Lots of time and research has gone into this, so I hope I make someone's day
with this story. Not only is it full of information, but it also shows that
Nintendo didn't really abandon Sony - but Sony forced Nintendo into a
situation in which abandonment was necessary for their corporate wants and
needs (of course, an agreement was reached, and Nintendo did eventually back
out, but they had good reason...) Read on, my friends.
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The Truth, The Whole Truth...
Back in 1991, Philips and Nintendo were developing the SNES CD-ROM that
was going to be compatible with Philips's CD-I machine. Nintendo would (as
usual) have complete control over licensing the games for their SNES addon,
and Philips would supply the CD player. Philps also got the rights to some
of Nintendo's characters for some of their CD-I games. A Mario game and
three Zelda games were released, nothing special. Nintendo was planning to
introduce the machine on the CES in June, but unfortunately the deal they
had struck with Philips conflicted with a previous deal (1988) with Sony...
Nintendo, not wanting to cancel the project, switched to Sony, and
instead the Nintendo PlayStation was introduced at the CES! The machine was
playing both special "Super Discs" (680 MB) and normal SNES games. All was
great until Nnitendo discovered that the 1988 deal granted Sony, not
Nintendo, the rights to control and license all the CD based games for the
PlayStation. Sony was also the only supplier of the special sound chip that
was used in the SNES, putting Nintendo in a ... situation. Nintendo quickly
announced that they had allied themselves with Philips once more, because
"Philips's technology was superior" - more accurately, though, to give
Nintendo back it's control on software and gracefully drop Sony!
Sony tried to make Nintendo change their minds by threatening to sue,
but Nintendo insisted that their cooperation wouldn't interfere with Sony
and Nintendo's CD project (the PlayStation). However, at the next CES press
conference concerning the Playstation, Nintendo abruptly changed sides once
more. Sony expected Nintendo to promote the Playstation, but instead
Nintendo announced their plans to work exclusively with Philips. Sony
claimed that they had an exclusive deal with Nintendo and that Nintendo had
violated it!
Because both companies were Japanese, there were no lawsuits, but
negotiations took place in other ways. There was an "unspoken rule" among
Japanese business partners not to turn against one another if benefits were
misplaced, such as in the hands of competitors. Sony had options besides
making things worse with Nintendo because of the PlayStation's ability to
play SNES games. Besides, Sony developed the SNES sound chip, and Nintendo
didn't need a vital ally to turn against them.
Had Nintendo been able to achieve control over the CD games, all would
have been fine and lovely, and the Nintendo PlayStation would have become a
reality. But because of the ambiguity of the Japanese contracts, Nintendo
managed to extricate itself from the negatives of the contract continued to
work with Philips. When it was clear to Sony that Nintendo would not support
the PlayStation without having full control over the software for the
system, Sony took the project into their own hands and continued to develop
the project on their own.
At the Tokyo International Electronics Show in October, Sony presented
the PlayStation as a console both for gaming and education. Various
educational multimedia titles were announced, but no real games were
presented. However, Sony was making deals game developers, and the
Playstation would still be able to run SNES games. When the Sega CD was
released, Sony paused their PlayStation development and began making games
for the Sega system.
At the January 1992 CES conference, Nintendo officially announced the
diminished partnership with Sony. Nintendo also announced that their CD
system (by Philips) would be released by Christmas 1992 (soon after pushed
back to January 1993) and that licensing for the system would be handled in
the same manners as with the NES and SNES.
In an attempt to keep disc media under control, Nintendo and Sony met to
negotiate once more. By October 1992, the two companies had finally reached
an agreement: Sony would be in control of all non-game softwares, and
Nintendo would be in charge of all the games - including Sony's own games.
Sony commented that the alliance was necessary once they realized that
Nintendo would be the "clear 16-bit winner." It was also decided that the
machine would be 32-bit.
Nintendo continued to cooperate with both Sony and Philips, and the
project was transformed once again, becoming the Nintendo Disk (SNES ND), or
the Philips CD-ROM XA. In April 1993, Nintendo released specs on the SNES ND
and set a release date for early 1994. The system was supposed to have a
32-bit coprocessor to assist the original SNES processor; the extension was
also to increase system speed from 3.6 MHz to 21.5 MHz (wow?). In order for
the addon to work, a "system cartridge" would be placed in the SNES
cartridge slot that would allow the SNES to read from the ND.
Nintendo was expected to unveil the system at the SCES conference in
Chicago in late 1993, but not a word of any CD system was mentioned at the
conference. Weeks later Nintendo announced that they had abandoned the CD
project altogether. Reasons for their abandonment included loading time
issues and issues with a read-only medium (this was before the time of
memory packs), not to mention the advent of copying CDs. Nintendo also
believed that they stood to gain more from the cartridge-based model and
shifted focus to the development of their 64-bit project
To clear any confusion, there were actually three separate Nintendo CD
projects: the Nintendo/Philips CD addon in 1991, the Nintendo/Sony
PlayStation later in 1991, and the SNES Nintendo Disk (or Philips CD-ROM XA)
of late 1992. The Sony PlayStation that we all know today uses none of the
hardware or technology that was planned for any of the Nintendo systems
(hence no lawsuits) - Sony rebuilt the project from scratch.
Questions? Comments? Mistakes? Let me know!