(This thread started by getting spun off from the relevant part of my post in the 'Battle Royale: The Last Generation Of An SNES-CD Saga' thread for any further discussion.)
Current maintainer/moderator/Facilitator-in-Chief: RandomDSdevel — that is: me, the OP.
Update Frequency: Irregular
Rules:
Tentative guidelines:
Anyway, on to the actual post content:
Point of Divergence:
Philips has the same amount of technical expertise and extant research and development as Sony by the time Nintendo starts looking to make the SNES's disc system add-on.
Premise
The year is 1988. By this point, some of Rare Limited's employees have demonstrated to Nintendo what kinds of games can run off the floppy disk drives in 8-bit home computers of the era, mainly the ZX Spectrum since they're most familiar with developing for it. Nintendo has its own disk-based game platform in the Famicom's Japan-only Disk System accessory and is aware of what its competition is doing at some level, but Rare's demonstration helps maintain Nintendo's interest in disk-based games.
Nintendo has also already begun development of the Super Famicom, next-generation successor to the Famicom/NES and its answer to Sega's Genesis and NEC's PC Engine. Some of Nintendo's competitors begin launching CD-ROM add-ons for their 16-bit consoles before the Super Famicom/SNES's original Japanese release, more than piquing the company's interest in the format. NEC launches the CD-ROM² add-on for its PC Engine in December of 1988. Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis's Mega-CD/Sega CD would launch later on after Nintendo's Super Famicom's November 21st, 1990, release, on December 12th of that same year.
The PC Engine CD-ROM²'s success in Japan is one of many factors which convince Nintendo to give the Super Famicom/SNES its own CD-ROM add-on. The company initially looks to Sony as a potential partner for the accessory's production but then learns of other CD hardware manufacturers, including Philips, when they ask Sony more about the format. Nintendo contracts both Philips and Sony to develop and produce prototypes of the accessory.
The prototype that Philips presents ends up being comparable to or better than Sony's version, the latter of which is identical to the unlaunched SNES-CD/'Nintendo PlayStation' in our timeline. Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi is also highly leery that sourcing the SNES-CD from Sony after the base SNES unit already contains a Sony audio subsystem would give too much leverage to a single supplier. Philips wins the bid for the final SNES-CD contract.
Current maintainer/moderator/Facilitator-in-Chief: RandomDSdevel — that is: me, the OP.
Update Frequency: Irregular
Rules:
- This thread is open to collaboration, contributions, and other suggestions.
- I reserve right of first refusal on any content suggestions as thread maintainer/moderator/Facilitator-in-Chief.
- All discussion should take place publicly in this thread. I may be open to granting some minor exceptions to this for some:
- Discussion(s) of upcoming or future post content that'd otherwise disclose too much of one or more spoilers even if posted publicly but appropriately hidden behind spoiler tag markup and
- Collaboratively drafting formal timeline content posts,
Tentative guidelines:
- Aside from other differences, I think this timeline will:
- Hew somewhat closer to ours than Player Two Start
- But also borrow elements from that.
- This may also be at least partly an 'everybody lives'/'nobody dies' timeline, within reason.
Anyway, on to the actual post content:
Point of Divergence:
Philips has the same amount of technical expertise and extant research and development as Sony by the time Nintendo starts looking to make the SNES's disc system add-on.
Premise
The year is 1988. By this point, some of Rare Limited's employees have demonstrated to Nintendo what kinds of games can run off the floppy disk drives in 8-bit home computers of the era, mainly the ZX Spectrum since they're most familiar with developing for it. Nintendo has its own disk-based game platform in the Famicom's Japan-only Disk System accessory and is aware of what its competition is doing at some level, but Rare's demonstration helps maintain Nintendo's interest in disk-based games.
Nintendo has also already begun development of the Super Famicom, next-generation successor to the Famicom/NES and its answer to Sega's Genesis and NEC's PC Engine. Some of Nintendo's competitors begin launching CD-ROM add-ons for their 16-bit consoles before the Super Famicom/SNES's original Japanese release, more than piquing the company's interest in the format. NEC launches the CD-ROM² add-on for its PC Engine in December of 1988. Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis's Mega-CD/Sega CD would launch later on after Nintendo's Super Famicom's November 21st, 1990, release, on December 12th of that same year.
The PC Engine CD-ROM²'s success in Japan is one of many factors which convince Nintendo to give the Super Famicom/SNES its own CD-ROM add-on. The company initially looks to Sony as a potential partner for the accessory's production but then learns of other CD hardware manufacturers, including Philips, when they ask Sony more about the format. Nintendo contracts both Philips and Sony to develop and produce prototypes of the accessory.
The prototype that Philips presents ends up being comparable to or better than Sony's version, the latter of which is identical to the unlaunched SNES-CD/'Nintendo PlayStation' in our timeline. Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi is also highly leery that sourcing the SNES-CD from Sony after the base SNES unit already contains a Sony audio subsystem would give too much leverage to a single supplier. Philips wins the bid for the final SNES-CD contract.
What makes Nintendo interested in using CD-ROMs for games in this timeline?What makes Nintendo include this timeline's improved Philips in initial negotiations?)
I wonder if Sony will still get into the console business or not.
Well, they'd still be irked that Nintendo didn't choose to partner with them in this timeline, so I'd assume so.
Okay. And how does Sega do ITTL? And will Microsoft still enter the console market? … (Snipped…)
- Also [having Sega stay in the console business] is an open question…. Personally, though, I'm of two minds about Sega: on the one hand, it's definitely a shame that they never made any more consoles; on the other, I've enjoyed some of their games on other platforms before. Maybe timed exclusivity for some titles? I have no idea. I do see they do better in [Player Two Start]'s timeline, so there's that.
- This timeline's somewhere between ours and [Player Two Start]'s. Microsoft has an Xbox in both of the latter, so why not here, too?
Last edited: