HuguesJohnson.com Mobile: What if the Nintendo CD was Released in 1991?

History (2/2)

Nintendo and Sony patched things up in 1992 and went back at work on a new CD system. This time it was a 32-bit CD-based system that also played Super Nintendo games. A late 1993 release was targeted but in 1994 it was quietly canceled. The word on the street is this system collapsed when Nintendo decided the CD format was too slow and Sony saw the Super Nintendo's shelf life ending soon. Of course this rumored system would never have existed had that initial 1991 alliance held-up.

Nope, instead we would have seen a lower-tech attachment along the lines of the Sega CD or Turbo-Grafx 16 CD hitting the streets in the early 90s as originally planned. The gaming world as we know it certainly would have evolved differently had this Super Nintendo CD seen the light of day. One can only wonder how events might have unfolded...

Before diving in too deeply it's important to briefly recall the state of gaming in 1991. Sega finally managed to chip away at Nintendo's market dominance with the Genesis and major releases like Sonic the Hedgehog. In August, Nintendo brought the Super Nintendo to the states with new Mario and Zelda games to kick things off. Sega looked to regain momentum by releasing the Sega CD to the Japanese market in December, the US version was looming around the corner. The Turbo-Grafx 16, and its CD add-on, were hopelessly stuck in third place.

So what if Hiroshi Yamauchi reviewed that contract on a good day and chose to renegotiate with Sony? OK, maybe the famously ill-tempered chairman never had a good day in his entire life but a truce still isn't a wildly absurd proposition. They let cooler heads prevail the following year, it's definitely feasible they could have sorted things out in 1991 too. It's one small change to the initial equation that was the 1991 gaming industry which could have radically changed the future. Let's consider three scenarios that begin with this premise, each with a distinct outcome...