What if Nintendo and Sony had stayed together?

[CastletonSnob]

How would things be different if Nintendo and Sony stayed together for the SNES CD add-on?

I don't think the partnership would have lasted. The past almost 30 years have proven that Nintendo and Sony have fundamentally different philosophies regarding video games and business as a whole.

[Shagger]

Just in case anyone reading this thread is unaware, the PlayStation started it's life as CD based add-on for the SNES. They even got so far as developing and manufacturing an number of prototypes (that are now VERY expensive collectors items). Nintendo were quite big dicks about it actually because just as Sony were preparing to announce the console and without telling Sony, Nintendo publicly announced thier partnership to produce thier CD add for the SNES... with Philips (I'm not even kidding, that actually happened). Of course, that add-on never happened either and ended up becoming the miserable failure known as the Philips CDi, so yeah, it's safe to say Sony had the last laugh in the end.

 

Anyway, back to the topic. It's almost impossible to imagine what gaming would be today if the Nintendo PlayStation came out out as opposed to the Sony PlayStation. I do agree it does seem unlikely that this partnership would have lasted beyond the CD add-on, but it is possible Sony could have kept going and further developed thier own gaming/console technology without Nintendo, but they may have been behind the curve by the time they did. I Find it unlikely that Sony's own console would have been as popular if that CD add-on come through.

 

So in the end, I have offer thanks to Nintendo for being such ass holes.

[CastletonSnob]

39 minutes ago, Shagger said:

Just in case anyone reading this thread is unaware, the PlayStation started it's life as CD based add-on for the SNES. They even got so far as developing and manufacturing an number of prototypes (that are now VERY expensive collectors items). Nintendo were quite big dicks about it actually because just as Sony were preparing to announce the console and without telling Sony, Nintendo publicly announced thier partnership to produce thier CD add for the SNES... with Philips (I'm not even kidding, that actually happened). Of course, that add-on never happened either and ended up becoming the miserable failure known as the Philips CDi, so yeah, it's safe to say Sony had the last laugh in the end.

 

Anyway, back to the topic. It's almost impossible to imagine what gaming would be today if the Nintendo PlayStation came out out as opposed to the Sony PlayStation. I do agree it does seem unlikely that this partnership would have lasted beyond the CD add-on, but it is possible Sony could have kept going and further developed thier own gaming/console technology without Nintendo, but they may have been behind the curve by the time they did. I Find it unlikely that Sony's own console would have been as popular if that CD add-on come through.

 

So in the end, I have offer thanks to Nintendo for being such ass holes.

You make it sound like Nintendo ditched Sony for no reason.

Sony was going to make most of the money from the add-on. The deal was HEAVILY in Sony's favor.

And Sony would have entered the console race with or without Nintendo. Part of the deal was that Sony would make a standalone console.

I don't think the SNES CD add-on would have even been successful, seeing how badly the Sega CD did.

Edited May 13, 2022 by CastletonSnob

[Crazycrab]

An little anecdote to add to all this, because of this partnership Sony and Nintendo systems shared certain components.  The design of AV output socket on the N64, the GameCube and the Wii is the same one on the PlayStation, PS2 and PS3. Just with the pins were changed to make sure that they aren't cross compatible (Nintendo's idea no doubt).

[kingpotato]

I agree I dont think that partnership would have last. But if Nintendo had gone with sony instead of philips Im guessing Sony would have probably still enter the console race but much later on.

[The Blackangel]

I learned something today. I had thought all this time that the Nintendo/Sony partnership was an add on to the N64, not the SNES. I always thought the 64DD was the Nintendo/Sony console. But then again, I never looked into it all that deeply so I guess it's to be expected that I didn't know much about it.

[Justin11]

Competition makes them better, if no competition from both ends, it wouldn't be possible for the two companies to be at their respective best. So, both of them are strengthening each other. 

[Yaramaki]

The big question what if?

If they stayed together surely another giant electronics company would have stepped up, maybe the 3do would have succeeded because it had some interesting ideas and games for the time, they had ea and a few other studios behind the project aswell. Panasonic/sanyo and goldstar were also on board and those weren't exactly small companies either so it probably should have done better then it did, if only the price was cheaper for the system.

Offcourse this is just talking out of my ass i'm doing and is irrelevant.

On 5/13/2022 at 3:10 AM, Shagger said:

 Of course, that add-on never happened either and ended up becoming the miserable failure known as the Philips CDi, so yeah, it's safe to say Sony had the last laugh in the end.

 

 

You do have to realise the Phillips cd-i was originally designed to be a multimedia platform not a gaming machine, it's only later phillips started focussing on games because people wanted games for it instead of interactive/educational/video cd software. The machine was quit revolutionairy at the time because it could run the same stuff a computer could but on cd-rom technology, at the time most of the of computers just had floppy disk drives because cd-rom were just too expensive. Offcourse the system failed because of it's high price tag.

On a funny note  one of my teachers in elementary school, used his cd-i in class to teach us stuff like i remember getting french with the cd-i at one point and you know it worked as a kid we never had seen anything like it and were generally exited about getting french. He also believed the cd-i would replace computers alltogheter because they were big and bulky and the cd-i was a cheaper alternative.

[killamch89]

On 5/12/2022 at 8:10 PM, Shagger said:

Just in case anyone reading this thread is unaware, the PlayStation started it's life as CD based add-on for the SNES. They even got so far as developing and manufacturing an number of prototypes (that are now VERY expensive collectors items). Nintendo were quite big dicks about it actually because just as Sony were preparing to announce the console and without telling Sony, Nintendo publicly announced thier partnership to produce thier CD add for the SNES... with Philips (I'm not even kidding, that actually happened). Of course, that add-on never happened either and ended up becoming the miserable failure known as the Philips CDi, so yeah, it's safe to say Sony had the last laugh in the end.

 

Anyway, back to the topic. It's almost impossible to imagine what gaming would be today if the Nintendo PlayStation came out out as opposed to the Sony PlayStation. I do agree it does seem unlikely that this partnership would have lasted beyond the CD add-on, but it is possible Sony could have kept going and further developed thier own gaming/console technology without Nintendo, but they may have been behind the curve by the time they did. I Find it unlikely that Sony's own console would have been as popular if that CD add-on come through.

 

So in the end, I have offer thanks to Nintendo for being such ass holes.

I'm glad things turned out the way they did because we have some competition in the console market which will keep either company from becoming too complacent. Although, Sony has really been dropping the ball lately.