knew about the SF1, but I wasn't aware it actually supported the expansion slot! That's pretty interesting...
It was, seems Sharp was full in the Super Famicom would be a mega success like Famicom and realized Nintendo was big on giving it add-ons too.
That makes sense, since they are Dutch and all. Honestly, Philips could help Nintendo get a stronger foothold in Europe, making some games aimed more towards Europeans and helping with localization.
Yeah, that helps a lot, plus having the games be localised in Dutch earlier than OTL too, plus being a company already with distribution networks helps massively.
I've seen previous mentions on this thread about "expansion discs" adding new content to existing games, a la the 64DD, but the only way I could see that working is if the HANDS cartridge has a pass-through for other carts (think Lock-On technology.) Otherwise, HANDS takes up the whole slot, and it's essential since it contains the coprocessor and RAM.
The idea is that because Nintendo is more serious with the SNES-CD, the Expansion port is improved to be bigger and have bigger bandwidth, so all can be added on the bottom Case of the SNES, leaving the cartridge port open, the idea was the disc interact with the cartridges, ie expansion discs for the already released Cartridge games, so early adopters don't feel they wasted money in early games(and avoid cartridge unsold inventories too), but that depends how you want to make the add-on, but there another detail I want to share under...
Philips could also push Nintendo towards more multimedia stuff, like what they were trying to do with the CD-i OTL but at a slower pace and with more thought behind it. I remember Yamauchi was very keen on "connecting all Nintendo users in Japan" in OTL and Nintendo tried with Randnet, but Philips could convince Nintendo to conncect Nintendo fans globally and do more with online during the 5th and 6th generations (well, as much with online as you could at that point in time lol). Mario Paint/Mario Artist could fit into that as well.
FUN FACT: Yamauchi was pushing the internet since the Famicom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Computer_Network_System, but seems it was too early he did try hard, in fact, the original plans for the SNES was a modem that ended up evolving into the Satellaview. did very slow internet speeds and adoption in Japan and/or the failure of Sega own internet plans in the 16-bit generation
https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega_Modem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Meganet might have made Yamauchi steer to the faster satellite streaming. The original plans for SNES were interesting( a Motorola 68K, the CD and modem expansion, dunno if both working together or separately) but if the CD ADD-ON is working as intended. i can see Yamauchi pushing the internet as the next big step, either for SNES or the next console. Dunno.
Hotel Mario, from what I've heard, is actually a decently fun, arcadey game! It's just... well, the cutscenes that sour its reputation. If you had better-animated cutscenes and different voice direction (either Martinet or the
Walker Boone/Tony Rosato soundalikes from an unused sound file,) it'd probably be remembered more as a very weird and cheesy yet genuinely fun Mario title.
Fun Fact, Hotel Mario is just a reworked version of Enix's Classic game Door Door. In fact, that's why the gameplay itself is decent, the rest was rushed to use the Mario license Nintendo granted to Phillips
So Hotel Mario might be butterflied away but maybe Phillips convince Enix to Revive Door Door or as you can't patent gameplay, they just make their own Modern take on Door Door? With or without Mario?
Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon were legitimately not good, even without the bad CD-i controller there was a lot of BS design elements. However, there are some
fan remakes of them that actually alter a lot of the more questionable design choices. They're actually decent-ish Zelda games now! It's just that the potential was kind of squandered in our timeline. Again, giving them some additional polish could make them genuinely well-liked titles instead of the "exceptions to the rule" in terms of quality for their respective franchises.
Those might be fully butterflied away, Miyamoto himself was very protective of Zelda(that was his baby vs the company man Mario seems to be for him) and without the need to terminate Phillips's contract, those games are not needed. but Maybe Phillips convince Miyamoto to co-produce a Zelda CD game(Yamauchi might also want one in the add-on too)?
Obviously we're not there yet, but I wonder what SGI will end up doing. Do they go with Nintendo like OTL, with Sega like P2S, or someone else entirely?
Dunno, we know they did try to work with SEGA otl before veering to Nintendo when SEGA refused their proposal(some of SEGA objections were valid but i still think Sega could and should have tried harder with SGI, but with the managerial mess Sega was..they could have ended up with even more issues than OTL N64). They could offer it to Sony? Nintendo as OTL? Panasonic/3DO? someone else? dunno that butterfly could be interesting.
That's about all I have for right now. I would also ask about Atari and the 3DO, but I don't know much about them and couldn't offer any real input.
Atari is a mess and Trammiel destroyed any chance atari had to make a console internally even buying flare Technology didn't help as Jack did meddle a lot in their projects, plus Trammiel Japanophobia would be a disaster as Japan become the videogame centre post crash. 3DO/Hawkins have the issue that he wanted a hardware standard for the project when he should have pushed for the earlier multiplatform engine but also 3DO lacking a real third party made price cuts more difficult as companies weren't willing to eat up losses as they wouldn't get the same software royalties Nintendo and SEGA GOT OTL. Later on, Panasonic tried but was too late. Dunno with them
