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"The Sega Sony hardware system" - how Sega of America & Sony tried to team up
- Thread starter gofreak
- Start date
Digital-Hero
Member
Sony Imagesoft's best game will forever be HOOK for SNES.
googleplex
Member
More like Sony was little Bruce Wayne until Nintendo and Sega killed his parents Now we got Batman.
Such an interesting story. Thanks for posting.
Can you please provide some links to those stories? I love reading about this stuff.
Can you please provide some links to those stories? I love reading about this stuff.
What I remember is that around 1992, there was a 3-way deal between Nintendo-Philips-Sony for a more powerful 32-Bit CD-ROM machine. The previous two, the Play Station (dating back to 1988) and Philips (1991) were merely little more than CD-ROM drives with some extra memory. The third and final attempt between the 3 of them used several co-processors, significantly more memory, and CD-ROM disc inside a caddy with its own memory for security.
In 1993 it was canceled in favor of Project Reality ==> Ultra 64 ==> Nintendo 64.
UnluckyKate
Member
or the good knight who rose against vilains to offer gamers what we needed and what we derserved
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
ill agree about FPS's cause bond was that game, and there were others
but Racing....you have to account for Gran Turismo somehow not being considered a big part of "racing" and Sony had the more popular football game title in those days where multiple devs could have NFL licenses.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
So yet another story of SoJ making bone headed, company killing, decisions.
Manmademan
Member
even if you ignore GT (and you really can't) PS had need for speed: hot pursuit and ridge racer type 4.
the N64 got it's ass kicked by PS racers. not even close.
Shadow Hog
Member
Y'know, I really don't like the implication that any of Sega, Sony or Nintendo were really "villains" here. All three had impressive put-out that generation (most of Sega's being stuck in Japan, but nevertheless).
Naughty God
Banned
Wipeout as well.
googleplex
Member
Weird thing through. Now it seems like Sony's western and western influenced branch is now leading things after its traditional Japanese leaders screwed up this Generation.
Digital-Hero
Member
This article is amazing and brings back my middle school memories in the early 90's.
Manmademan
Member
I was never really into that one, but yeah, wow. oh! crash team racing gets a shoutout as a mascot racer if you're into those
moltonasty
Member
Wow. This is like having a girl who's really into you, but you're kinda like "whatever bitch, I got my own shit going on, I don't have time for a relationship right now." Then as revenge, she goes to bang your nemesis, who also turns her down, cuz he's so busy plotting his next attack on you. Then, the girl (Sony) becomes a world famous movie star, your friend/enemy/frenemy commits suicide (Sega) and you're stuck in a relationship that you kinda just stumbled into, your life is aimless, and you don't know what the next few years of your life will be like (Nintendo/Wii U).
The moral: never turn down free sex, or that chick whose into you, no matter WHAT. She may end up becoming a PS-Quadruple
The moral: never turn down free sex, or that chick whose into you, no matter WHAT. She may end up becoming a PS-Quadruple
demosthenes
Member
Nintendo was no hero back then.
Success breeds complacency.
The PS2 had as many baffling decisions as the PS3, really. It was equally, if not more, a pig of a console to code for - I've read stories of some developers feeling proud they got the thing to draw a single triangle on-screen during their first day with the dev kits. But PS1 dominance+DVD+timing+great marketing negated that.
PS3 lacked the timing and great marketing of PS2, plus Microsoft was a new surprise success I suspect SONY weren't actually even considering as a proper rival until it was too late.
I remember reading about the Atari/Nintendo deal for the NES on a magazine, but couldn't find much on it on any website, all i could find is references to that deal,; but not really much about the story behind it
BlackLagoon
Member
bishopcruz
Member
Right but again, without that fuel the CEO and the rest probably wouldn't have been onboard with it. Sony's attempts to find partners pretty much proves this. The motivation created by the humiliation at E3 mixed with the unwillingness of the major partners to play ball is what did it. Without the slap to the face, they just as easily could have sais "screw it" we're done. Kutaragi was the drving force behind the platform, but the old guard were not convinced until the end.
This is really probably more like some Game of Thrones political maneuvering. There's some good guys but a lot of the players are assholes.
EDIT: And if we were going with Batman analogies, uhh, in a way I think Sony's (well, more specifically Ken Kuturagi's) probably more like Two-Face: die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
JustRiffled
Banned
Only Shenmue and Sonic Adventure. And Shenmue was only 5 months in development.
Most things that people loved about the Dreamcast were the result of breaking up their devs to individual studios prior to the Dreamcast release and giving it all for a international audience as opposed to Saturn, with innovative releases like Rez, Jet Set etc.
The Saturn output was inferior to the Genesis and Dreamcast (also early Xbox) output. Sonic was absent, huge japanese focus with Sakura Taisen, mediocore 2d action games with Clockwork Knights, Astal and Shinobi Legions, and imperfect Arcade ports in comparision to Dreamcast. Or maybe I just wasn't that big a fan of Nights, Burning Rangers and Panzer Dragoon, they were pretty good, but not fantastic. Saga was the only game I would call that.
bishopcruz
Member
That output though was a result of it being successful only in Japan. Remember without the American studios Sonic 2/3/Knuckles don't exist either. SoJ was clearly a mess at the time, but they were successful in Japan for the first time since, well, ever with the Saturn. The problem was they completely lost their US and European audience, and with that a lot of the western development, at a time when western development was really taking off.
I'm not sure that Sony ever officially approached Nintendo with their CD plans, or if Nintendo ever specifically signed a contract for the original Play Station.
Remember, the SNES launched in Japan at the end of 1990. Nintendo's betrayalton of Sony at CES happened even before the American launch in 1991. And Kutaragi was making the SNES sound chip in secret, intending to tell his bosses about his activities only when Nintendo was ready to make a purchase for launch.
1988 (the year that the contract in question was reportedly signed) seems like a perfect year for Nintendo to have signed a contract for Sony to make a sound chip. It does not seem like a good time for Nintendo to have been shopping around for a CD drive, and signing contracts without going over little details like who gets to own it.
If you ask me, I'd say that it's very likely that Nintendo gave Sony (in the sound chip contract) permission to make Sony-branded for-profit SNES hardware. Nintendo gave that exact same right to Panasonic when they helped design the GameCube. But I think Nintendo gave Sony some blanket permission to innovate within the SNES design.
Sony built a rear access door into their own Sony-branded SNES variant, a superior door, put their own locks on it, and then they refused to hand Nintendo the keys. Why does Nintendo need the keys? Sony built that door. Sony built the lock. Nintendo even has their own locked front door, and Nintendo doesn't share the keys to that with Sony.
This would also explain why Sony was unable to legally prevent Nintendo from working with Phillips, despite Sony's protests about the "exclusive right" granted to them by the contract. If Sony honestly had the "exclusive right" to make a CD drive for Nintendo, how is it possible that Phillips just walked in and made one?
On the other hand, if Sony had the "exclusive right" to make and sell SNES variants, then it's easy to see how Nintendo could legally hire Phillips to make a CD drive for Nintendo to sell.
Basically, I think this mess was born out of some grey area in the SNES's sound chip contract.
This right here, it was a very well done game. Especially compared to some of the other drek with that label.
Pretty much Sony is like the Helghast and Nintendo/Sega are the ISA in Killzone. It's the "villain" that many fans prefer over the "good guys".
When I first saw the PS1 in EGM I just had a gut feeling that unlike CD-i or 3DO the PlayStation would actually truly matter. Maybe it's because they're Sony and carried ENOUGH clout then, or because what was being shown actually looked more interesting, but I was dissuaded from asking for it for Christmas that year primarily because I made some really, really bad choices when I got to rent the system more than thinking it was no good period, and to be honest it probably wasn't a WRONG call: the library was mostly bad at launch and what gems there were were literally displaced by superior sequels the following year. Especially with the price drop that hit then.
Although given the bundle deals the Saturn saw and the replacement of that misguided controller with the Japanese controller colored black I guess both were rotten choices at the end of 1995 specifically. At least Virtua Fighter 2 was out and it was a time I could still really get into fighters.
Canis lupus
Member
Until Sony came back and ate their cake.
bishopcruz
Member
You're making out Sony to be the 'villain' here when it's not the case. If anything both companies did shit that was probably a bit underhanded. 1988 is when the deal was done, remember the SFC was in development for years, and came out late with reports of Nintendo basically sitting on finished hardware until they time was right for them. The deal for the CDROM unit was done at the same time as the sound chip deal, but it was not the same contract. Or at least they were two parts of the same. Part of that deal was Sony having control over the CDs.
See here for more
Essentially yes, they had a contract, Sony believed it was broken, and the reason the suit never came about was because of both continued negotiations and the fact that Sony was still providing the sound chip for the SFC.
My biggest beef with the PS1 was the blocky, constantly shifting textures. They drove me mad and still do. I ended up buying a N64 and I didn't regret it because even if the graphics were blurry as hell, it didn't have that nasty texture issue. I ended up picking up a PS1 years later to play a few of the exclusives I missed out on. MGS1 in particular was a revelation and pretty much made sure that I bought a PS2 when MGS2 came out. Ever since then I've grown to really like Sony, especially with their commitment to 1st party games that try to break new ground.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Man both Nintendo and Sega rejected Sony. I can only imagine their reactions once they saw the PS1 and its sales.
Digital-Hero
Member
I'm glad Steve Race is in this article. Many people forget him. He gave a great and candid interview in DIEHARD: GameFAN back in the day. I remember reading that during high school classes. XD
Shadow Hog
Member
It's also kind of funny to consider that Kalinske got the axe shortly thereafter, and was replaced with Bernie Stolar... who helped launch the PS1, but was axed when Sony started to feel his anti-RPG, pro-sports policy was hurting more than helping.
Man, if I could make any game company act differently at an early period of their life (as a game company anyway) it'd definitely be Sony. NEVER develop those notions in the first place, ensure button layouts were consistent between all three regions so there'd never be issues with game localizations mixing up buttons in ways that aren't exactly ideal, and possibly get some of the games we missed out on.
Granted, there's other points that'd probably be more deserving of a huge change such as trying to make sure Sega actually thrived or the PS3 was truly competitive with the 360, but that probably would have the fewest unintended side effects, gets us more games, and addresses one of my bigger nitpicks.
Yeah, that was annoying, but it seemed to me like a system I'd really want to have, and once FFVII was announced for PS1 it was sealed: I had to have the system.
Digital-Hero
Member
Hindsight is 20/20. I doubt you could have done a better job without knowing.
No, because as I said, I don't think Sony officially offered a CD drive to Nintendo.
Kutaragi was talking to Nintendo. Off the record. Sony didn't even know he was talking to them, and would not have allowed it. Kutaragi is on record as saying that the Play Station was motivated by his desire to improve videogames and make the world a better place.
I propose that Nintendo (in the sound chip contract) gave Sony the right to make some hardware profits, and gave Kutaragi the freedom to experiment and make a better SNES. I don't think that they specifically asked for a CD drive and signed a contract for it, not knowing what it was, or knowing but not realizing it's implications. I think their mistake was a little bit broader and more general than that.
I think it's an issue of Occam's Razor, one contract, not two. Nintendo gave away a thing in the sound chip contract which they've demonstrated a clear willingness to give to others, but without an important safety check. Kutaragi followed his ambitions, and Nintendo was to some degree ignorant of them. This created a situation where Sony Proper and Nintendo Proper had no choice but to meet horns over the ownership of Kutaragi's work.
That or (if we believe there was a specific contract for the Play Station), Nintendo is tremendously ignorant, and both sides couldn't write a contract to save their own lives.
I don't think I'll trust IGN on this. IGN came into the picture with the N64. And it looks like they're parrotting-but-modifying the words of David Sheff from Game Over. When IGN says
I don't think that means that IGN has seen the contract, and they can confirm what it states, I think that IGN merely read how David Sheff wrote
and they're rephrasing it as their own work.
Nice! Thanks, i will give it a read once i got home. I love this kind of stuff of videogame history
I forgot about that guy...I saw this picture while watching a video about the life of the Dreamcast.(They also mention that he was a nail in the coffin)
Shadow Hog
Member
Not sure what that has to do with my post that you quoted, but personally I'd go to Sega from this era and do everything in my power to reveal to Sega of Japan that their arrogance and jealousy of the American branch would doom the entire company. I'd thought I would just tell them to woo Square as soon as possible and make Final Fantasy VII a Saturn exclusive, but the idea of going back slightly further and making a Sega PlayStation (PlayStation hardware, Saturn controller) is just too good.
True. On the other hand the designer's purpose with the buttons WAS explicit: O was to be confirm, X was to be cancel. It seemed to me half that there wasn't clear enough communication between regions or someone wasn't willing to just stomp the foot down and ensure it went a certain way.
Did not help that some of the early PS1 developers, likely the ones key to that shift, had kind of crazy counter intuitive layouts anyway. Select for pausing and Start for changing camera positions what in the FUCK?
More that anti-RPG/pro-sports bit made me think about how early SCEA was. But yeah, Sega of America really should've been trusted more then, though I do wonder to some degree if Sega's fate was inevitable: Sony and Microsoft got HUGE and Nintendo survived mainly by being very smart with their money. With the Sony partnership I suspect they would've eventually been absorbed into Sony anyway, perhaps that was another fear they had but didn't speak up on?
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