Most of us know about the PlayStation and the Nintendo, but did you know there could have been something called the Nintendo PlayStation? In the 1980s, Nintendo was one of the strongest video game companies. After the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo created a name for itself in the video game world. Nintendo would later release the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Both these gaming systems used video game cartridges. Back then instead of cd’s game chips, cartridges were used. These cartridges were small removable devices that held code for video games. In the 1990s many concerns were brought about regarding the limitations of video game cartridges.
This was when Sony approached Nintendo with an offer to make a video game system. Sony was a big tech company even back then and in the 1980’s Sony was working on developing the Compact Disk technology. This Compact Disc technology would later be known as CD
-ROM (Compact Disk – Read Only Memory). While being a strong contender in the entertainment industry, Sony did not have much experience in the video game side of the entertainment industry. CD-ROM had great success in computers, and Sony wanted to spread that use to enter the video game industry. That’s when Sony offered to make a CD-ROM gaming system for Nintendo.
In 1988, an agreement was made and Sony started work on a CD-ROM add-on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Over the course of a few years the technology got developed and was named the Play Station. However, tensions started rising as Nintendo became worried that Sony could gain too much influence over Nintendo and that Sony might later become a competitor in the video game industry.
In January 1991 at the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the biggest tech events in the world, N
intendo shockingly announced that it had partnered with Phillips, Sony’s rival, to create a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES. This publicly humiliated Sony and, since Sony did not know about this beforehand all their time and money spent to develop the Play Station would have been wasted. But, because of Nintendo’s betrayal, Sony continued to work on the Play Station, creating a new gaming platform called Sony Computer Entertainment. They would later convince many video game developers to create video games for them. Due to the PlayStation’s CD-ROM technology, it was able to handle 3d graphics making it a hit when it was released.
Nintendo’s betrayal of Sony would be one of its greatest mistakes as it led to the creation of another competitor for Nintendo. Sony would later go on to release more PlayStations, and its PlayStation 2 would become the best-selling console of all time. Still, many gamers wonder what would have happened if Sony and Nintendo managed to find a way to work together and release the Nintendo Play Station.
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