Blue Blur Speeds by Nintendo: Sonic Team Joins Nintendo

[Jaiken]

It was simple enough. Beat Nintendo to the punch and release a new gaming console that captivated audiences with its 16-bit hardware. Everything was going smoothly until NEC decided to release their console on the scene in 1988 called the Turbo-Graphx16. Most of the game companies joined in, releasing titles for the console that could not be done on earlier hardware. The most annoying part was our own planned slogan being used against Nintendo. "Cannot do this on Nintendo." Those words echoed throughout my mind as we saw more marketshare go towards this new contender in the console business.

There was no stopping this momentum as the sales of the Turbo-Graphx16 continued to sky rocket throughout the months. Many of the higher ups decided to jump ship and retreat to the arcade business. One other person had a different approach in mind. Yuji Naka who was working on a game called "Mr. Needlemouse" would boast the speeds in video games like none had ever seen before. Mr. Naka tried to get the higher ups to reconsider but it was a lot like talking to a wall. Maybe just maybe he would get better success if he went to our competitor. Not just that but Yuji Naka took along artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara to the headquarters of Nintendo to propose a new series and specs for the Super Nintendo console.

"I was nervous at first, but it was better than waiting on a sinking ship like Sega", Said Yuji Naka. "I believe Nintendo would enjoy the ideas that my team and I come up with. And hopefully drawing in new audiences in the mean time would change things for the better." With that Yuji Naka would hand his resume over to Nintendo and hope for the best.

It would not take long as Naka would receive a response from Nintendo telling them they liked his idea and his team would be welcomed aboard. "It took no longer than a couple of months" said Yuji Naka. "They must have liked Yasuhara-sans work.". His "Sonic Team" would prove to the world why you would choose the Super Nintendo over the competition.

Point of Divergence: NEC releases the PC Engine in North America in 1988 to get a foothold in the North American market pushing competitor Sega out of the market. Not wanting his work to go to waste, Yuji Naka alongside his coworkers leave for Nintendo to shake things up in the gaming industry.

 

[Nivek]

Ohh nice to see a new one buddy

 

[Otakuninja2006]

Cool!

 

[Sonny912]

It was simple enough. Beat Nintendo to the punch and release a new gaming console that captivated audiences with its 16-bit hardware. Everything was going smoothly until NEC decided to release their console on the scene in 1988 called the Turbo-Graphx16. Most of the game companies joined in, releasing titles for the console that could not be done on earlier hardware. The most annoying part was our own planned slogan being used against Nintendo. "Cannot do this on Nintendo." Those words echoed throughout my mind as we saw more marketshare go towards this new contender in the console business.

There was no stopping this momentum as the sales of the Turbo-Graphx16 continued to sky rocket throughout the months. Many of the higher ups decided to jump ship and retreat to the arcade business. One other person had a different approach in mind. Yuji Naka who was working on a game called "Mr. Needlemouse" would boast the speeds in video games like none had ever seen before. Mr. Naka tried to get the higher ups to reconsider but it was a lot like talking to a wall. Maybe just maybe he would get better success if he went to our competitor. Not just that but Yuji Naka took along artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara to the headquarters of Nintendo to propose a new series and specs for the Super Nintendo console.

"I was nervous at first, but it was better than waiting on a sinking ship like Sega", Said Yuji Naka. "I believe Nintendo would enjoy the ideas that my team and I come up with. And hopefully drawing in new audiences in the mean time would change things for the better." With that Yuji Naka would hand his resume over to Nintendo and hope for the best.

It would not take long as Naka would receive a response from Nintendo telling them they liked his idea and his team would be welcomed aboard. "It took no longer than a couple of months" said Yuji Naka. "They must have liked Yasuhara-sans work.". His "Sonic Team" would prove to the world why you would choose the Super Nintendo over the competition.

Point of Divergence: NEC releases the PC Engine in North America in 1988 to get a foothold in the North American market pushing competitor Sega out of the market. Not wanting his work to go to waste, Yuji Naka alongside his coworkers leave for Nintendo to shake things up in the gaming industry.

Ooh now this is interesting, what about mark cerny and the sega technical institute? Does miyamoto work with sonic team on nights into dreams? What will happen to phantasy star online when sega still owns the phantasy star trademark?

 

[Sirenthedog07]

It was simple enough. Beat Nintendo to the punch and release a new gaming console that captivated audiences with its 16-bit hardware. Everything was going smoothly until NEC decided to release their console on the scene in 1988 called the Turbo-Graphx16. Most of the game companies joined in, releasing titles for the console that could not be done on earlier hardware. The most annoying part was our own planned slogan being used against Nintendo. "Cannot do this on Nintendo." Those words echoed throughout my mind as we saw more marketshare go towards this new contender in the console business.

There was no stopping this momentum as the sales of the Turbo-Graphx16 continued to sky rocket throughout the months. Many of the higher ups decided to jump ship and retreat to the arcade business. One other person had a different approach in mind. Yuji Naka who was working on a game called "Mr. Needlemouse" would boast the speeds in video games like none had ever seen before. Mr. Naka tried to get the higher ups to reconsider but it was a lot like talking to a wall. Maybe just maybe he would get better success if he went to our competitor. Not just that but Yuji Naka took along artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara to the headquarters of Nintendo to propose a new series and specs for the Super Nintendo console.

"I was nervous at first, but it was better than waiting on a sinking ship like Sega", Said Yuji Naka. "I believe Nintendo would enjoy the ideas that my team and I come up with. And hopefully drawing in new audiences in the mean time would change things for the better." With that Yuji Naka would hand his resume over to Nintendo and hope for the best.

It would not take long as Naka would receive a response from Nintendo telling them they liked his idea and his team would be welcomed aboard. "It took no longer than a couple of months" said Yuji Naka. "They must have liked Yasuhara-sans work.". His "Sonic Team" would prove to the world why you would choose the Super Nintendo over the competition.

Point of Divergence: NEC releases the PC Engine in North America in 1988 to get a foothold in the North American market pushing competitor Sega out of the market. Not wanting his work to go to waste, Yuji Naka alongside his coworkers leave for Nintendo to shake things up in the gaming industry.

Ooooo, so Sonic is now gonna be a Nintendo property, what will happen to Sega though?

 

[Jaiken]

Yuji Naka had been an intriguing game developer. He talked about the processing speeds of video game consoles and what Sonic The Hedgehog would need to be successful for Nintendo's latest console. With that he contacted a certain Mark Cerny to help Nintendo make some adjustments to their latest console. Mark Cerny was an engineer in video games and was contacted to help work on the Sega Genesis, but when plans fell through he decided to work as a freelancer. Mr. Cerny also formed a new team within Nintendo called Sonic Technical Institute that would help Nintendo focus on creating games for their latest console that would take advantage of the newly made hardware.

As for Sega, they would continue to work in the arcade business after their failed attempt to break into the video game console market. The higher ups were not happy about losing ground to NEC, but they had no choice then to lick their wounds and continue down a different path. Sega was not sure what Yuji Naka saw in Nintendo and were skeptical if their former employee would find success. Nonetheless Sega would continue what it did best and that was to create bigger and greater games.

Back at Nintendo, Mark Cerny was in talks with Sonic Team about improving the hardware specs of Nintendo's upcoming console. Only a few adjustments would need to be made to get the console up and running to the standards of Nintendo. Yamaouchi left the future of his company in the hands of upcoming and rising star Shigeru Miyamoto whom also found interest in Yuji Naka's game design. Though the project would not be ready until the year 1990, Miyamoto saw promise in what Sonic Team and Sonic Technical Institute would be making for their first game. Now their focus was to take down NEC and gain the upper hand in the video game market.

 

[Sonny912]

Nice. You know cerny left sega in 92 to join crystal dynamics and later universal interactive studios, I wonder how all their games like tomb raider, legacy of kain, gex, crash bandicoot and spyro the Dragon will go. Maybe the crash games could be reworked to replace the ill fated sonic xtreme.

 

[jamesownz]

I've always wanted to see a Sonic game by Nintendo

 

[Jaiken]

It was the beginning of a new year and the TurboGraphx16 was doing wonders in the North American market. With big titles from Capcom and Konami such as Megaman 2 and Castlevania Hudson Soft's machine was selling like hotcakes in the North American region. It was any wonder how Nintendo would up show the console with the TurboGraphx16 pushing next generation hardware. Still that did not deter Nintendo's Research and Development teams. There was a surprise visit from someone who stopped by Nintendo's headquarters while the changes to the Super Nintendo were being made.

Enter Ken Kutaragi, head engineer at Sony, who was fascinated with Nintendo's early console the Family Computer or Famicom. He wondered what could be added to make the next iteration of the console more powerful. Thinking about the situation he proposed a sound chip from Sony called the SPC700. Kutaragi also caught a glimpse of the video game prototype that Sonic Team and Sonic Technical Institute were making and was intrigued. Maybe after this endeavor with Nintendo Sonic Team and STI would be willing to work with him on a future project that concerned the higher ups at Sony. For now Ken Kutaragi would bide his time and wait until the time was right to help and learn more about video games from Nintendo. Speaking of Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto had an idea up his sleeve.

Shigeru Miyamoto had proposed a racing game to show off the processing speed of the Super Nintendo to catch the attention of audiences, but Yuji Naka and Sonic Team interjected stating their new game would push the Super Nintendo's popularity to new heights. Reluctantly Miyamoto agreed with the proposed idea of Sonic Team and let them work on the game without taking staff to work on his own project. With this Miyamoto would want to work on a project together with Sonic Team to make up for his lost gaming idea. There must be something that Sonic Team knew about game development that he did not and he was determined to find out what it was. As for now, Miyamoto would focus on his title Super Mario World and maybe borrow some design ideas from his new partners at Sonic Team. Super Mario Brothers 3 was a big hit for NES audiences but his next title would need to hit it out of the park to capture the minds of audiences everywhere.

 

[Jaiken]

The development of the Super Nintendo was running smoothly. Mark Cerny had seen how the machine would work had it been given different specifications and attributes. Faster Processing power and more data buses would do wonders for the upcoming Nintendo device. Ken Kutaragi and Sony were willing to help develop the console but for a hefty price.

The price was not in money, but control over intellectual properties. Yamauchi, head of Nintendo, saw this and immediately broke ties with Sony. Hudson Soft was in talks about developing a CD based add-on for their PC Engine. This conflated with the issue that Nintendo's device had not even come out the door yet. Higher Ups at Nintendo were sweating at the proposal of making a new add-on for their yet to be released console, but Mark Cerny was not nervous. Mark Cerny was familiar with how the tech industry worked and contacted some people from a company called Phillips.

Sonic Technical Institute was also aware of Mark Cerny’s work and decided that working together to develop a game with Phillips would help test their position in the industry. Yamauchi was about to call Phillips to make a console based on the CD add-on but Mark Cerny interjected. He stated that Phillips should prove themselves capable of making quality games first and those games should be original to test if they had the mettle to work in the industry. Yamauchi understood this position and decided to have Mark Cerny become the head over relationships with Phillips and their video games. The CD add-on would still be in development, but would take time to come to fruition.

Even though the PC Engine was still doing Hudson Soft wonders, Nintendo knew that rushing their latest console would result in heavy damages to the company. The timing of the Super Nintendo needed to be perfect and Mark Cerny and Sonic Technical Institute would be perfect for the job. Now it was only a matter of trusting Phillips and their work on the latest console.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

This looks good.

 

[Nivek]

Nice update buddy

 

[Jaiken]

It took months of blood, sweat and tears but it was finally time. Nintendo knew it was now or never to release the console to the public to stop the PC Engine's momentum in North America. With a simple command from Yamauchi the console would release onto the world. At once Nintendo's latest console would release worldwide in differing locations.

Introducing the Super Nintendo retailing for $299.99. Specs are as follows:

Spoiler

CPU: 16-bit custom. MOS 65c02 runnnig at 7.68 MHz with a 16 bit data bus
VDP: VERA (Running at 10 MHz)
RAM: 128 KB
V-RAM: 64 KB
S-RAM: 64 KB
Colors: 65,536
Sprites: 768
Sound: Same as in OTL
Resolution 640x480
Media: Cartridge (16MB max; though some games got past this limit by bank-switching memory)

Nintendo would also release three games for the console. Super Mario World with two player competitive mode. Pilot Wings to show off the capabilities of the console. And one last title to show:

video credit to Yuzoboy

It was the long awaited Sonic the Hedgehog video game. Fans of the fast game play would host speed running competitions against other players to track their time. It was official. Nintendo had the killer app that made Hudson Soft panic and almost nearly grab back most of the market share from them. It also helped that the controller had extra buttons instead of the traditional two that the TurboGraphx16 had. More buttons meant more different ways to play the game and better ways to implement gameplay features into the game itself.

Other game developers saw the success of the Super Nintendo and shifted game development away from the TurboGraphx16. Game developers such as Capcom, Konami, and Squaresoft were big on the kind of games they could make for the system.

With more market share and game developers on their side of the video game business head honcho of Nintendo, Yamauchi, decided that Phillips should be allowed to continue making the CD add-on to the Super Nintendo after they had proven themselves. Things were looking up for Nintendo and they were hoping to keep the momentum that way.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

Cool!

 

[Jaiken]

Times were good for Nintendo after releasing their Super Nintendo console. Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario World were neck in neck in terms of sales. 3 Million total sales of Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog were making headways and helping Nintendo set a name for themselves in the video game industry. With the slower pace of Super Mario Bros games players had thought Nintendo was incapable of making faster paced games for their consoles, but Sonic Team had proven those skeptics wrong.

"So have you contacted Rare yet Miyamato?", said Yamauchi to his star pupil. "Not yet Yamauchi-san, but giving Rare control over Donkey Kong seems like a good idea for the time being. Maybe they would be capable of turning Donkey Kong into a success like the Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog." As for Phillips their game was taking some time considering they were new the game making process. Despite the guidance of Mark Cerny and Sonic Technical Institute Phillips was proving to be quite the new student when it came to making video games. Nonetheless, Nintendo would need to tread carefully between their new partners in Rare and Phillips.

The meeting with Rare concerning Donkey Kong went smoothly, but revealed something interesting that the Big N had not thought about. 'Silicon Graphics', those words rang through Yamauchi's ear and the ear of his cohorts. Maybe this was the technology that video gaming would progress towards in the near future against Hudson Soft and TurboGraphx16. Hudson Soft had begun working on a CD-Add on for their console, but something seemed off about the whole thing. Were CD-Add ons really the way of the future of video gaming ? Sure, Hudson Soft may have thought so although nothing struck it as majorly interesting to Yamauchi.

"Put Mark Cerny on the phone, Miyamoto, I have something I need to talk to him about." "Yes Yamauchi-san."

The conversation between Mark Cerny and Yamauchi concerned the future of Nintendo's hardware and what could be done to get a leg up over both Sony and Hudson Soft. Cenry reinstated to Yamauchi that Hudson Soft was no issue but Sony had the technology to make a huge impact and squander their new found success in the the fourth generation of video game consoles. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to have Phillips, Nintendo's Research and Development engineers and Mark Cerny with Sonic Technical Institute work on a new gaming console instead of simply making a new add-on.

"Yes, making a new console sounds like the way to go. With our newly found knowledge about Silicon Graphics we can get a head start on game development ahead of Sony. However, make sure not to release the console too soon. We don't want to lose confidence in our products from our customers." Yamauchi told Mark Cerny and Miyamoto.

The deal with Phillips would be altered. Phillips was still hard at work making their own video game alongside Sonic Technical Institute but they were now split into two groups to help with the development of Nintendo's latest project.

'Project UFO'.

 

[Jaiken]

With Project UFO underway, Nintendo knew it should keep up the momentum with video games. Yamauchi suggested releasing every game in all regions that the Super Nintendo was available. Luckily Shigeru Miyamoto had a new iteration of a famous video game ready to release across the world. That game was the 'Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past'. The main difference between Link in ALttP ITTL and OTL is that Link does not have pink hair. Link to the Past had shown that Nintendo was still capable of making great games and hooked the masses on adventure titles.

In Japan, Sega was releasing games for Nintendo's home console called Golden Axe and Streets of Rage 2. Sega may have been out of the console race but they still would release games for the home console market. Mark Cerny and Yuji Naka had helped Nintendo bring the games over seas by using their connections with Sega. Nintendo now had more games to work with including Phantasy Star and the team whom made Shining in the Darkness. With these games Nintendo would increase their market share of the gaming industry and working with developers alike.

Yuji Naka and Mark Cerny had been benefitting Nintendo majorly in their endeavors in the gaming market. That is when Yamauchi green light another idea for Shigeru Miyamoto, Yuji Naka and Mark Cerny. If Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario were jewels in the eyes of gamers now why not make sequels? Yamauchi requested Shigeru Miyamoto make a sequel to Super Mario World and Yuji Naka to create a sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog. Mark Cerny and Sonic Technical Institute would be trusted with helping both Phillips and Sonic Team with making their own original titles.

Yamauchi was certain these upcoming titles would help them control even more of the video game market share and fully put NEC and Hudson Soft out of the video game console business. That much was certain. As for working with Rare, Yamauchi left that decision up to Shigeru Miyamoto and trusted his judgement on the matters. Maybe they could bring Donkey Kong into the lime light and make him another member of the high selling titles that Nintendo owned.

Not only that but Square's own title, Final Fantasy 4, pushed Role Playing Games and their stories to new heights when it came to player interactivity. Nintendo knew it had good partners and great developers. Nothing seemed to be able to stop this momentum that was building up for Nintendo.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

What's Project UFO?

 

[Jaiken]

What's Project UFO?

It will be answered in due time.

 

[Jaiken]

The TurboGraphx16 (PC Engine) had made leeway with the release of Street Fighter 2 the World Warrior; however, the sequel 'Champion edition' was to be released on the Super Nintendo. It would boast more characters, the ability to change character color and mirror matches. With the sequel under way Nintendo had finally pushed the PC Engine out of consumer headspace.

It was not long into the year when Nintendo found a partner in game developer Treasure. Treasure was made up of former Konami employees whom wanted to stop making sequels to Castlevania and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The gaming company had approached Nintendo wanting to create a game for the Super Nintendo due to its fast processor. Gunstar Heroes was the game in question and it was a run and gun video game like Contra.

video credit to World of Longplays

Treasure was not the only video game developer that Nintendo had come across. Shin Megami Tensei developer, Atlus, was another game developer that was working with Nintendo to put games on the Super Nintendo. Shin Megami Tensei was an interesting Role Playing Game. It was about summoning devils and demons to fight for you in a post apocalyptic world. Despite the series success in Japan, Nintendo of America did not want to even touch the game. Nintendo of Japan ordered NoA to translate the game stateside. Nintendo of America would make sure to make changes like changing the world devil and demons to monsters as to keep the North American market from being up in arms about the content of the game. The main aspect of the game would be 'Monster Summoning'. Changing the content of the game proved to be successful for the market and NoA need not worry about up in arms parents.

Speaking of games coming out, Sonic Team and Sonic Technical Institute were working on the sequels to Sonic the Hedgehog. Yuji Naka and Mark Cerny wanted the games to be finished for Nintendo, but Yamauchi had other ideas. Take both of the sequels being worked under development and turn them into one game. That meant that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and whatever Yuji Naka was working on would be one game.

With the success of Sonic the Hedgehog, Nintendo knew it should make a cartoon about him, but the direction to go in was unclear. The other thing was a man named Ken Panders whom was contacted by Mark Cerny to make comic book adventures based on the adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. The comics would take a slightly more serious tone and involve the group of Sonic and his friends called the "Freedom Fighters" who would fight Dr. Robotnik and his army of robots.

Nintendo also released a racing kart game titled Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo. It boasted the same characters IOTL, but allowed for two player grand prix mode.

This year was going great for Nintendo and the video game company had hoped that nothing would stop their good fortune.

 

[Jaiken]

With the CD-Addon for the Super Nintendo canned Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger gets separated into two games. Capcom releases Megaman X for the Super Nintendo and with the improved processor the game moves faster when X dashes along the ground. Even though the TurboGraphx 16 had a CD-Addon the games released for it were movie video games that were not that interesting nor fun to play. They were called FMV videos and played like interactive movies with very little gameplay.

Mark Cerny was thinking of which way to take the next console of Nintendo's. Project UFO would focus on the fast disc spinning speed that would give the Nintendo CDI a fast processor. It would use proprietary CD-ROM storage and have a read speed of 6x (900 Kilobytes/second). This would make Project UFO a must have for fighting game enthusiasts providing fast paced gameplay. The disc tests were running circles around what the developers thought any upcoming disc based add-on could muster.

The storage capacity of the CD-ROM would be 700 Megabytes. Maybe a bit large for the video games being developed at a time, but it would provide Nintendo and Third Parties nice storage capacity to work with. Nintendo's Research and Development department would tell Nintendo's developers of the storage capacity and what that could mean for the video games being made. Shigeru Miyamoto, Yuji Naka and co were hard at work deciding what types of games could be made for the upcoming console.

As for making deals with Third Parties, Nintendo had contacted Midway Games to promote all of its games for the upcoming console exclusively. This would make any rivals trying to get into the gaming sphere against Nintendo fall flat. Mortal Kombat 2 was making Nintendo of America nervous, but with encouraging words from Nintendo of Japan the blood and gore was allowed to be kept to the chagrin of concerned parents everywhere.

Speaking of video games both Sonic Team and Sonic Technical Institute was finished with their game. One game due to the fact that both developers believed their video game would do better as one entity. This video game would end up being Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Unlike our timeline Sonic the Hedgehog 2 would include Amy Rose and Metal Sonic alongside introducing Miles 'Tails' Prower.

video credit to Yuzoboy

Despite the large presence of Nintendo's hand in the video game industry there still was the issue of what Sony was up to. Sony had wanted full control over Nintendo's characters. For what reason would Sony want that? Was it video game related? With that thought lingering Nintendo would go to Silicon Graphics Incorporated to get more chips made for their console.