The Super NES CD-ROM System (commonly shortened as the SNES-CD), known as Super Famicom CD-ROM Adapter in Japan, is an unreleased video game peripheral for the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...

(SNES). The add-on built upon the functionality of the cartridge-based SNES by adding support for a

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

-based format known as Super Disc. The SNES-CD platform was developed in a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony. The platform was planned to be launched as an add-on for the standard SNES, as well as a hybrid console by Sony called the PlayStation (nicknamed the "Nintendo PlayStation" to distinguish it from the later Sony console of the same name) similar to Sharp's Twin Famicom and NEC's TurboDuo. Another partnership with Philips yielded a few Nintendo-themed games for the

CD-i The Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I, later CD-i) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, data storage format that was mostly developed and marketed by Dutch company Philips. It was created as an extension of Compact Disc Di ...

platform instead of the SNES-CD. Sony independently furthered its developments into their own stand-alone console, which ended up inheriting the PlayStation name and would serve as the chief competitor of the Super NES's cartridge-based successor, the Nintendo 64.

History

Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi became interested in working with video games after seeing his daughter play games on Nintendo's Famicom video game console. He took on a contract at Sony for developing hardware that would drive the audio subsystem of Nintendo's next console, the Super NES. Kutaragi secretly developed the chip, the

Sony SPC 700 The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Euro ...

. As Sony was uninterested in the video game business, most of his superiors did not approve of the project, but Kutaragi found support in Sony executive Norio Ohga and the project was allowed to continue. The success of the project spurred Nintendo to enter into a partnership with Sony to develop both a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES and a Sony-branded console that would play both SNES cartridges, as well as games released for the new Super Disc format. Development of the format started in 1988, when

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

signed a contract with Sony to produce a

add-on for the SNES. The system was to be compatible with existing SNES titles as well as titles released for the Super Disc format. Under their agreement, Sony would develop and retain control over the Super Disc format, with Nintendo thus effectively ceding a large amount of control of software licensing to Sony. Further, Sony would also be the sole benefactor of licensing related to music and movies software that it had been aggressively pursuing as a secondary application. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi was already wary of Sony at this point and deemed it unacceptable, as Sony was the sole provider of the audio chip, the S-SMP, used in the SNES and required developers to pay for an expensive development tool from Sony. Furthermore, Yamauchi started to see a more favorable partner in Philips. Philips was also one of Sony's biggest rivals in the entire industry. To counter the proposed agreement, Yamauchi sent Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa (his son-in-law) and executive Howard Lincoln to the Netherlands to negotiate a more favorable contract with Philips. As described by David Sheff in his book '' Game Over'', “

he Philips deal He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

was meant to do two things at once: give Nintendo back its stranglehold on software and gracefully fuck Sony." At the June 1991

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

, Sony announced its SNES-compatible cartridge/CD console, the "PlayStation". The next day, Nintendo revealed its partnership with Philips at the show—a surprise to the entire audience, including Sony. While Nintendo and Sony attempted to sort out their differences, between two and three hundred prototypes of the PlayStation were created, and software for the system was being developed. In 1992, a deal was reached allowing Sony to produce SNES-compatible hardware, with Nintendo retaining control and profit over the games. The two organizations never repaired the rift between them and by the next year, Sony had dropped further development of the Super NES CD-ROM, and instead refocused its efforts on developing its own console for the

next generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

of consoles which became known as the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

Prototype

In November 2015, it was reported that one of the original "Nintendo PlayStation" prototypes had been found. The prototype was reportedly left behind by former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO

Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (born 26 September 1962), also known as Olaf Olafsson, is an Icelandic businessman and writer. He is best known for his tenure at Sony and his leadership in the creation of the PlayStation video game console. Personal ...

during his time at

Advanta Advanta (TSO Financial until 1988) was an American banking company. It controlled two banks, Advanta Bank Corp and Advanta National Bank. (It is not associated with Advanta Energy Corp., a California energy consultancy.) Growth Advanta began in 195 ...

. A former Advanta worker (Terry Diebold) acquired the device as part of a lot during Advanta's 2009 bankruptcy auction. The system was later confirmed as operational and the unit plays Super Famicom cartridges as well as the test cartridge that accompanied the unit, although the audio output and CD drive were non-functional. Some groups attempted to develop homebrew software for the console, such as ''Super Boss Gaiden'', as there were no known games that used the CD drive. The prototype came with a Sony/PlayStation-branded version of the standard Super Famicom controller (model number SHVC-005). In March 2016, retro-gaming website RetroCollect reported that they (and influential members of online emulation communities) had received (from an anonymous source) a functional disc boot ROM for the SNES-CD. Diebold had given the unit to

Benjamin Heckendorn Benjamin J. Heckendorn (born October 19, 1975) is an American console modder and Computer engineer. He is better known as Ben Heck on the Internet. Heckendorn is also an independent filmmaker and he was the star of element14's ''The Ben Heck Show ...

, a console modder, to look at, around 2017. Heckendorn provided a tear-down video of the system, through which he was able to identify faults in several on-board components that he subsequently replaced, which resulted in fixing the audio and CD drive issues indirectly. Heckendorn showed audio CDs working on the system, as there were no known game CDs, but affirmed that homebrew games worked. The prototype was put up for auction by Diebold in February 2020, with an initial asking price of , but the auction quickly exceeded within two days. It was auctioned off at to Greg McLemore, an entrepreneur and founder of Pets.com, who has a large collection of other video game hardware and plans to establish a permanent museum for this type of hardware.

Technical specifications

Heckendorn's July 2016 teardown video provides technical specifications of the prototype. Heckendorn said the system would have probably been as powerful as a standard Super NES, but not as powerful as the Sega CD. The standalone unit has the following connectors: two Super NES controller ports, a cartridge slot, a dual-speed CD-ROM drive, RCA composite jacks, S-Video, RFU DC OUT (similar to the PlayStation SCPH-1001), a proprietary multi-out AV output port (the same one featured on the Super NES, Nintendo 64, and

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...

), headphone jack on the front, a serial port labelled "NEXT" (probably for debugging), and one expansion port under the unit. The specifications from the prototype are different from those published in the March 1993 edition of '' Electronic Gaming Monthly''.

Legacy

After the original contract with Sony failed, Nintendo continued its partnership with Philips. This contract provisioned Philips with the right to feature Nintendo's characters in a few games for its

multimedia device, but never resulted in a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES. Witnessing the poor reception of the Sega CD, Nintendo cancelled plans for the add-on. The Nintendo-themed CD-i games were very poorly received, and the CD-i itself is considered a commercial failure. The main game in development for the SNES-CD platform launch was Square's '' Secret of Mana'', whose planned content was cut down to the size suitable for cartridge and released on that medium instead. Kutaragi and Sony continued to develop their own console and released the

in December 1994 in Japan and September in North America and Europe the following year. The CD-based console successfully competed with Nintendo's cartridge-based Nintendo 64 and other CD-based console systems such as the

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

FM Towns Marty, the NEC PC-FX, the SNK Neo Geo CD, the Panasonic

3DO Interactive Multiplayer The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, also referred to as simply 3DO, is a home video game console developed by The 3DO Company. Conceived by entrepreneur and Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, the 3DO was not a console manufactured by the company ...

and the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

, causing it to become the console leader due to its success. The broken partnership with Sony has often been cited as a mistake on Nintendo's part, effectively creating a formidable rival in the video game market. Nintendo would not release an optical disc-based console of its own until the release of the

in 2001.

References

External links