Sony, Nintendo Playstation story "a hoax"

Hi Paul,

Just read your article titled "Nintendo enjoys a 10 per cent slice of Sony's Playstation profits", and noticed you mention don't remember the original story.

I remember back in the days of owning my SuperNES, reading of a plan (and seeing some "artists impressions" of what it would look like) to produce a CD drive add on for the system. The SNES console would site on top of the unit, connected by its expansion port. The idea being, I believe, was to upgrade the capabilities of the SNES, and allow larger games to be loaded from CD-ROMS. The article I read at the time specifically mentioned that the CD unit was going to be produced by Sony.

I don't remember it being called anything along the lines of Playstation, I think it was to be called the SuperCD, similar to the MegaCD add-on for the Sega Megadrive.

I suspect Nintendo saw the "success" of the Sega MegaCD and canned it accordingly!

10% of the Playstation profits seems a rather large amount to be paid to Nintendo just off the back of this project alone, however I do recall more recently reading a related article which mentioned that the Playstation evolved out of this project, and in fact every Playstation more or less contained a SNES... This of course may just be something else to toss onto the rumour mill!

Ben

Subject: Nintendo enjoys a 10 per cent slice of Sony's Playstation profits

Hiya,

Nintendo might well have an interest in the Playstation name. It is indeed true that the original, never to be released, Playstation was a CDROM for the SNES. My memory is rusty over whether it was a genuine joint venture, I seem to remember that Nintendo paid Sony to develop the gizmo (which included an updated graphics chip). Nintendo, for whatever reason, decided they didn't like the project and Sony decided that they did like it. Hence Sony went off and developed a full on Playstation. However, it would not surprise me if Nintendo originally financing/sponsoring the project gave them some right to the name.

Arron

Subject: Nintendo enjoys a 10 per cent slice of Sony's Playstation profits

Hi

Inquirer often reports rumours, but please, you should do _some_ filtering at least. One source in the whole world for a _MAJOR_ news item (consoletalk). News that, if true, would have to be told to stock owners first (press release etc.) and that would make headlines at CNN.

...slashdot really is no source for news, the "editors" are a joke ;).

Jussi Lassila

I think the story that was posted on the Consoletalk site was a hoax. Someone sent the story to me yesterday, but decided not to post it after i didnt find anything backing the story up. News that big would have been reported on the Sony/Nintendo websites, or if there was an announcement, in some Japanese newspapers at least. It seems right before /. posted their news the story has disappeared completely from the Consoletalk site. Who knows...

Fred

Subject: Nintendo enjoys a 10 per cent slice of Sony's Playstation profits

As I recall, Sony and Nintendo were working on advanced CD-ROM attachment for the Super Nintendo (SNES) Entertainment System. The name of this device, if I understand the article correctly, was to be "Playstation". No whether or not Nintendo filed paperwork or somehow trademarked/copyrighted the name, I don't know, but if Sony is agreeing with and conceding to Nintendo, one can only assume that there was indeed a valid interest in that name.

Here's some interesting URLs on this device with some quotes (forgive any URL wrapping)--

"At one time, Nintendo had deals going with both Phillips and Sony, to develop a CD-ROM for use with the SNES." - See here.

"It's true. Years ago, Sony was designing a CD-ROM add-on called PlayStation for Nintendo's SNES. After many delays due to contract disagreements, Nintendo's deals with Philips to also make a CD-ROM system compatible with SNES, and Nintendo's change of heart for the slow-loading CD-ROM format, the original PlayStation project died." - That's here. And here.

Google also appears to have these pages cached in case any of them should happen to not load, a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=Nintendo+CD+SNES+Playstation" target="_blank">here's the query I used.

Will

Subject: the console article thinger

Hi,

Just as some extra info, to supplement the article on Nintendo and the Playstation name… I remember reading a while back, that the Playstation was born, through Nintendo's ignorance.

Legend has it (or does it?) that Nintendo originally contracted Sony to design a "CD based console add-on" for the SNES. This, I surmise, was supposed to be the answer to Sega's add-on for the Genesis/Mega-Drive which was labeled the GenesisCD/Mega-CD. Nintendo then refused to have it made, bla bla, something or other - and Sony ended up designing the console for itself, and the Playstation was born. I don't really know all the interim details (where I inserted bla bla) but I could do some Googling and give you anything I find.

Cheers

Christo van Gemert

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