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https://extralives.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/the-nintendo-playstation-surfaces/
THE NINTENDO PLAY STATION SURFACES?
This picture (from Reddit’s analogueboy) is of a rare prototype created as the fruit between Sony and Nintendo in their efforts to build a CD-ROM attachment for the Super Famicom. Front loading CD-ROM with a cartridge slot in the back and a Super Famicom controller make wondering what the industry could have looked like today if this ever made it into full production.
It’s no secret today that Nintendo and Sony started working together on a project in 1988 to create a CD-ROM attachment for the upcoming Super Famicom, the Famicom’s successor which would hit Japan first in 1990.
Unfortunately, things apparently didn’t work out for the two coming to a head in 1991 when Nintendo announced its partnership with rival Philips instead of Sony at 1991’s CES. That wasn’t something that the other party would be soon to forget.
The reasons for Nintendo backing out at the last minute? Control. Apparently Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo’s president and the man that led the company into becoming a console juggernaut, wasn’t happy with how much control Sony would get on the software licensing side and sought out Philips as a countermeasure. Yamauchi’s notoriously tough insistence over tight controls on software and its production, something that would echo in Nintendo’s dealings with retailers and manufacturers, was a hard lesson learned from watching Atari and its ilk implode in the West as the Famicom rolled out in 1983 in Japan. It would also be a controversial practice that would continue with its introduction a few years later, in 1985, in the United States in a muted debut.
Negotiations actually continued, however, into 1992 where they had apparently reached a deal allowing Sony to manufacture SNES-compatible hardware while Nintendo maintained control over software on which it would collect the profits. Ultimately, however, they collapsed.
Nintendo’s about turn to Philips in ’91 was something that a spurned Sony would always remember, a moment in gaming history that would later dictate the commercial course of the industry over the next two decades. “Revenge is a dish best served cold”, as Khan Noonien Singh would say to Kirk in The Wrath of Khan. In this case, it was on CD-ROMs.
But what about the Nintendo Super Famicom CD-ROM unit? According to Wikipedia (quoting an article on IGN), “apparently” 200 of the “Play Stations” were actually made. And now it looks like one of them have actually surfaced on Reddit thanks to user, analogueboy (who is , who posted in r/Games before the subreddit was made private as part of a wider protest against the firing of a well-liked moderator). Fortunately, the cache is available and can be viewed in the meantime. User DanDiebold’s (who, I’m guessing, is analogueboy on Imgur) pics can be found here on Imgur, too.
Is it real? I’m not sure myself, but still, it’s both a great reminder of one of gaming history’s biggest upsets and a great “what could have been” for what might have happened if Nintendo and Sony had combined their respective strengths.
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