Dream Team: Ken Kutaragi Joins Nintendo

[Jaiken]

In 1989, Ken Kutaragi got his daughter a Famicom and realized the potential that existed with video games. He contacted Nintendo when discovering they needed help designing the sound chip for the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) called the SPC700; however, Kutaragi did this without the knowledge nor permission of his boss Norio Ohga and was promptly let go of his current position.

With no where else to go Ken Kutaragi decided to stick with Nintendo and work with Nintendo as a special engineer.

Point of Divergence: Instead of letting Ken Kutaragi continue his work, Norio Ohga decides to fire Kutaragi for not following company policy and working in secret on a different company's electronic device.

How will gaming be different with Ken Kutaragi shacking up with Nintendo?

Stay Tuned to find out.

 

[CrashBandicam]

I wonder what Sony would look like without Ken Kutaragi ITTL, and how the PlayStation would do without him ITTL, if Sony ever becomes a competitor in the console wars, that is.

 

[Nivek]

I wonder what Sony would look like without Ken Kutaragi ITTL, and how the PlayStation would do without him ITTL, if Sony ever becomes a competitor in the console wars, that is.

They Already have the MSX, losing a great engineer always hurt but could look for other people, especially a when they see the money in videogames(but no Nintendo to give a door third parties will hurt a little)

 

[Jaiken]

It was an interesting day at Spaceworld with Nintendo showing the upcoming games for the Super Nintendo.

Super Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings were showing the capabilities of the Super Nintendo and the Mode 7 chip.

However, unlike OTL, there existed a kiosk showcasing the 3D capabilities of the SNES add on. Graphics that no one had ever seen before were shown on the screen. Press from video game websites were there; especially, a certain company that was hosting a kiosk showcasing the speed of a certain Blue Blur. Service Games, or SEGA, was not getting as much attention as they had hoped at Spaceworld, sure their 'Sonic the Hedgehog' game was faster than Super Mario World, but the 3D kiosk showing off the capabilities of the Super Nintendo was drawing a huge crowd.

The SEGA employee at the Blue Blur kiosk made a call to his boss telling the higher ups of the Nintendo CD add on and the 3D capabilities of the console. The higher ups at SEGA decided action needed to be taken right away.

Upcoming Chapters:
Beaten to the Punch
Silicon Graphics take hold
An old Game company reappears

 

[KPyall]

It was an interesting day at Spaceworld with Nintendo showing the upcoming games for the Super Nintendo.

Super Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings were showing the capabilities of the Super Nintendo and the Mode 7 chip.

However, unlike OTL, there existed a kiosk showcasing the 3D capabilities of the SNES add on. Graphics that no one had ever seen before were shown on the screen. Press from video game websites were there; especially, a certain company that was hosting a kiosk showcasing the speed of a certain Blue Blur. Service Games, or SEGA, was not getting as much attention as they had hoped at Spaceworld, sure their 'Sonic the Hedgehog' game was faster than Super Mario World, but the 3D kiosk showing off the capabilities of the Super Nintendo was drawing a huge crowd.

The SEGA employee at the Blue Blur kiosk made a call to his boss telling the higher ups of the Nintendo CD add on and the 3D capabilities of the console. The higher ups at SEGA decided action needed to be taken right away.

Upcoming Chapters:
Beaten to the Punch
Silicon Graphics take hold
An old Game company reappears

This is gonna be good! Can't wait what happens next

 

[Jaiken]

Having called the higher ups at SEGA had proven to be the right move on the part of the company, as the SEGA CD was near completion and ready to ship to the market. The only downside was the technology. Instead most of the games that were released had one major problem:

"The majority of game titles were interactive movies. "

With nothing else SEGA pulled a trick from up their sleeve, "Super Nintendo has no blast processing". SEGA stated that sure the 3D games were fun to look at but they were not nearly as fast or revolutionary as what the SEGA CD could provide. The public did not know enough about the SNES CD add on nor the SEGA CD to make an educated decision about what device to get so SEGA made the decision for them due to advertising.

In the mean time, SEGA decided to contact a certain company that was also turning heads for its 3D capabilities. Silicon Graphics. If SEGA could not beat Nintendo in the 3D department now they could beat them later on.

While this was going on Jack Tramiel was getting into talks with RJ Mical and Tom Needle about the capabilities of developing a new console to enter the market after Nintendo and SEGA had both shown their hands.

Upcoming Chapters
Silicon Graphics take hold
An old Game company reappears
A Difference in Gaming

 

[Jaiken]

Silicon Graphics was a 3D company unlike any other had been seen before. State of the art cutting edge graphics would be made for home video game consoles with a graphics chip that only costed around $40. The head of the Silicon Graphics company would approach SEGA first thinking they would be interested in the gaming technology.

Surprisingly, SEGA accepted the offer and got to work on their newest video game console that would use robust 3D graphics. Sure the technology was expensive but the pay off would be that much greater when the console finally hit the market. Plus the head of SEGA of America made a surprise run in with the Stamper Brothers at the company.

Nintendo had to run down the company for the Silicon Graphics technology. Their current CD add on would not be able to run the tech, but that didn't mean their next console wouldn't have a better chance of running better games. Ken Kutaragi was hard at work on Nintendo's newest console and the development of said console would also attract the heads of consumers everywhere.

Jack Tramiel also entered the door of Silicon Graphics for the latest and greatest graphics, but not only met the higher ups he also met with a certain company that made a video game concerning the Outer Realms. Midway Games was shown the potential of Atari's latest console and decided it would be beneficiary to join teams with the old video game console giant.

Butterfly Effects: SEGA accepts the offer of Silicon Graphics to put the technology in their latest console and have a run in with the Stamper Brothers. Nintendo and Kutaragi are also working on their next video game console that will alter the gaming landscape. Atari and Midway Games are teaming up to work together on their latest and greatest new console that will shock the gaming market.

Upcoming Chapters
An old Game company reappears
A Difference in Gaming
5th Generation Woes

 

[Nivek]

Well a very unique plotline so far

 

[Jaiken]

Old Atari was an ancient gaming company that used to make consoles before the likes of Nintendo and SEGA took over. Atari decided that now would be a good time as any to release a new console.

Introducing the Atari 3DO where the electronics consumer company Sony worked on. With Sony working at the helm of the manufacturer of the consoles costs were able to stay low at $300. Sony also got 30% of profits from software amount sold.

Video games for the launch were Mortal Kombat 2, Crash n Burn and Street Fighter 2 Turbo with arcade like experiences. More games were on the way with how developers only needed to pay $3 royalties to Atari to have the games published. With that action more games would be on the way.

On the other side of the gaming arena Nintendo and Ken Kutaragi had just released their latest iteration of the SNES Add On.

Introducing the Nintendo Playstation, total of $250. A gaming console with CD capabilities and Cartridge compatibility all rolled into one console. Phillips provided the CD technology. For all intents and purposes this console was the Playstation from OTL. Games were being made for it and released such as Secret of Mana with time travel and Ridge Racer which showed off the 3D capabilities of said console.

Many more games were to come for the two consoles; however, many concessions were being made. Most of which was coming from Square. Until next time.
Butterfly Effects: Atari has reentered the video gaming market and the Nintendo Playstation is released to counter it. Games such as Chrono Trigger are butterflied away due to the disc add on technology still being available causing games such as Secret of Mana to include time travel.

Upcoming chapters
A Difference in Gaming
5th Generation Woes
Introducing the First Person Shooter

 

[Nivek]

Games such as Chrono Trigger

Yeah as both started as the same game before being split on 3(some story beats were included in FF vi) and nice update

 

[CrashBandicam]

So do Dave Needle, RJ Mical and Trip Hawkins pitch their hardware design to Atari? And since Nintendo probably wouldn't have the technological intelligence to manufacture a CD-ROM drive of their own for TTL's Nintendo PlayStation, I'm guessing that they collaborate with a electronics company to provide one, but the question is, who provides the CD-ROM drive for the NPS ITTL? Philips, maybe? Sharp, since they've worked with Nintendo before in the past decade, putting out products such as the Twin Famicom and TVs with built-in NES's and SNES's?

 

[Jaiken]

So do Dave Needle, RJ Mical and Trip Hawkins pitch their hardware design to Atari? And since Nintendo probably wouldn't have the technological intelligence to manufacture a CD-ROM drive of their own for TTL's Nintendo PlayStation, I'm guessing that they collaborate with a electronics company to provide one, but the question is, who provides the CD-ROM drive for the NPS ITTL? Philips, maybe? Sharp, since they've worked with Nintendo before in the past decade, putting out products such as the Twin Famicom and TVs with built-in NES's and SNES's?

Yep should have mentioned that Phillips helped provide Nintendo with discs. And yes, the creators of the 3DO pitch their design to Atari with Sony manufacturing the parts.

 

[Nivek]

Yep should have mentioned that Phillips helped provide Nintendo with discs. And yes, the creators of the 3DO pitch their design to Atari with Sony manufacturing the parts.

Some details where implicit, should have mentioned those regardless

The price are too damn low, especially as Sony will not get money from games(or will they?) 400 is the lowest for 3DO.
The same playstation ,200 the add on, 300 the dual unit with SNES cartridge

 

[Jaiken]

Some details where implicit, should have mentioned those regardless

The price are too damn low, especially as Sony will not get money from games(or will they?) 400 is the lowest for 3DO.
The same playstation ,200 the add on, 300 the dual unit with SNES cartridge

Does 300 sound fair for the 3DO and 200 for the Nintendo PlayStation?

 

[Nivek]

Does 300 sound fair for the 3DO and 200 for the Nintendo PlayStation?

If Atari and Sony are willing to loss leading it could, Nintendo might wants 250 at least

 

[Otakuninja2006]

Cool!

 

[Jaiken]

The year was 1994 and the consoles had been out for about a year; however, the major difference was the type of games that were made for the newest consoles. Donkey Kong Country that was made for the Super Nintendo. Star Fox was delayed to release on the Nintendo Playstation that showcased the full potential of the console. Secret of Evermore was still made and was for the Super Nintendo as Jeremy Soule starts his career on said game. Final Fantasy 6 was the first 3D Final Fantasy game released on modern consoles, turning Kefka into the titular villain of the Final Fantasy franchise alongside Terra with being the major character of the series. Zoda's Revenge Star Tropics 2 was made for the Super Nintendo instead of the NES due to the higher ups wanting to expand the potential popularity of the franchise. Tekken was another game said to come out for the console from Namco. Nintendo still shacks up with Rare in video game development and asks said company to make a fighting game.

As for the 3DO: Gex was seen as the consoles' mascot and drew in huge number of players. Doom was released as a console exclusive. Considering the former founder of Electronic Arts was also the father of the 3DO, many games released for the said console would come from Electronic Arts itself. The major hit for the console was Mortal Kombat 2. Most western and American game developers would develop games for said console alongside Atari's video games.

SEGA had an interesting premise with Rare that Nintendo passed on ITTL. The creation of a huge game starring a famous spy was in the developmental process of game creation. What project it was SEGA would not tell.

Butterfly Effects: Mortal Kombat 2 has been made into a 3DO only franchise. Nintendo releases Zoda's Revenge for the Super Nintendo in an effort to broaden the appeal of the series. Final Fantasy 6 becomes the first 3D Final Fantasy and its influence is felt throughout the industry.

5th Generation Woes
Introducing the First Person Shooter
Nintendo 64 and Dinosaur Hunter

As for next time we learn what Nintendo is up to in regards to consoles.

 

[Nivek]

Mortal

SEGA would be fuming it badly, but that's a bold move as otl both mk sold massively in both systems

The same doom,as wolfstein sold very well on SNES.

 

[eldandythedoubter]

SEGA would be fuming it badly, but that's a bold move as otl both mk sold massively in both systems

The same doom,as wolfstein sold very well on SNES.

That must have been a big moneyhat for Acclaim and Midway.

 

[Nivek]

That must have been a big moneyhat for Acclaim and Midway.

Of course would have been, especially midway. As they wanted the game to be as massive as possible