What if Nintendo Had Joined Sony in Making the Playstation?Geoff Keighley
The reality: As inconceivable as it may sound, there was a point in time when Mario and Crash Bandicoot could have appeared in the same game. (Super Smash Crash Melee, perhaps?) Back in 1988, Nintendo and Sony signed an agreement for Sony to create a CD-ROM for the Super NES code-named the “PlayStation.” But after three years of work, Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi pulled the plug on the deal in early 1991. Why? Yamauchi reportedly couldn’t bear the thought of helping Sony enter the game business.
The alternate reality: If the deal had gone through, the Super NES PlayStation CD-ROM drive would have competed against Sega’s CD add-on for its Genesis: the Sega CD. After that, it’s possible Nintendo and Sony would have collaborated on a 32-bit system. Imagine the possibilities: Sony hardware mastermind Ken Kutaragi and his engineers could have focused on the hardware while Nintendo hit-maker Shigeru Miyamoto and his designers crafted the first-party software. “Nintendo should have kept that deal with Sony and stayed focused on making great software,” says one well-known game designer who works with both Sony and Nintendo. In other words, this alternate reality just might have been the preferred one—especially for Nintendo.
