'Minus World: New Game Plus' — A Successful Philips SNES-CD Timeline

[CourtlyHades296]

Super Metroid is still a cartridge game ITTL, as are Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (the latter has elements of P2S's Final Fantasy: New Generation). Final Fantasy IV gets a PAL release ITTL, as does the cartridge-only Final Fantasy VI.

 

[Nivek]

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (US: June 1st, 1993; Japan: December 17th, 1993; Europe: February 24th, 1994) The CD version includes cinematic cutscenes, probablyexcerpted from Star Wars Episode Ⅴ: The Empire Strikes Back.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Star_Wars:_The_Empire_Strikes_Back#Development plus the asteroid chaser minigame as an exclusive one of the CD version.

animated, not live-action film of puppets; I'm not referencing E3 2015 here.)

JAJAJAJ, that was an idea OTL stole from us, not the reverse, JAJAJAJ

EarthBound (Japan: August 27th, 1994; US: June 5th, 1995) (Note: It'd be nice if this timeline could also have gotten the original Mother over to the West instead of having to wait for EarthBound: Beginnings, but that might push our point of divergence back?)

Our POD is 1988 so is possible they could have released Earthbound Beginnings without his subtitle as a residual butterfly(the game was ready to go so wouldn't be a problem)

• Super Mario All-Stars (Japan: July 14th, 1993; US: August 11th, 1993; PAL regions: December 16th, 1993)

1994

• Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (December 1994)

I think the former is cartridge timed exclusive and the latter like OTL becomes a bundled/ general release for cartridge and a late port all five games for SNES-CD

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Japan: March 9th, 1996; US: May 13th, 1996)

By that date, CD make more sense unless Nintendo is still holding up cartridge releases.... 50/50?

SNES Dragon Quest games (dual releases for both the base SNES unit and the SNES-CD in this timeline.)

Of course, Nintendo would want Enix Flagship in both devices

Super Mario's Wacky Worlds (for SNES-CD, I think?) (Potential release date undecided.)

I would say early life, any Nintendo system needs a Mario game.

n SNES-CD Darius game, maybe called Darius CD. (The PC Engine CD-ROM² entry was called Super Darius, though.)

Taking a page from Japanese names... Darius Spirits or CD Romance/Romantic(and a nice jab to NEC)

 

[CourtlyHades296]

Nintendo pushes both cartridge and CD during the 16-bit era ITTL.

 

[RandomDSdevel]

When do we want:

• An SNES port of The Secret of Monkey Island
• Super Mario Kart (SNES-CD exclusive)

to release?

---

Can the SNES-CD run and does it get ports of:

• Star Wars Arcade
• Star Wars: Rebel Assault
• Star Wars: Dark Forces
• Star Wars: Rebel Assault Ⅱ: The Hidden Empire

---

Does our timeline's planned-but-undeveloped third Star Wars: X-Wing Tour of Duty expansion, some of the ideas for which were later reused and incorporated into the 2015 GOG.com release of a Star Wars: X-Wing special edition and Star Wars: TIE Fighter, see release in this timeline?

---

Does Mario Paint release on the base SNES unit like in our timeline, or is there any reason it might get pushed to the SNES-CD?

---

What do we do about the Satellaview games to also get them, or at least the good titles, over here in the West in this timeline, too? (See also my poke at potential early online, but maybe there's an alternative?)

---

I'm not sure what titles the:

• Mario
• The Legend of Zelda

franchises will have for the SNES-CD, especially near the peripheral's launch, just yet.

 

[CourtlyHades296]

Mario Paint is still a cartridge release ITTL, but the Mouse is compatible with both cartridge and CD.

 

[Nivek]

Star Wars Arcade

Could Run IT but is a Sega-developed OTL so game so will not be coming, unless Lucasarts do the port themselves.

Star Wars: Rebel Assault

YES easily.

Star Wars: Dark Forces

As we plan SNES-CD to Run DOOM, yeah, like Doom with clever programming to squeeze the SNES-CD.

Star Wars: Rebel Assault Ⅱ: The Hidden Empire

A FMV railshooter, will run it easily.

Seems lucasarts will become the most popular developer for SNES-CD

I'm not sure what titles the:

• Mario
• The Legend of Zelda

franchises will have for the SNES-CD, especially near the peripheral's launch, just yet.

Like before when they're Ready. Mario would be the early life or for the first major holiday of the peripherical(if released in 1991, 1992 and so on) and Zelda would come two years after ALTP, so 1994-1995?

Does our timeline's planned-but-undeveloped third Star Wars: X-Wing Tour of Duty expansion, some of the ideas for which were later reused and incorporated into the 2015 GOG.com release of a Star Wars: X-Wing special edition and Star Wars: TIE Fighter, see release in this timeline?

Yeah,the extra development Time for the SNES-CD expansion/port could do wonders.

What do we do about the Satellaview games to also get them, or at least the good titles, over here in the West in this timeline, too? (See also my poke at potential early online, but maybe there's an alternative?)

Dunno what to do with satellaview. could be butterflied away or the games released without the soundlink audio.

When do we want:

• An SNES port of The Secret of Monkey Island
• Super Mario Kart (SNES-CD exclusive)

to release?

WHEN are Ready to go, Monkey Island could be released at the same time CD-ROM version for SNES-CD

 

[RandomDSdevel]

It'll take me some more time to reply to everything new or otherwise take it into account, but here's this in the meantime. (Actually, from now on, just assume things are still percolating unless an unreasonably long hiatus starts dragging on.)

---

For other ideas on what this thread's name could be:

• To be a bit more tongue-in-cheek, 'Player One and a Half Select.'
• See also the first part of this post on the source thread, as well as some of the context leading up to it.
• TheFaultsofAlts suggested 'System Reboot.'
• Given some other butterflies that are being considered for this thread, perhaps 'Multitap' or something including it?

First off, the name could use a bit of work. I'd personally call it "System Reboot", because it's a reboot of the P2S timeline, and because it involves video game systems.

As for the title of TTL, I like the title System Reboot.

Nice very nice, make sense as a reset of the negotiation too

How about 'Minus World: New Game Plus' as the thread title? The original Super Mario Bros.'s Minus World, as you may recall, was a glitched alternate level setup that you couldn't get out of without resetting your console but which didn't otherwise crash the game, though it did send it into a loop. (No, I'm not crazy enough to w ant to try and do something with that; this timeline isn't an Infinite Loops one or something.) That glitch is also milder than, say, a hardware fault. This thread's timeline's also a 'New Game+,' in a way.

 

[Nivek]

Minus World: New Game Plus

This is very unique and your explanation make it perfect, i loved it

 

[TheFaultsofAlts]

1: Does this mean that Super Mario World 1 and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past would be ported to the SNES-CD? If so, could these ports be launch titles for the peripheral to beef up the platform?
2: Yeah, I'd argue that Star Wars was still big enough to get continuous dual releases between the SNES and SNES-CD. Even in the 90s.
3: I'm surprised that Yoshi's Island is just a SNES game. You'd think that by 1995, the dual release way would work best for vanilla SNES titles.
4: What is Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures about?
5: When do you plan to launch the SNES-CD? My guess is November 1992, but it could be before or after that.
6: I honestly would prefer animated cutscenes for Star Fox over puppet cutscenes. Leave the puppetry to the advertisements, and give the cutscene job to Studio Pierrot. Or to Warner Bros. Animation, if we're feeling an American artstyle for the characters.
7: Maybe it's just me, but I think the Tour of Duty expansions are worthy of two individual physical releases at this time.
8: Perhaps EarthBound: Beginnings can be localized as such in 1996, much sooner than IOTL. This could keep our PoD the same as intended.
9: I'd argue that the X-Wing Collector's Bundle does not need a SNES release, as that would be three cartridges in a bundle, too much packaging to get through, and at least one dozen unhappy shoppers. Better stick with the CD version to bundle them all in.
10: Oh, no. I'm all for early online acessability, but in the freaking 16-bit era? No thank you!
11: Refer to my X-Wing expansion idea for how I feel about Defenders and Enemies for TIE Fighter. And for extra profit margins, release Enemies of the Empire separately.
12: Put Super Mario All-Stars as a SNES exclusive, give Mystic Quest and the expanded All-Stars a dual release each, and put Super Mario RPG as a CD exclusive.
13: Localize Fire Emblem, FFVI, and the Dragon Quest games, give Street Fighter all its OTL releases for the CD ITTL, but with a Nintendo-exclusive fighter, keep the Darius and Road Fighter titles you mentioned and put them on the SNES/SNES-CD, port all three of those games for the CD regardless of launch date, and Wacky Worlds should absolutely be a CD release.
14: Fantastic to keep iMUSE around!
15: I can see Super Metroid being the swansong to Original SNES.
16: Port Monkey Island in Summer 1992, and make Super Mario Kart a launch title and the CD's holiday title.
17: Depends on how big those Star Wars games are, but I'm leaning towards yes.
18: Maybe. It would be nice to see that come to fruition, though.
19: I like that the SNES Mouse is compatible with SNES-CD titles, but what could support it there?
20: Maybe porting the Satellaview games stateside could give online access to Nintendo, but I'm not taking any chances with other developers around this time.
21: Finally, I like the sound of "Minus World: New Game Plus".

 

[TheFaultsofAlts]

Sorry for all the questions and comments.

 

[CourtlyHades296]

Minus World: New Game Plus sounds like a cool title.

 

[RandomDSdevel]

Sorry for all the questions and comments.

Oh, no problem; I can definitely use the help!

---

This is very unique and your explanation make it perfect, i loved it

21: Finally, I like the sound of "Minus World: New Game Plus".

Minus World: New Game Plus sounds like a cool title.

All right, then; I'll make that official! (Edit: Now done.)

 

[Nivek]

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures about?

Action platformer game, Based on Super Star wars but with Indy

 

[connorCD]

Tbh I'm more partial to the title "System reboot" though I understand why you would choose a different one.

One thing I would like to add regarding you mentioning Sega and timed exclusives, even OTL Sega has released some of their games on PC during the 90s, so if they continue making consoles then perhaps Sega would be in a position similar to Sony now where the bulk of their games remain exclusively on consoles but will do the occasional PC port.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

I like the new name of this TL!

 

[CourtlyHades296]

I feel that Super Mario World and A Link to the Past should remain cartridge exclusives, as should Mario All-Stars.

 

[RandomDSdevel]

4: What is Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures about?

Action platformer game, Based on Super Star wars but with Indy

Yeah, that:

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

---

Will Sony still enter the console market solo like OTL or would they team up with another company?

You know what?

Between Philips/Nintendo, Microsoft, Google and Apple, I'd prefer Sony and Sega get together.

Or Microsoft and Sega and Sony goes solo...

Regarding Sony, I'll refer back to some content from my OP:

⁝

---

Existing discussion from the parent thread:

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.

⁝

I meant this thinking Sony would be on its own in this timeline.

As for Sega:

• Quoting from back before this got its own thread:
  
  

  Sega OTL exit comes from OTL post-Genesis failure but at the end of the day, the final burst of the Japanese bubble, Japan's new millennium recession hitting hard the amusement industry and that being one of OTL sega lifeline, OTL SEGA mismanagement and rivalries...Isao Okawa's death was the final trigger, as he singles handily keep SEGA alive since 1998 with debt forgiving measures and personal grants to the company, once he died, his heirs and CSK lost any interest in SEGA and that left the gradual exit of videogame consoles and to be sold off CSK Holdings. A little more healthy SEGA and some extra life of years of Okawa would have changed a lot of things

  
  I'd definitely be open to doing something to avert this.
• I also found independent speculation on what'd need to have happened for Sega to have survived in, off all things, a Quora Q&A thread. The most relevant content from there is:
  • Some analysis in its first answer:
    
    

    People less acquainted with the history of video games may not understand why the Dreamcast was Sega’s last console. They blame it on Sega not giving it DVD compatibility, or the sudden emergence of XBox. These may have been factors, but it’s not quite that simple. The latter was actually a symptom of their downfall rather than a cause, but we’ll get to that later. The Dreamcast was a great console, but it was not enough to overcome the consequences of years and years of bad decision-making on Sega’s part, or factors that were beyond their control. For Sega to have realistically never stopped making consoles, we need to go back about ten years before they did, and take a look at the events that contributed to the Dreamcast’s demise. They’ll need to play out a bit differently if Sega’s gonna keep making the Dreamcast, let alone keep making consoles for another three generations.
    
    ⁝

    
    Funnily enough, the scenario that answer post goes on to propose parallels Player Two Start; I commented as much. In this thread's timeline, though, I was, as has been mentioned before, going with Sony still getting into the console market, so that doesn't give Sega the later breathing room that Quora post speculates about leaving it. I won't quote that here, though; it'd bring the rest of my source here in.
  • One more thing I will quote from there, though, is this other comment on it by another user — 'sic' —, also relevant:
    
    

    I would to point out that Microsoft didn't knock Sega off. Sega did that wholly on its own. Microsoft stepped in because they had helped co developed the dreamcast. that weird oversized first controller, the Duke, is a direct dependent of the Dreamcast controller with and niceties of the Playstation controller added to keep it grounded. the dream cast ran on Microsoft CE. So Microsoft was just sitting on a next generation console OS they just assumed they would sell to Sega but Sega threw in the towel and Microsoft thought they could be number 2 just like that…

So, if Sega can't survive on its own even with fewer internal and market issues, then I'd be in favor of partnering them with Microsoft.

TL;DR: So, we have:

• Nintendo/Philips
• Sony
• Sega, maybe with Microsoft later on.

If Microsoft didn't join in on that last grouping, I don't know if they'd join the market later on, though?

About Sony, already having the SNES audio experience alongside msx they would saw they money on the table and want their own share. Would they going alone as OTL? Looks for a partner? SNK? Tailto? Someone else?

I wonder if there's anything that could get Ken Kutaragi to defect from Sony at some point and either:

• Start or become part of a spin-off company or
• Go to work for Nintendo.

A similarly skilled colleague should probably stay behind at Sony, though.

Maybe Sony have no hurry to release a console when Ken believes they could have one ready to compete against Nintendo by 1991/1992. (Japan and US respectively)(It wouldn't be the same as OTL one but still would look like a cheaper and better-done 3DO with comparable 3D) make Ken fight and when ignored he just walks away... SNK, Capcom and others would love his Audio and 3D expertise. Especially SNK as they did release a CD-based Console(Neo Geo CD that because production mistake, was very overpriced at the launch door and lacked 3D processors )

I guess that puts a vote in for him to be in his own company, then? He could do contract work for both Nintendo and others that way.

I was throwing ideas to the table but he could work as an example of start up post company,like DR Wei yen with artx

Any Ideas for Sega?

• Actually, now that I've read/brushed up on TV Tropes's 'Useful Notes' page for the SNES-CD, a Sony/Sega team-up doesn't seem implausible. I may have to think about it some more.
• That may also avoid the need for Ken Kutaragi to have left a similarly skilled colleague behind at Sony if he left his job there; that way, I wouldn't have any possible need to come up with an OC. (That first part's starting to grow on me some more, actually.)
• I don't know whether that'll work for this timeline, but I'd be interested in seeing:
  • SGI collaborate better with Nintendo while they're later co-developing the N64.
  • The supplier who manufactures the N64's CPU actually share enough details with Nintendo and SGI so that they know how it, its architecture, and its chip family's architecture work.
  • SGI live on.
    • This may butterfly the company's 'Nintendo Operations' department spinning off into ArtX away?
    • On the other hand, maybe it still splits off but retains ties to SGI proper.
    • Regardless of what happens there, I wouldn't want this to butterfly the GameCube's 'Flipper' graphics chip or a counterpart away even if the console that Nintendo goes on to produce that generation in this timeline ends up not being the GameCube, at least not in name; ATI needs that expertise later.
    • Either:
      • SGI partners with ATI later.
      • An ArtX retaining ties to SGI partners with ATI later.
      • ATI buys SGI later.
    • I don't know how this might affect AMD's future prospective purchase of ATI.

---

If the Nintendo-SGI partnership doesn't hobble the N64's CPU, then who develops trilinear filtering like our timeline's N64 uses?

---

I like the new name of this TL!

Glad to hear it.

 

[CourtlyHades296]

ITTL, Kirby's Avalanche (still a cartridge game) has the Offsetting mechanic introduced in Puyo Puyo Tsu, functioning similarly to how it did in that game.

 

[Nivek]

Actually, now that I've read/brushed up on TV Tropes's 'Useful Notes' page for the SNES-CD, a Sony/Sega team-up doesn't seem implausible. I may have to think about it some more.

OTL there was a reason, either Kutaragi in japan fumbled their meeting or that was just a passing comment by Olaf to Kalinske it was never taken seriously by SoJ. Still I think Sega alone not fucking up the Saturn would be interesting

 

[King Krazy]

I've listed some noteworthy SNES games not on that list you made-maybe this'll give some people ideas.
-Contra III*
-Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, 3
-F-Zero*
-Kirby Super Star
-Mega Man 7, X, X2, X3
-SimCity*
-Star Fox 2 (does this count?)
-Super Castlevania IV*
-Super Metroid
-Tetris Attack (or "Panel de Pon", whichever)
-TMNT: Turtles in Time*
-Zombies Ate My Neighbors

*Indicates game released before 1993, which appears to be when the SNES-CD comes out here: as such, these would most likely be for the regular SNES.