I found an interesting rumor the other day that Nintendo isn't going to have an optical drive in the NX, that it might use some sort of card-based media instead. It makes sense, and would kind of be a cool development. Optical drivesd fail, and the discs get scratched. I would be totally in favore of this.
What if Sony Had Released the PlayStation as a SNES-CD?
With the recent surfacing of a prototype Play Station for the SNES, Chris I re-imagines video game history if it were to release.
It's no secret that Sony originally intended to produce a CD-ROM attachment called the Play Station for the Super Nintendo console. Somewhere along the line the deal went sour and what was originally intended for the CD-ROM drive became the Sony PlayStation.
So what if the deal DIDN’T go sour and the SNES-CD actually came out? It’s not hard to immediately think of all the great PS1 games that would have been SNES-CD games, which would have launched the SNES into the next-gen stratosphere. But Sony's original plans for the SNES Play Station was not a next-gen piece of hardware. An early concept for the SNES-CD was a 16 bit add-on like the Sega CD, and later another concept unit in conjunction with Phillips was a low end 32bit model, closer to a Sega CD/32X. Would the SNES-CD have taken the game industry by storm or been another gimmicky dust collector like the Sega-CD?
Looking back at the CD-ROM technology for the time, the only benefits the CD-ROM format added to cartridges was a ton of extra storage space to increase the size and scope of the games, replaced chip based music with CD quality recorded music, and *shudder*, made grainy full motion video possible. Did these things actually make the games better? The high quality music tracks seemed unbalanced with the pixilated graphic quality of the time, and the FMV games never grew beyond a curious novelty. But when the extra storage for game data was used to potential some great quality games were possible.
So with this in mind, what games would we see on the unit? We’d probably have Super Mario Bros. CD, a huge Super Mario World-like game with animated cut scenes and fully orchestrated versions of the familiar soundtrack, with some other newfangled graphic effects forced in to show off. Add the same parameters to any other CD-ified 16 bit game.
We’d also probably see some of the best 3rd party Sega CD games make the to jump to Nintendo such as Konami’s fantastic Snatcher and the amazing Lunar RPGs. We’d also probably see some early 3D games as I’m sure the Super FX chip found in later 3D SNES games built into the CD-ROM hardware. With this we’d probably have a better looking and playing Star Fox and perhaps a rudimentary 3D Mario game. So nothing completely groundbreaking from what I can see, but the Sony Play Station CD-ROM would have extended the life of the SNES and added a few more punches to the already down for the count Sega.
We’d probably also have some sort of music CD player built in to the unit with a heavy dose of Nintendo character themed menus that let you do things like looping music tracks, interactive visualizers, and play all three of those specialized CD+G music albums.
Now of course the other half of this “what if”; There would be no Sony PlayStation.
One of the first changes I can see in a world without a PSX is the lack of pressure on Sega to bump the 3D processing power of Sega’s 32 bit Saturn console. Sega originally wanted a 2D powerhouse console with 3D as an afterthought. When the specs for the PSX were passed around, Sega added additional 3D processors to compete. If there was no threat from Sony, Sega may have released their original vision for the Saturn, delaying the hype for 3D games. Games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Guardian Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Dungeons & Dragons Collection, and Dragon Force would have been the norm instead of the exception. However, without decent 3D behind the Saturn, we might not have gotten the stunning Panzer Dragoon Saga.
So how long would we have to wait before we got to play the first wave of decent 3D games at home like WipeOut, Tomb Radier, Metal Gear Solid, Twisted Metal, and so on? Without a stand-alone Sony PlayStation, and Sega unable to provide the punch with their 32 bit unit, we’d have to wait for the NEXT generation of hardware. I would have been fine with that, I think a generation of high quality 32-bit 2D games would have been splendid; imagine a trove of Neo Geo quality games at consumer level prices. Yes, please.
Where would the next generation go from there? Let's assume the Nintendo/Sony love affair continued and Sony assisted with the development of the Nintendo 64. (NES Play Station 2?) The N64 hardware would have a bit more time to gestate and we’d see more powerful 3D than we ended up getting. Both the N64 and the PSX had a different “look” to them, N64 could render polygons nice and smooth compared to the PSX jaggies, but due to Nintendo’s insistence to stick with cartridges instead of CDs limited the size of the games which made for the notorious low draw distance, birthing the nickname “Ninten-blur 64”. I think Sony would insist on sticking to CD-ROM technology to help clear up the fog. Sega would be ready for their next console, given the time frame to launch a new unit to compete with the N64, we’d probably see something similar to a watered down Dreamcast.
Put simply, the 3D revolution would have been delayed and we’d see slightly less powerful consoles than we know them now. It would have been nice to see what 2D could accomplish before it was stepped on. Luckily we have the indie game scene to fill us in on what we missed.
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