Sonny Corinthos

The mythical SNES-CD, the aborted collaboration between Nintendo and Sony from the early ’90s, has been found in a box of junk.

No, that’s not not a mistake in the title. But if you know your video game history you’ll be aware that the PlayStation brand actually began life as a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony.

You can read up on the details, but the basics are that Sony was going to provide a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES console, but when Nintendo belatedly realized that the deal would give too much control to Sony they backed out at the last minute.

Sony decided to go things alone and the rest, as they say, is history.

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2015/07/03/fan-di...#ixzz3eqN8MS7i

foxdvd

can you imagine if Microsoft and Sony got together and released a console that played both systems games? Or the next gen system was a collaberation between the two....Fanboy's heads would explode....

kgrogers1979

From that article:

Olaf Olafsson? Seriously? Is he related to John Johnson?

kgrogers1979

Honestly, no that would not be good. Competition is good. Monopolies are bad. Okay sure, it's not exactly a monopoly because Nintendo is still in the hardware business, but MS and Sony combined are like 80% of the market so it's pretty close to a monopoly, and it wouldn't be good for the consumer. You know how MS can sell their software like Windows and Office for ridiculously high prices? It's because they have very little competition in that market. If that happened in the video game industry, video game software prices would skyrocket.

foxdvd

oh I am with you..I just think it would be funny...

Brack

All that Nintendo needs to do is come out with some good hardware to make third party developers happy. It just seems like Nintendo wants to do their own thing, for better or for worse. It is rather odd how well the company is doing with the DS line but don't know how to put out a home console lately, despite the success of the original Wii console sales.

mndtrp

Why are all of his knives missing?

It's interesting to think about what Sony's top brass were thinking at the time. Going from a fallout with the largest home game maker to becoming the largest, and likely keeping their company afloat.

fumanstan

Cool find, weird to see that Famicon controller with Sony's logo on it.

dugan

Or Timmet Son of Timmet?

Supermallet

Nintendo thinks the hardcore gaming crowd doesn't want a Nintendo console, so they make lower priced hardware to compete against MS/Sony, hoping the lower price of entry combined with beloved first party titles will move units. As a result, they create a self-fulfilling prophecy: Hardcore gamers don't want Nintendo consoles because Nintendo consoles don't have hardware that can run hardcore games, so Nintendo continues to. Ever away from directly competing with MS/Sony.

Personally i think they should drop out of the console game, license their titles to Sony and MS, keep the handhelds, and continue to pursue the things that actually do make them money. If they announce another new console for next year, I think fatigue will set in for me and I won't be buying it.

kgrogers1979

Didn't Nintendo just announce the NX? I haven't been following it too closely, but I thought it was coming out next year?

The last Nintendo console I bought was the Gamecube, and I barely played it. It would take nothing short of a miracle for me to ever buy another Nintendo console.

Personally, I just don't care for Nintendo's first party lineup anymore. I don't know if it's because I am getting older or what, but the Mario type games just don't appeal to me anymore like they did when I was young. I think that is the biggest problem for Nintendo is that their audience is just aging out like I am. The people who grew up with the NES and SNES are in their 30s and 40s now, and very few of them still play video games period. Modern kids grew up in the Playstation era, and they just don't have the nostalgia for Nintendo like the older generation.

Sonny Corinthos

What do you think would have happened if Nintendo had never backed out of the deal with Sony? How long do you think the partnership would have lasted? Would we have ever seen the PlayStation as we know it today?

Mike86

Cool find. I'm assuming its basically useless though as it never went into development.

I would love if they would do exactly this and think it would make a lot of sense. I can sort of see why they might be hesitant to do this but I don't see them getting back on top of the console world as long as Microsoft and Sony are going strong. Their handhelds are still popular and sell well so it'd make more sense to focus on those and at the same time give people the opportunity to buy their games for X-Box or Playstation.

fumanstan

Discussion like this makes me miss LosingMyMind and GizmoDVD. A little.

Bob_Bobbson

Seriously, what a silly name.

TheKing

The union between Sony and Nintendo is what drove Sony to the gaming market. Sony's top brass had no interest in gaming, even to the point that they weren't interested in making the audio chip for the SNES. It was one designer at Sony who was able to push that project forward and start the relationship.

It was that chip that had Nintendo come to Sony to make the CD-ROM add-on. The console in this article is what Sony announced at CES 1991, and what they would have sold if the union hadn't fallen apart. Sony would have sold the play station, while Nintendo would have sold a bolt on CD Drive for the SNES. But the CD games would have been Sony's domain, and they would have retained control.

Nintendo balked at that, and at the same CES show where Sony debuted this Play Station, Nintendo announced that they were going to work with Phillips to make the CD-ROM add-on instead.

Obviously this move angered Sony, though in 1992 the sides came to agreement that Sony could still release their Play Station with SNES support. Sony never pushed forward on it, and instead decided they'd just start work on their own system instead.

Had this relationship never occurred, I don't know if Sony would have ever got into gaming. It's amazing what can happen when you piss somebody off.

DthRdrX

I agree. Given that they probably have to rush everything since they are the ones mainly supporting their consoles can you imagine how good their games would be if they could take their time and space releases out.

Breakfast with Girls

Nintendo made the right decision to back out of the deal. The PlayStation 2 wouldn't have had any Nintendo tie-ins. If they had stuck with their deal it would have simply delayed the inevitable, while giving Sony a chance to glean knowledge from Nintendo and actively court third-party developers, since they would have a built-in transition plan from Nintendo's console to Sony. It was a terrible move to ally with Sony in the first place.

If Nintendo had released a CD-ROM console as the successor to the Super Nintendo they would have been in a very different position from about 1995 to 2005. Squaresoft wouldn't have bolted and took Enix and other third-party publishers with them. PlayStation wouldn't have got Final Fantasy VII as an exclusive, which helped rocket it to first place. It's likely things would probably still have ended up the same way today, given Nintendo's family friendly stance and Microsoft entering the market, but I think it would have been another Nintendo/Sega-type rivalry with Sony in that era rather than a PlayStation blowout.