

I didn't have a PlayStation 2, in fact, the first console that we got was the Nintendo Wii. We did have the family computer though and the novelty of Windows XP allowed us to have a profile for my mum, my dad, and us lot with our own democratically chosen desktop wallpaper. While we waited for games to install, we would leaf through the manuals, filled with greyscale promise of the game's potential. That same shot of nostalgia motivated Kirkland to restore all 1,902 manuals to the glory of full 4K resolution in an entry to Archive.org and allow other players to sift through the memories they stir up.

"So many games growing up shaped how we looked at and experienced the world," said Kirkland in an interview with Kotaku. "Of course as we ‘grow up,’ we move to other things but there are a lot of us who have nostalgia for these things and want our kids to be able to enjoy what we did. The whole ‘read the books your father read’ deal."

Kirkland shelled out about $40,000 on his collection of PlayStation 2 games. “I grabbed new releases when they got down to $20 for about the first 800 releases, then I started picking up used sports games in good condition, then it was hunting down the odd variants (which is never-ending),” he explained. The feat is flabbergasting, and ameliorates other preservation efforts by offering the literal instructions on how to play these old games, however he isn't overly pleased with his process and added that a lot is left to be desired with the scans of these manuals.

“In the future, I’d love to have an AI that can truly reconstruct the text and images as they were intended, correcting skew and properly descreening without blurring line art,” he said, and though it is a labour of love, he lamented that this gargantuan task fell to him and other passionate preservationists. Indeed, it is hoped that video game companies learn from the missteps of the past and look after their archival material, but for now, browsing this digital library is one heck of a trip back in time.

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