CD-based console gaming took off with the original Sony Playstation. The PS set a standard, and lead to a universal adoption of the disc format by the next generation. What is the earliest that console gaming could transition to the CD format?
CD-based console gaming took off with the original Sony Playstation. The PS set a standard, and lead to a universal adoption of the disc format by the next generation. What is the earliest that console gaming could transition to the CD format?
CD-ROM drives were too expensive to happen much earlier than they did IOTL (Sega tried to use a cheap CD audio one on the Sega CD in fact). To have earlier CD gaming you can either believe Atari PR about ($500 CD player vs $2000 everyone else in 1985 which is actually somewhat plausible) or work on broader faster adoption of CD players, thus lowering the costs as more are produced.
Perhaps CD-ROM is pushed stronger by the computer companies (lots of PODs in the early and mid 1980s to make that happen) and their price drop is somewhat faster, leading to earlier CD using consoles.
i wonder, could LaserDiscs be used to extrapolate something for this?
Laserdiscs would be far worse, bigger, more bulky, more moving part means more cost and more chance to broke down alongside more limited board for games and a long etc, so LD was only experimental in arcades, when arcades being bigger and having better Cost of Operations allowed, in console would be a nightmare.