As of February 2022, 11,283 software titles, 115 types of hardware, 200 types of peripherals, and about 8,000 types of related materials such as magazines, flyers, newspaper advertisements, soundtracks, etc. (excluding duplicates) have been registered in the archive, and the actual materials are stored at the University at 24 degrees Celsius and 50% humidity in accordance with the standards of the Library of Congress in the United States. The current number of hardware and software in the University's collection is the largest among the public institutions in Japan, including the National Diet Library, and one of the largest in the world. This data is also officially provided to the Media Arts Database built by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

However, no matter how much the storage environment is prepared, eventual deterioration of hardware and software is inevitable. It should ideally be maintained and managed in a state where it can be played at any time, but Hosoi is concerned about the lack of technology and funding that may affect maintenance and dynamic preservation. “When I visited our partners in Europe and the United States, I found they had plenty of private donations and public subsidies, and the funds raised were used to cover the cost of dynamic preservation and make conservation activities sustainable,” Hosoi recalls. The Japanese government has recently revised the Museum Act, allowing universities and other research institutions to register museums. “Universities have a variety of materials, but the ecosystem for maintaining and publishing them in a state where they can be used permanently is not well established. Games are difficult to handle because of their complex intellectual rights involved, but I believe we should build a new model for social use and establish a system to pass on the value and meaning of games.”

RCGS has planned several research exhibitions to introduce the materials in its collection and to consider how it should exhibit them in the future. The game music exhibition “Ludo-Musica II,” which was held online until February 2022, was the second project with the theme of game music and was well received partly due to the topicality of the use of game music at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in 2021. “It was one of the projects we implemented with support from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and although it was not sustainable, the knowhow of the exhibitions cannot be accumulated unless we actually plan and experience them. We learned a lot this time as well, such as what kind of negotiations are necessary with whom to clear the intellectual rights-related issues, how and for whom to write commentaries of the exhibition, etc. Our goal is to make these exhibitions possible on our own or through industry-academia collaboration rather than with subsidies, and to create a circular archive that balances the maintenance and management of collections and cultural resources with an environment where faculty members and students can research and learn.”