Nintendo PlayStation (The Complete Story)
JPM, III
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.
__________________
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!
pip spud
this is the kind of post where you should insert your reply at the top of the
screen. right?
very interesting mr. jp. where did you get all this stuff from? and how much
money did nintendo waste on these projects - might be interesting to know. they
don't sound cheap.
on a more personal note, i was wondering what your opinions on the turok series
were. i personally feel 1 and 2 are extremely good and prefer the controls to
the pd/ge config - greater accuracy when looking around with the stick. this
also brings me to another point. the whole thing about pc gaming is the mouse,
right? it's so damned accurate and fast - way faster than any console game
control. that's all.
AttaGirl!
<jpmccord.s...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>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.
>__________________
>
Snippies!
I've heard all that somewhere, but I can't really place it. It must
have been either the book "Game Over", or Next Generation magazine--
The former very biased, and the latter so non-biased that they kind of
loop right back around to biased again, on principle.
-AttaGirl!
"Got hair in a girl
that flows to her bones,
and a comb in her pocket
if the winds get blown-
Stripes on her eyes when she walks slow,
but her face falls down
when she go, go, go-
Black tear falling on my lazy queen
gotta tattooed tit say number 13."
--Pixies, "Number 13 Baby"
JPM, III
> of the screen. right?
Unless I was responding to certain parts of the post, in which case I would
respond just beneath each part I was responding to.
> very interesting mr. jp. where did you get all this stuff from? and how
> much money did nintendo waste on these projects - might be interesting
> to know. they don't sound cheap.
A variety of places. I couldn't find any financial figures... I have a
feeling Nintendo's got those wrapped up.
> on a more personal note, i was wondering what your opinions on the
> turok series were. i personally feel 1 and 2 are extremely good and
> prefer the controls to the pd/ge config - greater accuracy when looking
> around with the stick. this also brings me to another point. the whole
> thing about pc gaming is the mouse, right? it's so damned accurate and
> fast - way faster than any console game control. that's all.
I've played Turok 1 & 2 very little, mostly because I didn't like the games
all that much. The whole "dinosaur hunter" thing didn't work too well with
me. Besides, the controls were a little warped (keep in mind I played the
first Turok before Goldeneye's release), and the whole jumping thing was a
bit awkward at the time and way overused. Turok 2 wasn't horrible, but I
didn't play it much because the story just didn't enthrall me (as with the
first). Not to mention the horrid framerate getting in the way of my attempt
to aim at things before they killed me... Multiplayer was fun though. I
haven't played Turok 3 much, but I've already played it more than the other
two combined. And like the first two, I don't like it because the story
isn't much to me. This game seems slower than the other two. Don't ask me
why, because I really can't tell you, but the GE/PD/TWINE shooters are just
my type, and the Turoks just aren't.
JPM, III
>
> I've heard all that somewhere, but I can't really place it. It must
> have been either the book "Game Over", or Next Generation magazine--
> The former very biased, and the latter so non-biased that they kind of
> loop right back around to biased again, on principle.
I borrowed heavily from one source to the next... no one else really had a
complete story that I could find. I just pieced things together from little
snippets of information, only using what I felt to be credible information.
If there's a big source full of all the details that I've missed, I'd love
to see it!
AttaGirl!
<jpmccord.s...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I borrowed heavily from one source to the next... no one else really had a
>complete story that I could find. I just pieced things together from little
>snippets of information, only using what I felt to be credible information.
>If there's a big source full of all the details that I've missed, I'd love
>to see it!
>
>
I thought the book "Game Over" was all right, although it only really
covers Nintendo in any detail. It has an early chapter or two on Nolan
Bushnell/Atari, and some stuff on Tengen, of course -- My favorite was
how Atari held out and blew the deal to become the North American
distributor for the original NES (before, I presume, Yamauchi's
son-in-law Minoru Arakawa came stateside). I'll bet Nolan Bushnell's
holed up somewhere in a Chuck E. Cheese crying as we speak.
NerveShock
wrote:
[SNIP]
>this is the kind of post where you should insert your reply at the top of the
>screen. right?
Good that you ask!
But in this case you should cut the text like I did and not write to the
top of text. Because you didn't have any comments to particular part of
the text, you just commented in general.
--
..... I love my attitude problem !
JPM, III
general, but you don't want to make anyone scroll down to find your words...
A top post is acceptable. In this case, they see the new post immediately,
and only scroll down in the event that they need to recall the previous
post.
"NerveShock" <mp_j...@hotmail.com.blaablaa> wrote in message
news:f5al0toup6h51k2ji...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 02 Nov 2000 10:47:56 +0800, pip spud <pip_...@yahooo.com>
> wrote:
>
> [SNIP]
>
> >this is the kind of post where you should insert your reply at the top of
the
> >screen. right?
>