-------- From: http://www.scee.com/corporate/sonyhistory.jhtml The launch of PlayStation was the culmination of a long-term plan to take a lead in the burgeoning videogames market. In 1988 Sony had entered into a arrangement with Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM drive for the 16bit Super Famicom, a console that was due on the market in 18 months time. The technology that was responsible for this deal was Sony's and Philips CD-ROM/XA, an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously with the aid of extra hardware. Sony also had plans to develop another Nintendo compatible machine, a self-contained entertainment system that would play both SFC cartridges and a new CD format designed and solely licensed by Sony. Called SuperDisc this proprietary format would also form the basis of Nintendo's own CD-ROM drive - PlayStation was born! Sony had long recognised the potential to create a new kind of videogame on CD-ROM through its vast entertainment resources within Sony Music and Sony Pictures. As the PlayStation began to take shape, Nintendo felt increasingly sidelined and less relevant to Sony's plans. Nintendo perceived that Sony's success could threaten its survival and to the surprise and annoyance of Sony announced in 1991 that it had entered an agreement with Philips to develop a CD-ROM platform for Super Nintendo. After much legal wrangling Nintendo succeeded in extricating itself from the contract previously signed with Sony but the development of PlayStation continued on the basis that an agreement on the licensing of Nintendo CD Software would be reached. At the end of 1992 Sony, Nintendo and Philips signed a deal whereby PlayStation would be able to run SNES CD-ROMs but left Nintendo with the sole rights to all its games. The version of PlayStation being developed at that time never made it into production. -------- From: http://videogames.gamespot.com/features/universal/hov/p8_02.html 1992 Sony and Nintendo abandon their joint CD peripheral, which Sony had reputedly completed in prototype form. Rumors surface indicating that Sony lawyers had skillfully crafted an agreement that allowed Sony to reap publishing profits from SNES/Super Famicom CD-based games, profits Nintendo sought to retain. Nintendo announces plans to work with Philips to create a CD-ROM compatible with the Philips CD-i. Sony, disgusted, finishes work on a number of SNES games, scraps the old "PlayStation" developed for Nintendo, and sets its engineers to work on developing a 32-bit CD-only game machine to unseat Nintendo in Japan and the United States. ------- From: http://www.gamezero.com/team-0/articles/remember_when/1995/phoenix.html Another item that was only lightly touched upon is the whole SNES CD situation between Philips, Sony and Nintendo. If someone only read this book, they might come away feeling that this wasn't a big deal, and that the whole situation was just a simple disagreement between companies... When from what I've read from other sources, as well as heard from people who were close to the situation, this was no minor disagreement. The story as I've heard it, has pointed towards more of a major contract skirmish between Nintendo and Sony. Sources indicate that the contract developed with Phillips and Nintendo was apparently a move designed to force Sony to either give in to Nintendo's requests or break the contract which they had locked Nintendo into. Sony's apparently offended that Nintendo would sign a contract with a non-Japanese firm behind their back, opted to desolve the contract and redesign their CD machine into what we now know as the PlayStation. ------- From: http://playstation.hotgames.com/features/37/features_1.htm So, where were we? Oh yeah. Hundreds of eager journalists pile into the press room, expecting to hear Nintendo's big announcement about the future of the SNES platform. The word was already out about the Sony deal, so the official speech was just going to be a formality. Or at least, that's what everyone thought... LICOLN'S BOMBSHELL Howard Lincoln calmly walked up to the podium and began his speech about Nintendo's future. Of course, Howard Lincoln does everything calmly. He's cooler than The Fonz, in fact. People use him to keep their drinks cold, etc. After talking about the upcoming games for that year (more licensed platform shooters, yay!), he unveiled details about the new CD system the company would use to compete with the competing Sega CD and Turbo Grafx CD platforms. It would expand the system's capabilities with new graphic hardware. It would let users play games from both cartridge and CD format. It would be out by Christmas. It was developed in conjunction with...Philips. Sony were furious. The project manager at the time, Olaf Olaffson, knew that effectively they had been backstabbed by the two companies they had trusted with their Play Station project - it was originally a joint Sony / Philips concept back when the CD standard was being developed. This had not been the first time Sony had their future blighted by the big N. When the incredibly popular GameBoy was first released, Sony's R D teams were severely chastised by the powers that be, for not coming up with the idea first. Some employees were reportedly so embarrassed by this they left the company. TO CD OR NOT TO CD? The project was put on hold as the company observed how the interactive entertainment market would develop. The SNES CD project never saw the light of day - not only were there potential piracy issues, but Yamauchi declared (rightfully so, as it turned out) that the market and base hardware was not yet ready for CD gaming. In real terms though, all the deal did was cancel the effect Sony and Phillips might have had on the market Nintendo sought to completely own. ------ From: http://insider.ign.com/articles/316625p1.html To explain how these games came about, we have to travel back to 1988, three years before the release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Sensing that the emerging CD-ROM format could become the storage media of the future, Nintendo entered into a deal with multimedia powerhouse Sony to collaborate on a new gaming platform, codenamed Play Station Experimental (or short: PSX). This enhanced CD player would utilize proprietary CD-ROMs called Super Discs for multimedia and gaming content, as well as be fully compatible with Nintendo's forthcoming Super NES game console. The idea was to create a machine that didn't only appeal to kids and broaden the appeal by featuring both a CD drive for movie and software playback and a SNES cartridge slot for Nintendo's popular games. Everything seemed set for a joint future between two entertainment company giants. Fast-forward to 1990. When it became clear that CD-ROMs weren't a fluke and could turn into a major business, Nintendo Co. Ltd. president Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that the proposed alliance with Sony meant giving up the very foundation of Nintendo's business: absolute control over license and manufacturing. Under the agreement, Sony would be the exclusive worldwide licensor of the Super Disc format. Third-party publishers would no longer have to pay Nintendo to create games unless they were created for the more restrictive cartridge format. And what publishers in their right mind would choose the more expensive of the two formats? Not able to gracefully bow out of the agreement, Yamauchi devised a new plan -- without telling Sony about it. In 1991 Nintendo of America's Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa flew to Eindhoven in the Netherlands and signed an agreement with Europe's biggest electronics manufacturer, Philips N.V. Under this new alliance, future Nintendo games would be playable on Philips' new CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) system -- and Philips would in turn develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Famicom (SNES). Nintendo would of course control all licensing for software made for the CD drive. The executives at Sony soon found out about Nintendo's little affair. Only hours away from its announcement of the agreement with Nintendo at the 1991 CES in Chicago, Sony tried everything to destroy the Philips/Nintendo partnership. Nintendo maintained that the Philips deal did not compete with the Sony agreement and Sony had no choice but to announce its system and partnership despite Nintendo's perceived breech. The events that followed would shape the gaming industry forever. Sony announced its SNES-compatible PlayStation console on the first day of CES. Nintendo's press conference on the second day, thought to further explain the alliance, shocked the world by instead announcing a close partnership with Philips. The fact that one of Japan's major entertainment companies had "screwed" a Japanese partner and allied itself with a foreign competitor made headlines in every business daily from Hokkaido to Okinawa. It initially looked like Nintendo would resolve its differences with Sony in 1993 via an altered licensing agreement that was more favorable to Nintendo, but as everyone here knows, Sony would ultimately emerge as the dominant force in gaming and release the PlayStation as a standalone videogame machine in 1994. But that's another story. Let's get back to what you've come here to read about... When it became clear that CD-i sales weren't setting the world on fire (after all, these so-called "Imagination Machines" shipped for a whopping $1,000), Nintendo decided to downplay the software agreement with Philips. Instead of creating CD-i compatible games itself, it gave Philips the license to create a set number of games based on its two flagship franchises: Mario and Zelda. This agreement produced three Zelda games, two of which actually starred the princess herself in the title role. The first one, Link: The Faces of Evil was released internationally in 1993 alongside Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. ----- From: http://videogames.gamespot.com/features/universal/zelda/page21.html To make a long, oft-told story really short: Around 1992, Nintendo was deep in talks with both Sony and Philips regarding development of a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo. Nintendo announced a partnership with Sony, but, concerned by a loss of control under Sony's potential business model, Nintendo switched to Philips at the eleventh hour. Neither the Sony nor the Philips system ever made it to market, but the industry repercussions were severe. Sony, spited, began development on its top secret "PlayStation X" project - released to the market as the PlayStation. Philips' contract with Nintendo and relationship with Sony gave limited rights to use Nintendo's characters in titles for its CD-I system. The result? These Philips titles. While their overall effect on the market may have been less than Sony's PlayStation, there's no denying the scarring impact they've had on the unfortunate souls who've played them. Fear these "games." ---- See http://www.thepong.com/Sites/Left/Nintendo/SNBack.htm and http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?snes/snescdr.htm