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

Scenario 2: The Second Crash (2/2)

By 1993 console sales take a dive, the focus on CD gaming having severely cut into new cartridge production. Atari releases the Jaguar which drives a final nail into the gaming coffin. Any hope for brighter days are dashed by another lame entrance to the market.

1994 sees games stores closing and clearance bins full. Nintendo and Sega try a few "last ditch" games starring franchise characters but it's too late. Their systems are dead and debts too high to invest in a new generation of consoles.

Windows 95 is released the subsequent year. The new OS makes PC gaming much simpler than the DOS/Windows 3.11 days. There's a spike in PC sales followed by a revival of the gaming business.

Someone would capitalize on this opportunity. Maybe the Panasonic M2 would actually be finished, maybe some other electronics conglomerate would step in, maybe a game company would try their hand at hardware. In 1985 Nintendo, up until then a major game publisher, led the restoration of the console gaming system.

Is it far-fetched to believe someone like Capcom might have filled this theoretical void? Their situation in the mid-90s was comparable to Nintendo's in the mid-80s. They had a strong library of franchise games and pockets filled with quarters from Street Fighter II machines. It's even plausible that SNK would see the opportunity to step in with a downgraded, and cheaper, Neo Geo variant.