The topic of preservation in the video game industry is one that repeatedly gets raised. While interactive entertainment generates millions of dollars each year, there doesn't seem to be a lot of joined-up thinking when it comes to properly preserving and cataloguing both games and items of historical interest—such as physical media, such as magazines.
As highlighted by BlueSky user transparency, one of the world's most famous video game reviews isn't readily available anywhere online.
"Doing casual research trying to look up stuff about game history will continuously have you utterly speechless at the sorry state of preservation," transparency says on social media. "Like, what the fuck do you mean there's no readily available scan of Famitsu's first 40/40 cross review of Ocarina of Time?"
The review is historically significant in many ways; the most obvious is that it relates to one of the most beloved Zelda games of all time, but it's also notable for being Famitsu's first perfect score—the magazine had been running for 12 years at this point, and had never given a 40/40 score to any game.
The review in question was printed in Weekly Famitsu issue 519, which hit newsstands on 27th November 1998. "Miyamoto pointed to the review page in an old crusty photograph," says transparency. "IGN wrote a vague article on it getting the elusive 40/40 which acts as the exclusive source for this. And that's basically it."
One reply on BlueSky notes that scans of Famitsu issues are often removed at the publisher's request, which would certainly explain why it's so hard to find the review online. Another points out that the issue in question may eventually be preserved via the Video Game History Foundation's digital archive, which recently opened to the public.