Nintendo was right to backstab Sony over the PlayStation

Nintendo and Sony weren't always rivals. They were once partners, working on the first PlayStation together. But Nintendo feared Sony's product had the potential to destroy their business from the inside, forcing them to act.

[@medium_x]

Curious about the fate of this controller and my creative process? I have a behind the scenes video posted on my Patreon page. Check it out! shorturl.at/dLRU7

[@BuffedAcheron]

PS1 is legendary

[@davidmorin2818]

So Nintendo's mistake wasn't betraying Sony, it was agreeing to work with them in the first place

[@budgetking2591]

just like working with Nintendo was Sony's mistake.

[@yeolemillinial8295]

@@budgetking2591 i can agree with this, because the playstation 1 was essentially made in spite of the nintendo as a response. if they never hooked up the playstation made never existed.

[@MadaraUchiha55910]

The only reason that deal fell through was because Nintendo realized Sony was getting all the profits from sales including that of games which was Nintendo’s bread and butter but by then the deal had already been made and the Play Station primed and ready to start production in fact the console was ready to be shown at CES in ‘89 by the time the deal was ripped up. This whole tornado of corporate machination was the impetus for the Philips CDI which was a whole other mess of its own, and it’s also the reason why Nintendo too 11 more years to embrace CD’s.

[@AnneALias]

Wrong. It was agreeing to this agreement. They could have agreed to work with Sony under different terms and been fine, so it wasn't agreeing to work for Sony that was the mistake.

[@wildruid10]

Well the thing is that Nintendo partnership with Sony actually started with the super Nintendo with them producing the sound chips for SNES. They practically backstab a hardware partner that helped get them a leg up on the Genesis.

[@edwardperkins1225]

Seeing what Disney has done to some of the ip they bought I feel Nintendo not being consumed by Sony was for the best.

[@madnessarcade7447]

Let’s stay on topic that’s a different discussion

[@SAsaiyajin]

​@@madnessarcade7447 That is a whole political issue😂

[@MarkIrwin02]

Being how Sony has had been hacked so many times. Nintendo made the right call. Sony makes amazing games but thr rate at which they get hacked is unexceptable.

[@kidrobot.]

nah, it could go either way. any acquisition has it's up n downs

[@Ihartwalrusguy]

Same applies to Disney buying out Nintendo

[@ever611]

For the customer, having a competitor was the best thing to happen

[@jorge1170xyz]

Competition would not have been a problem. Whatever competition the consumer wanted, SEGA would have provided. The only reason no one rescued SEGA was because Microsoft had swooped in and bumped SEGA off the podium (and in console gaming there really never is a "fourth" place).

[@CMSonYT]

Saturn was a joke and Dreamcast could never save the company. Hardware was killing them ever since the 32x. Partnering or selling to microsoft was the sanest move at the time but japanese businessmen gonna do what they do.@@jorge1170xyz

[@KnucklesWTD-uu3ps]

​@@jorge1170xyzSega was not competition. They put out rushed and mediocre games. Sega Genesis was competition. Not 32x, not Sega CD, not Saturn, and Dreamcast still had inferior games

[@KnucklesWTD-uu3ps]

​@@jorge1170xyzSega decided to get out the console race even before Microsoft arrived. Since 2000, Sega discussed their losses being too great on the hardware side. Most "good" Dreamcast games are just liked by hardcore Sega fans. And Sega mistreated their own Sonic Team devs so badly that most bailed out anyway

[@KnucklesWTD-uu3ps]

If Sega stayed in the market, they would get bankrupt after putting out more bad 3D Sonic games

[@cabbusses]

One detail people omit from these sorts of videos that I think is actually critically important: in 1991 SONY filed the patent that effectively describes the planned SNES CD add-on. Said patent never mentions Nintendo by name in spite of using drawings that clearly resemble a SNES. The patent was eventually granted in 1994 and lasted until 2008. The amount of damage this patent did itself to Nintendo could not be understated. Sony theoretically had the power to sue Nintendo if they tried to make a CD add-on without them. Not only would such a lawsuit be costly, but Nintendo's best chance of winning would require them to lose face by reaching out to Sega and NEC for help. The patent was vague enough that it could be for any Nintendo system, which means the N64 could not use a CD add-on legally, either!

[@medium_x]

I did not know that! That's wild. Next time I do a video like this I'll need to check the patent office!

[@VOAN]

That's why when Nintendo made the 64DD, it's not using CD but disk inside a cartridge similar to floppy. That may also explains why the GameCube used smaller optimal disc instead of compact disc. Fortunately by 2006 Nintendo may had figure out the vagueness which is why the Wii was able to used DVD rom disc by then.

[@clouds-rb9xt]

Nintendo chose Cartridges because of load speeds and a variety of reasons. I don't think they would've been sued over that if it resembled an SNES as long as their next console didn't

[@vanessa1963x]

@@clouds-rb9xt I'm pretty sure they used cartridges because an optical disc would have made the N64 $100 more expensive to the end consumer, and they wanted the N64 to cost no more than the PlayStation.

[@XVa-uj8m]

@@VOAN I legit think with the GC it was to prevent piracy. Too bad the plans of the GC disc to be able to read triple layered never worked out. It may not have been 9 gigs. like a dual layer DVD but at least it would be the size of a single. The plan with the HD DVD was again to make it able to do triple layer but that didn't work out again.

[@TheScruffySkull]

December 3, 2024 marks the original PlayStation's 30th birthday. Let that sink in.

[@alface935]

Acording to Japanese Copyright Law (Sony is a Japanese Company after all) The Playstation 1 from 1994 will be entering the Public Domain in 2064 Yeah most of Us will be Dead by then but Our Kids Kids Kids will enjoy having tye Playstation 1 be part of the Public Domain for Everyone to make, sell, buy, build etc

[@oldbordergeek]

Why? I dont care

[@johnellis3383]

I'm not old, YOU'RE OLD!!! *Cries in old man*

[@oldbordergeek]

@@johnellis3383 old and distinguished like a good wine or trump 😜

[@ColdShoulder131]

LET THAT SINK IN. HES COLD

[@vanessa1963x]

Nintendo is infamous for their God tier integrity. For example, they very rarely expand. When they made tons of money with Wii and DS, they didn't expand, they just stockpiled cash. Cash they used to survive during the Wii U flop. Another company would have expanded, then crash and burn during a flop, then being bought by another company. This has happened to A LOT of companies in various industries. They go for record fast growth, only to crash a few years later and being bought by a larger fish. Nintendo is also famous for their stock buyback, everything to keep control of the company. Neither Blackrock, Saudi Arabia or Vanguard owns a controlling share of Nintendo. When Microsoft wanted to buy Nintendo in the early 00s, Nintendo just laughed them off. I think this is important to remember when people see the three market leaders today. One is a software company with monopoly like status of PC operating systems. One is a huge giant that operates in movie, home electronics, music and videogame industries. And one is just a videogame company. People often wonder why Nintendo never branch out or expand, but that's because they don't want to, as it put them at risk of crashing and then losing all their independence.

[@relo999]

They did expand though, however back into one of their old business'. Toys, and even within that limited to merchandise and they still have their card gaming division. However most of their expansion is done through setting up seperate companies (which significantly lowers risk), like setting up the pokemon company.

[@GamingPlus10]

They had enough integrity to make illegal and anti consumer exclusivity rules for developers.

[@Toonrick12]

The Saudis actually own a small percentage of stock, but it's barely 2%. Point is, Nintendo has always been independent and they will fight to keep it that way

[@georgemeyers7172]

Techinally Nintendo is branching out... recently. I think they are confident enough to do so now. Take the Theme Parks and The Movie stuff for example. Their first Movie in a long time made them over a billion dollars... clearly they can branch out now.

[@AlexanderPR2]

The Wii U was a bizarre case because that console is incredible hardware. A true successor to the Wii legacy that had everything to continue the success already established. But Nintendo didn't know how to deal with the jewel it had in its hands and did everything wrong with it. I will always think that Big N's main mistake was not making it the Wii's hardware. Yes, they have a long-term plan and certainly have designs for the hardware they will launch in the future and they just decide what to launch and when.

[@criticaledge7612]

That sound chip was truly next Gen tech at the time. It's insane how much it added to games.

[@MachtNixPasstSo]

It's just an 8bit, 8 channel PCM soundchip, nothing more. It had been done before and even better. EDIT: the Commodore Amiga had that as well. Only four channels, I admit, but the sound ITSELF is FAR clearer.

[@Yu-Fei-Hung]

Chrono Trigger is still a beast 😎🤘

[@Sly_Maverick_19]

​@@Yu-Fei-Hung Final Fantasy 6 ost is 🔥🔥🔥

[@diablo.the.cheater]

@@MachtNixPasstSo Cope

[@AllieRX]

Nintendo was smart in cutting off Sony, but Sega wasn't during _their_ deal with Sony. After the Sony/Nintendo deal fell through, Sony went to Sega, but Sega Of Japan turned them down. Sega also turned down Silicon Graphics, the company responsible for the graphics of the N64. If Sega didn't make these mistakes, they'd probably still be making consoles today.

[@tidalus]

Highly doubt it. That deal would massively favor Sony and help propel Playstation to massive success even faster. The lion's share of profit and control in that partnership, would be Sony's. If you read Hideki Sato's interview about his talks with Kutaragi, it's obvious that the writing was on the wall that Sony would dominate them either from the inside as partners or outside as competitiors. By the time of the ps2 era, even if Sega's name would still appear in a the console's box, in reality they would be subservient to Sony in most aspects, basically nothing more than a glorified 1st party for Playstation.

[@GammaBeta656]

SEGA turned down Sony for the same reason Nintendo did - Sony was gaining too much momentum too fast and would've overshadowed them in no time. Yes, the deal would've given SEGA the money, tech and power to remain competitive for longer, and perhaps the Saturn wouldn't have been such a failure of a console - but eventually, by the 6th and 7th generation, SEGA would be nothing more than a glorified first party developer for Sony, with the only saving grace being they'd still have their name on the consoles. I think its one of the big reasons why after the Dreamcast failed and SEGA pulled out of the console manufacturing market, they rallied behind Nintendo's Gamecube first, making a lot of the original Dreamcast titles exclusive to that console and optimizing most of their games to the Gamecube first before porting to the Playstation (which is why the Gamecube version of a lot of SEGA games in the later half of the 6th generation is the version that is less buggy and runs smoother). Both SEGA and Nintendo viewed Sony as an enemy in their own way and were able to recognize and spot the knife behind Sony's back as they handed them the contract.

[@Leny1777]

That is because they where making consoles in the 90s what are you talking about?

[@AllieRX]

@@Leny1777 The Sega/Sony deal happened before the launch of the PlayStation. I'm saying if that deal actually went through and they made a console together, Sega could STILL be making consoles TO THIS DAY, as in more consoles after the Dreamcast.

[@Auxodium]

Sega would have been consumed by Sony by 2000... So I think Sega even saw this threat as Nintendo had done. Only for Sega to make more ridiculous decisions.

[@ThePatman1980]

Nobody is talking about Phillips. They were the ones who got screwed the most in all this. The Phillips-Nintendo add-on fizzled. The CD-i did get to use Mario and Zelda but they were outsourced and were terrible games. I think Nintendo's betrayal worked out great for both Sony and Nintendo. Sony got more motivated to compete. Nintendo got to protect power, profits, and their IPs. Nintendo basically used Phillips as a pivot to get out of the Sony deal. Sega of Japan are the real idiots. Sony went to Sega and they rejected them. Then they rejected Silicon Graphics which would then team up with Nintendo to do Project Reality which would later be known as the Ultra 64 by 1995 and then Nintendo 64 by 1996. Sega's biggest problem other than Sega of Japan's lack of foresight and meddling with Sega of America is they only had one blockbuster franchise in North America: Sonic. Virtua Fighter was big but mostly in Japan. Most of Sega's IPs are from the arcade but they still lack the mass appeal of Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon.

[@audiolatte]

I'm glad Sega rejected Sony..Sega was what Sony wishes they could be.

[@cokelife5831]

@@audiolattea succesful console maker😂

[@headshotmaster138]

@@audiolatte Nice cope.

[@audiolatte]

Sega always made better games than Sony, don't give a fuck if your virgin asses agree. @@headshotmaster138

[@relo999]

I think a LOT of people, especially people only knowing for the games, completely misunderstand what the CDi actually was. It was first and foremost build as a fancy powerpoint machine and edutainment system for use in schools and business' in an era without powerpoint and where teacher managed PC's in the classrooms were rare. It was never build as a gamesystem, only one of the last revisions being build for games. The showing was in 88 as a business machine for meetings, the first comercial release was in 1991 with a system with the same goal, while the consolized version came in 1994 which was released as a hail marry for the already declining system (because PC's taking over it's niche) and rebranded as a budget edutainment system. The whole Nintendo-sony-phillips thing was in 1991, when the CDi was still a business powerpoint machine and far from a gaming system. So the whole "phillips can make a few nintendo branded games" was for the theoretical SNES-Phillips CD add-on. However due to the machine never materializing and Phillips rebranding their CDi as a games console and still having the legal right to Nintendo characters made some games with those characters. The CDi was never meant as a games machine and everything about how the system was designed shows this. And you can even see this in the games release list, up till late 1993 pretty much everything released for it was either edutainment or games made for business people to entertain them (chess, golf, etc.) nothing really aimed at the stereotypical gamer of the era.

[@WuAgent]

Someone would need to explain why it would be a bad idea for Nintendo to back out of a deal which was clearly disadvantagious for them.

[@QuantumNova]

Nintendo is nearly 130 years old. They know a crappy deal when they see it. They very, VERY protective of their IP's. Sony was crazy to attempt any takeover.

[@firestriker3580]

It wasn’t a bad idea

[@kicapanmanis1060]

They could have backed out without being assholes about it for one.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

@@QuantumNova Know a crap deal when they see it but signed it in the first place......

[@kicapanmanis1060]

@@DeadManWalking-ym1oo Yep pretty much. It was totally unnecessary.

[@jeremyhouston3438]

Nintendo has to be one of the most fascinating companies to ever exist. They are like a real life version of the Wonka factory, so full of fun and mystery, yet they have a dark and sinister side. I love learning about their past and I always look forward to their future creations. With childlike glee. Thanks for posting this.

[@auswolf2k211]

nothing dark and sinister about a company backing out of a deal that was going to screw them.

[@gallaieousyehudai12]

​@auswolf2k211 I think he's talking about before nentindo made games. Like the nintendo brothel houses.

[@jeremyhouston3438]

@@auswolf2k211 they are indeed sinister. If you want proof check out their history of lawsuits. Google “gary bowser” and his punishment.

[@RyandracusChapman]

@@auswolf2k211 Tell that to the Japanese business community. What they did by Japanese standards was considered borderline evil, not because they backed out but how they backed out and who they did it with.

[@RyandracusChapman]

@NaNoRarh Do your research. They betrayed a native company to do business with a foriegn one. In homogeneous countries that blur the lines between ethnic group and nationality, they typically have a us vs them mentality. Not only that, but they chose to do business with their rivals and break a deal of good faith, in Japan that believes in honor and respect, this was viewed as the ultimate disrespect. In Japan, Nintendo greatly hurt their reputation, and many in the Japanese business community shunned working with them.

[@mjrausch]

It’s also interesting to note how Nintendo has gone back to Sony now in order to make movies that use Nintendo IP, but I’m sure the deals are much more measured than the PlayStation/SNES collab!

[@medium_x]

Lessons were learned!

[@madnessarcade7447]

@@medium_xtrue

[@benjaminwilson2945]

Universal studios attempted to sue Nintendo in the early 80s over donkey kong, but they now work closely together to create films and theme park attractions.

[@pablocasas5906]

Sony Pictures has little to do with Sony Computer Entertainment, aside from being owned by the same company and occasionally distributing movies based on PS properties like Uncharted and Gran Turismo. Heck, the soundtrack for Nintendo-owned games like Xenoblade are published by Sony Music and Nintendo had been in talks with Sony Pictures to develop movies since the early 2010s Nintendo partnering with Sony Pictures (Columbia or Tristar) does not mean that we'll soon see Nintendo games on PlayStation

[@Bitdead]

No doubt Nintendo got a good deal out of that as Sony are dwn 30% in profits as a whole, but Sonys Gaming division has famously been a thorn in their side even though mostly profitable and even to a point where they have subsided the rest of the company, i can imagine Sonys gaming division wasnt too happy about this, but that movie could possibly print money so the board voted in favour. I can imagine Sony gaming execs "we're doing what now?!"

[@youcantata]

The decision by Nintendo to abandon the Nintendo-Sony joint console project is understandable. Sony back then was kinda Apple Inc of today; The most powerful consumer electronics company in the world. So fear of Nintendo is justified enough.

[@fooddipclips5900]

Also good for us the consumer imagine all the anti consumer practises they could get away with because no one can compete with nintendo x Sony

[@firestriker3580]

@@fooddipclips5900not anti consumer

[@TheUncivilizedNation]

@@DeadManWalking-ym1oo eh it had its benefits in the long term. Nintendo’s stunt paved the way for Sega to reach out to Microsoft when they were developing the Dreamcast. And that was the foundation for the original Xbox. Putting us back to having two main players in market by the early 2000’s. Both Sony and Microsoft taking the places of Nintendo and Sega

[@kicapanmanis1060]

And yet Nintendo was the one who was dictating strong software limits on third party and charged developers an arm and a leg for cartridges. Nintendo policies were more like Apple rather than Sony, they were more permissive in those days which is why devs flocked to them.

[@marcoantoniobrandaotada937]

No, Sony best seller was the walkman, in other departments Sony was just another electronic company, they indeed had good devices, but they were only the best maybe on the TV department, where their Triniton tube TVs were really amazing. For me the Nintendo betrayal was the best thing that happened to Sony, they could build their machine from zero, without having to drag a cartridge player just to play SNES old generation games. And in their second generation consoles they released the best selling console in history. The serious third parties went to release their contents on the Playstation platform, while Nintendo kept their chld games to them. I grew up playing Nintendo games, but as I grew older and decided to retire my SNES, I decided to go with Playstation instead N64, and never came back to Nintendo (ok, before Sony released the PSP I bought a GBA, but didn't play much games on it).

[@zerobyte802]

Sony was basically going to own Nintendo with this deal. Nintendo was crazy to have signed it to begin with.

[@junkvideos4527]

It’s good to see this story being covered in the West. This background has been widely known among Japanese video game fans since that interview with Maruyama. Also it’s said Kutaragi was almost acting alone and wasn’t liked inside Sony. Nintendo did tell their new deal with Phillips to Sony before the conference, but the executives didn’t inform Kutaragi about the news dliberately, and he was the only one really “backstabbed” here.

[@alicevioleta3184]

ken kutaragi made the coolest hardware ever. ps3 with the cell processor was the coolest.

[@gamephreak5]

@@alicevioleta3184 It was the worst. Nobody wanted to make games on that monstrosity because it was so hard to develop on and make games run well.

[@CreativeWM_Personal]

​@@gamephreak5was it really? Most games never used it and tried to get everything to run on a single power processing unit core, whereas the 360 was using 2 on the CPU side of things. Any developer who bothered to use the SPUs has to build their engines to use them, that and they could do all sorts of interesting things that wouldn't be possible on conventional CPUs.

[@diablo.the.cheater]

@@CreativeWM_Personal Yes, really, there was a reason why most games never used it and tried to get everything in a single core, because it was bad, meaning too difficult/time consuming. There is only one path in software, the path of least resistance, if something is technically cool but too cumbersome developers will not use it.

[@CreativeWM_Personal]

@@diablo.the.cheater there's a fine line between can't be bothered and not understanding how the tech works. With new technology coming regularly, Devs have no excuse for not at least attempting to understand how the tech works.

[@XVa-uj8m]

I remember hearing the royalty thing before and then immediately understood why Nintendo gutted the deal. Now Sony has flushed themselves down the toilet with this Americanization crap, gutting Sony of Japan studios. NEVER underestimate the quality the Japanese division will bring.

[@BaawBee]

Japanese made things are the highest quality period

[@lazoali9555]

Japan Studios' games sold terribly, and most of the games they made didn't make a splash apart from Shadow of the Colossus and Gravity Rush. These are why they were shut down. I do agree that Sony should have more Japanese studios for variety.

[@Minnesotanlights]

How has Sony flushed them selves down the toilet?

[@redstonewarrior0152]

​@@BaawBee They aren't the end all of quality, but the Japanese are rather uncompromising when it comes to making things that are quality.

[@X2011racer]

​@Minnesotanlights They enforced the American standard on the PS5, which means that the confirm and cancel buttons are now X and ○ respectively, even in Japan, where it was reversed to better match Nintendo controllers instead of Xbox Controllers. All 3rd parties are forced to censor various things in their games, such as religious symbols, blood and gore, suggestive content, and other things, on Playstation platforms internationally, whereas no such restrictions exist on Nintendo and Xbox. Sudden price increases for Playstation Plus subscriptions make Playstation Plus the most expensive way to play online, with Xbox Game Pass Core the middleman and Nintendo Switch Online the cheapest. As mentioned by others, they shut down every single part of Sony that was Japanese, such as Sony Japan Studio and their Japanese HQ.

[@trappercap]

I think having Sony pursue constant growth like this was also their own poison pill as well. Their thirst for growth and unsustainable hardware dev ended up having the whole PlayStation department get moved over to California. I want to think Nintendo ultimately triumphed in the end, but it took a whopping 20+ years to get to that point.

[@apferrando]

I’m most amused that in the context of the present… cartridges ended up the winning medium. Faster and potential for more storage than current discs.

[@cylemons8099]

You are kinda right. Tho I think from a programming perspective, SSD are closer to disks than cartridges. The main difference being that the processor could directly access bytes in a cartridge just like ram whereas in a modern SSD the data has to be copied to ram before the processor can use it. This feature of cartridges is what made the Atari 2600 be able to function with only 128 bytes of ram; the processor could just run game logic directly from the cartridge.

[@markus9641]

Faster, sure, but currently the nintendo cartridges only top out at 64GB of storage, where as Sony's blu-ray discs for the PS5 can hold 100GB. Discs are also immensely cheaper to produce, so adding one or two more discs doesn't hurt the pockets. Where as Nintendo's case, if the game is larger than 64GB, you'll be forced to download a patch to get access to the rest of the game.

[@cylemons8099]

@@markus9641 Atleast the choice of cartridges makes sense for the switch because the switch is a hand held.

[@tossingturnips]

Great video! The Sony fallout was Nintendo's biggest stumbling block, but also arguably one of their best. Not only for the reasons already outlined in this video, but Sony's entrance to the market with their own console gave the competition that Nintendo needed to continue to innovate, and of course Sony had a lot to prove. It is a shame that this cost Nintendo a lot of third party developer support, but they were able to weather the storm and have remained the name synonymous with video games.

[@alyasVictorio]

Based on one of Going Indie's latest videos, Microsoft bought Minecraft but still maintain its crossplay. Why? Why rely on their own console as main source of income if Microsoft will just help those games they bought and then gain more income from them. I mean Microsoft helped Minecraft enable crossplay to both Nintendo and PlayStation, which is a biggest win-win for all of us. So in conclusion, why we make exclusive games if we make crossplay/third-party games

[@firestriker3580]

It wasn’t a stumbling block

[@firestriker3580]

It wasn’t what Nintendo needed and no.

[@tossingturnips]

@@firestriker3580 wow thank you for your valuable contribution

[@jorgeparrales7108]

​@@alyasVictorio in case of Nintendo it's because between the gaming comunity the Switch has less graphics, the exclusives are what's selling the console and if they were in other platforms then the console would make barely anything in profit because the gamers would only play those games on what they think is "better hardware" and that would make major money loss And if those games were in pc the piracy chances would be even higher

[@madnessarcade7447]

I read one time that it was because Sony wanted marketing rights to Nintendo’s characters

[@tr1bes]

Sony wants to make a profit for each game produce. That cuts Nintendo production profit.

[@DeletedVR645]

Same

[@segaunited3855]

@@tr1bes Sony wanted 80% Control of Nintendo Playstation INCLUDING the Rights to Make Mario and Zelda Games PLUS IP Rights in Various Markets. This would have allowed Sony a Clause to literally BUY Nintendo's IPs and Put them Out of Business. Sony wanted a MONOPOLY. They envisioned BOTH SEGA and Nintendo developing games Exclusively to PSX2 by the Year 2000.

[@tr1bes]

@@segaunited3855 Ohga (Ken's boss) did not want any parts of making games. Where do you get the idea that Sony wants Nintendo IP? Sony produce chips for sound, tv, radio and etc back then. The cd disc production is just one of the thing they make. Sony wants to charge for every data on the disc produce. Nintendo was doing the same thing by charging 3rd party putting data on their cartridge. It's the usage of storage medium that Nintendo didn't want Sony to do. It cuts Nintendo production. It's not about Nintendo IP.

[@mouldypretzel]

Nintendo going back to cartridges I can understand, because there is so much more information that can be stored now (Like SD cards) and the read & write speeds are substantially faster than anything an optical disk can provide. Games can be run off the cartridge, lessening the need for internal storage. Physical media all the way

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

Yeah I never got the aversion to cartridges/SSDs/etc. It made sense in the 90s and 2000s since CDs were capable of more, but people still have the stigma left over from then. I for one was hyped when other tech caught up to what disks offered, and disks started being phased out of electronics in general. Disks have always been picky bastards.

[@shotimethecomedian]

They need to make a biopic on Ken and have the movie climax when Norio gives him permission to develop the PlayStation.

[@SuperTrainStationH]

They were both clearly trying h to outmaneuver each other throughout the entire project, as was Philips, as it turned out. The way people characterize this as Nintendo alone randomly and out of nowhere betraying Sony with zero provocation is as silly as the attempts to claim that the Hindenburg disaster had nothing to do with the airship being inflated with hydrogen.

[@robotube7361]

I know right? Lots of Nintendo fanboys here trying to justify Nintendo being unprofessional. As if Sony somehow forced them to even make that deal in the first place. Some serious mental gymnastics being done here. Yeah Nintendo backstabbed Sony and Philips but hey Nintendo was right to do so. Suuuuurre. Also Nintendo was also right to sell 70-80 USD cartridges until 1999. Lol

[@nerdzone]

I feel that decision lead to the better outcome for gaming in the long run.

[@JDFrank20Diaz]

Correct all 3 Companies Sony Nintendo and Sega are still independent where I think Sony secretly wanted to Backstab Nintendo And Aquire them and later get SEGA all within a Decade and Sony would Control Both Sonic and Mario at the Same time while Sega and Nintendo are just 1st Party Publishers and nothing more while Sony would become The Disney of the Video gaming Industry Microsoft wouldn't do anything even back then Sony had all the IPS they needed so Nintendo what they did Benefited not only themselves also Sega cause they still exist and are independent

[@TheyCallMeSledge]

I say Nintendo made the right call as shady as it may seem. Thing is can you really call it a backstab when Sony had full intention to make a buck off of Nintendo, fully monetizing the CD format which will become an integral part of gaming for almost 3 decades? I say Sony tried to pull a fast one over Nintendo and the Big N managed to see the writing on the wall at the last moment and aborted the mission in time. Sony just like Sega was another competitor to Nintendo with the only exception of Sega being outright combative towards Nintendo attacking them from the outside while Sony tried to upend Nintendo from the inside (ie Keep your friends close and enemies closer) It would be interesting if Nintendo didn't catch that red flag in time and fully partnered with Sony, what an interesting alternate reality that would have been. Keep in mind, Sony's arrival into the hardware market also caused Sega to make blunderous mistakes too. Granted Sega was already doing too much in the 4th Gen of gaming but it would also be interesting how they would've taken on a joint unit Nintendo + Sony competitor as opposed to dealing with both of them on separate ends.

[@XVa-uj8m]

Frankly I want to see Microsoft wash out and PC Engine come back. NEC Matsushita knows what they are doing with Hudson Soft.

[@halo3odst]

Videogame consoles only used the CD format for about 8 years. Everything after 2000 was DVD or BluRay.

[@JasonLewis42]

Maybe Nintendo would’ve been teamed up with Sony and Sega would’ve ended up teamed with Microsoft. Actually, Microsoft did help Sega with the Dreamcast.

[@TheyCallMeSledge]

@halo3odst My mistake, I meant optical disc format. Kinda overlooked that during my very lengthy post.

[@VMC_Boy]

@@XVa-uj8m The most wildest of fantasies. But yes I do think that timeline would be cool.

[@SamM_Scot]

Seeing what Sony has become today makes me even more glad it happened, but I always knew it wasn't as straight forward as many were saying and still do to this day :-)

[@ChronoTango]

Seeing how modern gaming is at the moment”Pinnacle” of fidelity and bottoming out in overall design, value, and customer experience over the two decades of consolidation that have taken place, I’m very happy with the way things turned out.

[@benthecat4345]

I think Nintendo going back to cartridges was a good idea, especially since they run the handheld market, cartridges are a lot more durable than discs

[@markvicferrer]

This is like when Ferrari pisses off a customer who goes on to make Lamborghini, their most direct competitor. Hiroshi Yamauchi really liked running the company with an iron fist & preferred to work in the old ways. That contract was vague because Japanese businesses run on so called "gentleman's agreements". Younger generations weren't raised like that & Sony really was gunning to enter the game market on their own terms; the Nintendo PlayStation would be their trojan horse.

[@renatoramos8834]

What a garbage comparison. Sony is the one who tried to screw nintendo.

[@robotube7361]

Not really. The success of Sony was all because of the greed of Nintendo. Lets not forget that Nintendo had all the world class developers in their pockets and they had to lose them all to Sony because of their greed to continue to peddle cartridges in the era when the whole world accepted the CD as a format. Nintendo's greed is what led to Sony's success. If the N64 was launched with a CD, there wouldnt have been any reason for the gaming developers to defect to Sony in the first place. The problem was that Nintendo was making the catridges and they sold more than the CDs. By 1996 when the N64 was launched Nintendo could have made its own factory for producing CDs and CD based hardware. They had 6 years to adapt to CDs and they didnt obviously because that would cost money and the profits would be less from selling CDs. Basically Nintendo pissed off the developers who wanted more profits and more creativity for their games and that is somehow Sony's doing? GTFO. Nintendo fucked themselves by being greedy and the world recognized this and they all migrated to the Playstation. Only Americans were dumb enough to stick with the N64 and defend Nintendo while the sales of the PS1 were skyrocketing everywhere else. Ofc it would be an American who would defend Nintendo since as Ive said earler Only Americans payed for those insanely expensive cartridges and nobody esle. The N64 flopped everywhere else and it was all because Nintendo chose to be greedy and refused to adapt to the world because that would mean less profits for them. That nearly killed them and the Wii is the only thing that saved them. Now they are like the 3th or 4th biggest console producer lost even to the Xbox all because they decided to peddle cartridges. And they still do it even now. These companies never learn unfortunately that people DO NOT WANT proprietary stuff. They want universal formats and they want them cheap. Even Sony made that mistake when they launched their small disks for the PSP and that also failed. Greed and the desire to keep everyone from your pot of gold coes create resentment and by 1994 majority of the gaming industry hated Nintendo just enough for them to stick it to them and move to Sony.

[@Malamockq]

2:24 This is a bit misleading. The Nintendo Seal of Quality had nothing to do with the quality of the game. It just meant that the publisher of the game paid the licensing fee. There were plenty of terrible games on the NES that had the Nintendo Seal of Quality.

[@johndodo2062]

Most of the games back then were garbage. People like to forget this fact when it's convenient for their current argument

[@chiquita683]

SNES too, and N64 and Gamecube, etc etc

[@Izlude84]

Yep. It was effectively a watermark that says 'they paid for the chip that allows this software to work'

[@revengenerd1]

@@johndodo2062 Depends on how you interpret it, back then it was more about quality than quantity since there was so many games released NES had over 1000 if you count imports, but most people may of owned around 20 games in a consoles lifespan so a console could still be great, also many games that could be basic could be fun in short bursts or even longer not everything has to be a masterpiece, if I paid $5 for a game that was fun but not in the same league as a Mario or Zelda game I would be satisfied, if I paid half that i.e a ex rental the game could be average and I'd maybe be a little bored but not feel ripped off and still play it.

[@angel_of_rust]

and the worst games now are worse than the worst games back then. now the games are garbage AND woke. who would even think of making a game like forspoken or suicide squad in the 1980s?@@johndodo2062

[@Miguel92398]

In an alternate timeline when Nintendo and Sony did agree, we would see the fall of SEGA home consoles very early, Microsoft Xbox wouldn't exist, and potentially pushing forward VR early on with the Virtual Boy with colors, especially if having it in a CD format. But another part of it would mean that Nintendo might be acquired by Sony and become a 2nd party company, making titles for Sony's console. Another scenario is that the Nintendo Playstation would've been one of Nintendo's biggest blunders as combining console and CD would be redundant and might've pulled a Philips due to a lack of CD game titles or the purpose of having a CD Reader is to listen music and watching media. Hell, even the Wii and Wii U don't support other CD formats without modding the console.

[@relo999]

realistically speaking outside of Sony possibly not entering the console market and the ramifications of that it wouldn't have affected much. CD-addons almost universally failed, especially outside of Japan. Only within Japan the PC-engine CD saw great success and the Sega-CD saw acceptable success, the only notable system that after that generation saw some sort of disk add-on was the N64 which failed miserably. And by the time of the Nintendo/Sony deal both of those success stories were making a hard downturn. Even within the limits of CD-addons the only games (and aren't called Sonic CD) that were highly successful that required the use CD technology were FMV games, which only really saw major success in Japan. So a more realistic scenario would be: Sony would be burned by failure in the console market, Sega would have a larger marketshare possibly taken a large part of the third party devs that moved to Sony for using CD's in their Saturn, Dreamcast wouldn't have competed with the cheapest DVD player on the market. Xbox wouldn't have existed, at least not as we know it as they toke over quite a lot of Sega's people and support. A successor to the 3DO (Panasonic M2) would have been released to compete with Sega and Nintendo (it wasn't released due to the Panasonic CEO unwillingness to compete against Sony). The Bandai Wonderswan color might have gone international or the SNK's neogeo pocket might have become more popular internationally as here was more room in the market. Atari would probably still go under as they were already in deep shit when the Jag released.

[@JaimeValladares00]

@@relo999Based alternative history

[@ronn201]

Pretty much agree with relo, in that CD add-ons could be a hit or a miss outside of Japan. Could've easily been something like how Sony PS4 VR or Xbox Kinect had gone, where public perception could've considered it an unnecessary add-on that explodes the price. Had the add-on failed, Nintendo could've had a CD console sooner, but it's murky. If SEGA got a lot of third-party support, then Nintendo would have a weaker hand negotiating with Sony. SEGA would likely still have a console. Had the add-on succeeded, I'd have no doubt Nintendo would've become Sony-Nintendo, and gone the way of Blizzard of Activision-Blizzard. I think, the biggest difference, success or failure, would be that we'd be more further along with visual fidelity, things like 4K and VR would've been a thing sooner, and 3D TVs might still be a thing too. The flipside is that motion-gaming would likely be set-back over a decade without anyone pushing it. Like VR would be using controllers instead of motion-tracking. Vtubers might not have risen either, as face-tracking might not have become a thing.

[@roujin518]

Remember that one of the main reasons that Sega failed was due to Sony's direct competition with sega cutting the price down to 299 compared to the saturns 399. That and the sony's release date of the PS1 pushed Sega to release the Saturn too soon which angered Walmart and Software etc both of which refused to sale Sega products for awhile and made the entire roll out terrible. If anything Sega would have done better with the breathing room of not feeling threatened by another console coming out. Plus the fact that the architecture of the N64 was far more complicated and most likely from the reports we have heard about the Nintendo playstation are correct would have been just as complicated as Sega would have made more developers less likely to shy away from the Saturn. The Saturn's success would have also allowed Sega more room to grow into the Dreamcast and not have 3rd party devs avoid Sega's consoles due to the recent failures of the 32x/Saturn era. As well as sony might not have been able to leverage eating costs for a PS2 to make it DvD compatible as they wouldn't have had the outrageous success from the PS1 to have as much faith that the PS2 would be worth the trade off of losing money per console to make DvD's the default format.

[@matthewrenault7839]

Actually, Sony was going to backstab Nintendo first, but Nintendo left before they could. Nintendo learned what Sony was doing behind their backs and Nintendo made the first move to break their ties with Sony.

[@ashwin.unlead]

wat were they doing?

[@frisby7143]

Where is your source for this? I thought it was because Nintendo could get a better deal with Phillips?

[@junghan96]

@@frisby7143 watch the damn video

[@JaimeValladares00]

@@frisby7143Braindead comment

[@thetrashygamer]

They weren’t backstabbing anyone it was the contract from the start. That ain’t a backstab that is a deal lol

[@DVZ000]

It doesn't matter how good this video is. That mistreatment of the SNES controller was unnecessary.

[@mdjey2]

It was shitty SNES controller with purple buttons. Everyone knows lively colour buttons adds dynamic to the gaming!

[@angel_of_rust]

i just hope they were fake chinese ones

[@Aries73]

Sony couldn't be trusted even then. I think Nintendo saw a double-cross coming and looked for ways to protect themselves.

[@MADmidway]

I've seen this story played out a hundred times. But this video put it a different perspective. Well done.

[@NutsforDonuts-qc1vx]

Thank you SO MUCH for covering this! This is something I have been searching for years to find an answer to why this deal fell apart!

[@thrawn24]

Another thing to consider (that was mentioned in the snes geeksline book) is that Philips held the patent for Ralph Baer's magnavox patent. This patent ensured all following video game manufacturers had to pay for a license. By aligning with Philip's, it is thought that Nintendo got permission from Philip's and did not have to pay for the license. In return, Nintendo gave Philip's permission to use Nintendo products for their cd-i machine. After Nintendo felt that they'd been duped by Sony (and they were, because that's exactly what sony were going to do), Nintendo made the best of a bad situation. If Sony were truly in the right, they could of sued Nintendo, but they never did. I think Sony likes to push this narrative that they were betrayed unjustifiably. I think there is more to it.

[@DarioDAversa]

I remember when this got very real for me. It was a weekday in 1997, watching TV, and a certain commercial comes on. I didn't pay attention to the few first seconds, but then it captured my attention... when it said "Final Fantasy 7", I was like WOAH-- only to hear a second later, "PlayStation". I only had an N64 back in the day, because I assumed all the SNES sequels would have been there, so this was an incredible disappointment. Talk about backstab, talk about betrayal -- *I* felt betrayed by those companies. I think this is what really started the console wars. It made me hate SONY as a brand. I never cared about Nintendo vs SEGA prior, because I loved both Mario and Sonic -- but this, oh, this felt weirdly personal. I disliked SONY and the PlayStation for this, for so long. Symphony of the Night was another reason. It was incredibly frustrating. Fast forward years later, and I'm glad Nintendo kep being themselves. Every little innovation they brought always got copied by the competition afterwards. They know what they're doing, and they're unstoppable now. We may not be calling all consoles "Nintendos" anymore, but as far as I'm concerned, they're the ones representing the video game industry in 2024. The only arguments against them are their graphic resolution and slightly-more-childish content, but it's never bothered me. I play those games on PC. It all makes sense once you have kids.

[@medium_x]

And now we have Final Fantasy 7 on the Switch! It's all working out

[@royjonzejr]

Similar story with me. I had just finished playing Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger (i.e. two of the best RPGs ever) back to back and Squaresoft were absolute gods in my eyes. When I heard "Final Fantasy 64" was now going to be Final Fantasy 7 on a console I didn't own it was like being stabbed in the heart! I still haven't played FF7 to this day, purely out of spite.

[@oriongear2499]

TBF, Nintendo also tends to be very scummy itself, even back then.

[@n333k333]

Same man I'm an 80s kid too and I still hold an almost subconscious grudge to Sony and to a lesser extent Square and Konami for that feeling of betrayal back then. I was also one of the few that ended up not liking Squaresoft's PS1 work nearly as much as I did their SNES stuff so that didn't help. To a broader extent I also still have the feeling the very advent of 3D back then robbed us of what could have accomplished what were maybe the most talented 2D devs of all times if they had stuck to 2D but that's beyond the Nintendo/Sony thing. The mid-90s were definitely a huge turning point.

[@SomeAngryGuy1997]

You hate Sony and the PlayStation because... they had games that you didn't? That's childish AF. Blame Square Enix and Konami instead. As well as Nintendo themselves.

[@IanCombs1337]

I respect you getting the important info out. People need to know about this. It’s history.

[@DogmaFight]

Keep the great content coming! I'm shocked you've only been at this for 3 months. Your subscriber count has a long way to go to catch up to the quality of your videos!

[@medium_x]

Thank you! I’m in it for the long haul so there’s a lot of road ahead 😎

[@BaawBee]

Some of these youtubers amaze me. Only 3 months is crazy

[@BaawBee]

​@@medium_xyou would be crazy to quit. I see you becoming one of the lead Nintendo dogs on YT

[@gjergjaurelius9798]

The biggest lost is Capcom, Konami and square.

[@pablocasas5906]

Konami did actually gave the N64 some support, not as much as what the original PlayStation got, but there were things like Castlevania 64, Goemon and International Superstar Soccer, among others. Capcom came back a little with the ports of Resident Evil 2 and Mega Man Legends. But the way Squaresoft cut ties with Nintendo was incredible, they didn't even gave the Game Boy and the GB Color, at least Enix kept publishing some games for Nintendo

[@dr.charlesedwardflorendobr3952]

And this is why Ive boycotted SONY products ever since the PlayStation came out.

[@ThePhobos100]

One Nintendo magazine called it the Grey Station

[@Kevintendo]

Dude your little gags are so funny 😂 that folder had me dying

[@medium_x]

Thank you!

[@aztekno2012]

Thank you for such an in-depth documentary about one of the most important times in gaming history.

[@lazarushernandez5827]

You should look into Sony's potential partnership with Sega as well. According to Tom Kalinske, Sony approached Sega of America looking to partner up with them to make a next gen (32 bit) console. Sega of Japan wasn't having it.

[@ghhn4505]

If they didn't backstab Sony we would have never gotten the CDI Can you imagine a world without YTPs, I don't think I'd even want to

[@johnnytacosauce]

I subbed this video is very well edited! Nice work!

[@medium_x]

Thank you Mr Tacosauce!

[@clouds-rb9xt]

One thing: Nintendo didn't really abide to that "lateral thinking" philosophy until the Wii. Up until then they still focused on power in their consoles, even if they made cuts in other areas. It was only under Iwata that they radically shifted their philosophy.

[@thenonexistinghero]

Nintendo never focused on having a powerful console. The NES was them wanting to bring games to homes with their own console. The SNES actually has a significantly less powerful CPU than the Genesis/Megadrive, which released like 2 years before it (though the SNES was better in other things that made it easier to produce better looking games overal). And if you look at their handhelds, almost all of the competition released afterwards dwarfs the Nintendo system in power. Game Gear was more powerful than the Game Boy, PSP was way more powerful than the DS, Vita was far more powerful than the 3DS. The one time Nintendo actually released a powerful console was the Gamecube. It still wasn't the most powerful console out there and slightly weaker than the Xbox, but still about twice as powerful as the PS2.

[@guillermo9171]

@@thenonexistinghero The Gamecube was not 'the one time' at all. You're forgetting the N64 (there's a reason they advertised it like a Silicon Graphics super-computer) and the SNES may have had a weaker CPU but it's graphics and sound chips were cutting edge. OP is right, they bet on power until the PS2 dealt them a decisive blow.

[@johnrickard8512]

​@@thenonexistingheroand let us not forget that Nintendo thought about that on the SNES and built the mighty SuperFX compute accelerator for their console, which happened to be powerful enough to allow this console, with the help of a particularly insane assembly coder, to run Doom.

[@thenonexistinghero]

@@johnrickard8512 The N64 wasn't clear cut either. While it was far more powerful in some ways, it was also far worse than other consoles in other ways. And it wasn't even all space related. N64 was garbage when it came to textures for example. It had power to push polygons, but not much else. Gamecube was the only time Nintendo actually pushed power properly. It was straight up just far more powerful than the PS2 and Dreamcast.

[@juanmanikings]

​@@thenonexistingherolol no n64 eawas much powerful than ps1

[@ewoutverheij4745]

I always heard about the split, and felt that Nintendo were being backstabbers. The reason why was never really explained a lot though. This insight in the situation changes the whole perspective on the situation. I agree that Nintendo did the right thing for themselves here. As fun as it would be to have those prototype systems be fully realized it was not worth the risk that the patent alongside it had created. Knowing how Sony fares now, they would've tried a hostile takeover eventually.

[@----x-----]

it's pretty interesting how both companies stick to their roots today. playstation's early strength was bigger size for more cinematic games and today that's still their thing, most of their games are criticized for being basically interactive movies. meanwhile nintendo focused on low cost production for high profit and that still remains their strategy

[@KibaUrufu]

The algorithm brought me here! I love this video. I remember reading about this a long time ago and how Ken Kutaragi took it on himself to work on it because he was so mad that they did this to them. But the SNES CD would have been amazing because it would have been able to do things like have a release of the Bandai Satellaview games. Like they had live voice acting. You could have stored that on the disc and played it when the player entered an area, or be playing new music over it! I wish at least we had gotten something of that with these deals hahaha

[@realdashrendar]

This really proves to me why we need exclusive games in the console space

[@ployth9000]

I'd rather see sega back in the console space and microsoft being a third party

[@investing-titties]

​​@@ployth9000Nahhhh, let's drop Playstation. Microsoft and Nintendo are going to take over the video game market going forward.

[@SpeakerBoxXx805]

@@ployth9000 hell no, Xbox should be pushing for full exclusivity. I'd hate to see Xbox leave as they have the most features of any game console.

[@emblemblade9245]

I wanna see Sega back so I can watch them fail again because I missed it the first time (was born too late)

[@SomeAngryGuy1997]

Honestly, thanks to Nintendo's betrayal, we got Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo, along with the awesome times the PS2 gave many people all around the world, so yeah, it did work out.

[@chekote]

Lots of interesting info here. Thanks for the fresh perspective!

[@Rockhead84]

This was some fantastic storytelling. Great work!

[@ultralance]

As someone who is really into music (though not super in-depth with classical in particular), Beethoven's most famous symphony is 100% either his 5th or his 9th. 5fth has probably the most famous opening of any symphony ever, but 9th closes with the roughly equally as well known "Ode to Joy." Personally, I'd pick the 9th, just because he wrote it while halfway out of his deaf mind in the tail end of a fatal case of syphilis. The mental state induced by the infection definitely influenced how it came out. Syphilis used to not only be a death sentence, but is known to have made people go a strange "manic/happy/joyful" sort of crazy near the end.

[@medium_x]

I am only vaguely familiar with classical music. I know "Ode to Joy" is a pillar of the genre but I wasn't familiar enough with Beethoven's catalog to commit to claiming it was his "most famous." I'm listening to Symphony no. 5 now and it's ringing some bells! I've definitely heard the intro before lol

[@youngwt1]

It’s about time we start calling it the American game crash of 83, in the uk everyone was still quietly getting along with their domestic 8 bit home computers

[@bubbythebear6891]

The same thing could be said for America as well. PCs were still selling but consoles and even arcade profits dropped exponentially.

[@relo999]

Consoles and arcades were also still doing fine in mainland europe and Japan.

[@fixedfunshow]

BUBUBBUBUTUTTTT NINTENDO SAVEEEED WORLDWIDE GAMIIINNNGGG ALLL HAIL MIYAMOTOOOOoo!!11!!! I'm a Nintendo fan but even I know that's BULLSHIT, Nintendo got lucky with the US and Japan (can't say the same about the rest of the world) that's all and they were a familiar brand with their cards and toys so Japanese people already had some signs of trust with the company.

[@thomasffrench3639]

PCs were growing everywhere, but in America it was way less than the Atari systems, so it was a huge drop of popularity of video games. PC gaming grew in Japan, Europe and America, but console gaming became big again in America due to NES and PC gaming became less popular in Japan as RPGs were able to move onto consoles a lot better where it then became big everywhere. Also in Japan it’s not called the video game crash, but the “Atari Shock” which sounds cooler and was more accurate

[@bubbythebear6891]

@@thomasffrench3639 Yes but Atari was still in the gaming market after the crash. Mattel sold the rights to the Intellivision away, that company becoming INTV Corporation. Coleco halted Colecovision production to focus on the ADAM, which turned out to be a disaster. Game crash seems more accurate since it wasn't just Atari but rather the whole console and arcade industry that imploded in the US.

[@iamLI3]

nintendo was right not to sell their soul

[@Domarius64]

Thank you, I never knew the details of this!

[@saladoc]

One of the things that doesn't get mentioned in the sony deal it's that sony was going to adquire all the nintendo franchises and if I remember well the mayority of the earnings too or even all. So the deal was bullshit from the beggining, for me this a sony move to waste nintendo's time and for them to release the playstation with a head start and it was about 2 years early. Besides it seems that in the early contract with sony for the add on it was established that nintendo couldn't use a disc that wasn't made by sony for 10 years, that's why we saw the mini dvd , the cartridges, and at last in the wii we saw a normal sized disc, yeah, this was sony's plan all along.

[@autofox1744]

Little Known Fact: After the Nintendo deal fell through, Sony actually approached Sega to discuss releasing the PlayStation hardware under the Sega brand. At the time, however, Sega was too far along on the Saturn hardware, and didn't take them seriously.

[@SansINess53]

Sony actually approached sega when they had the sega genesis going.

[@msd5808]

At the time there were some other collaborations between electronics companies that might be compared, like Sega working with JVC to make the X'Eye, or the Teradrive, an IBM-manufactured PC that played Mega Drive games, or the 3DO company working with various companies to make their system. Moving into CD-ROMs seemed like a big deal at the time that needed outsider help, probably for access to the factories.

[@SomeBlokeOrWhatever]

Slight correction: Nintendo didn't seek out Sony for the SNES sound chip. Sony sought Nintendo out. Before then it is presumed that the SNES was going to have a simpler synth chip similar to the Genny Drive. Ken Kutaragi was very gung-ho about Sony getting into video games in any way possible. They had already made home computers compatible with the MSX standard of computers, but the famicom undercut them by the equivalent of 100 dollars and was far more popular. Kutaragi saw this as leaving money on the table when they could *own* the games industry. By convincing Nintendo to partner up with them for a PCM-based sound chip for the SNES, Ken got his wish (which was to get their foot in the door of the games industry) and found a way to please his bosses who didn't care about video games (because to make good music on the SNES, you'd need a high-quality MIDI synthesizer to connect to your development machine and OH LOOK, Sony sells those!) Also with the exception of the one executive that believed in Ken Kutaragi's PlayStation project, the rest of Sony's board kept rolling their eyes at the PSX precisely until it became a huge moneymaker. They were old heads that saw video games as a fad that would die sooner or later.

[@iLoveThePS3]

Do you have the source where Nintendo asked Sony for a sound ship? Because from what I understand it was Ken who went to Nintendo

[@medium_x]

Yes - I got that detail from this Eurogamer article about Ken Kutaragi: www.eurogamer.net/farewell-father-article

[@rafaelluciano5596]

A note thats regularly forgotten at the time i think is that Japanese developers generally did not like working with CDs after working with the Sega CD. Speed and reliability being cheif concerns. Cartridges could be seen as siding with developers on top of benefiting the control Nintendo had

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

I don't blame them, disks have always been annoying af and I am glad they have been getting phased out of electronics.

[@rafaelluciano5596]

@@DrewPicklesTheDark yeah with solid state storage and ram becoming more accessible it's funny to think that this remains an issue. Heck, Nintendo still releases content on cartridges today for the same reasons as then. We pretty much just install the disk content to work around this in the other systems.

[@TechnoEstate]

I was there at the time, and I was *_very_* disappointed when around 1992, it became clear the "Nintendo PlayStation" wasn't going to happen after all. I was *_really_* looking forward to it, not even so much because of the advantages of CDs as a storage medium (though that, too) but mainly because it was going to come with *_additional graphics power_* that would've put Mode 7 on steroids -- kinda like what later was possible on the Game Boy Advance. 😔

[@rienjen]

This was nicely done. Good use of video captures, and your narration is clear and not "fake" energized. I hate narrators who do that. This reminds me a little of Gaming Historian--very matter of fact and interesting. Thanks.

[@medium_x]

Thank you!

[@ittylink]

I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further.

[@mikey2toes966]

You are missing the cultural aspects to this. Japan has a rule about Japanese only doing business with other Japanese. Nintendo broke that rule when they went to Philips for cd technology. That is why the N64 had such terrible game support compared to Sony Playstion’s massive library of games.

[@snknero9935]

Actually reason why N64 lost to Playstation beacuse N64 using cartridge instead using disk like Playstation or Saturn. If N64 have gone with disk instead of cartridge N64 would kill Playstation easily.

[@mikey2toes966]

@@snknero9935 Jesus Christ why do you think they had to? They lost their contract with Sony. Philips came out with their Mario and Zelda games and they sucked. Nintendo ended up having zero choice but to use carts cause they did not have the hardware to do it. Do your research like I did. Nintendo broke the unwritten rule of “Only do business with Japanese”. If you do some research the saddest part of nintendo losing its deal with Sony. Was that one of the launch titles was going to be a CD/Cart combo of Secret of Mana. The main game would have been on the cart and the cd would have provided cd quality sound and extra movie segments and enhanced graphics for magic spells. But when the deal fell through they ended up reworking the game into what we know today. Sucks cause it was completed and ready to launch but it now probably sits in some Nintendo vault somewhere never to be released.

[@ReaperX7]

@@mikey2toes966 its not so much "Japanese only do business with Japanese". The rule is "if you make a deal with a Japanese company, you MUST honor the agreement until the expiration of the contract". Which is why Squaresoft stayed until they fulfilled their obligations and then left after the SNES was End of Life.

[@DemomanX614]

Thank you. Ive been bothered for years with people pushing that narrative that Sony was this underdog that were treated unfairly.

[@Lonezewolflonewolf]

The best thing that came out of this was to have different giants beefing with one another. Creates a variety to the industry.

[@JM-pm1yb]

I’m mixed on it. In some ways, Nintendo is a very frustrating company. But in recent years especially, we’ve seen more of the darkside of Sony.

[@rmv9194]

Both kinda sucks. Analog stick drift, unfinished games, terrible online service, both are guilty.

[@JM-pm1yb]

@@rmv9194 I’ve never had stick drift on any of my controls, and I don’t use online game features such as playing online. I no longer subscribe to PS Plus after the price increase, because it wasn’t worth it. I still have a subscription to NSO. Only due to the price being cheap and having access to a few game libraries I barely use. It works fine enough for that. I’m mostly curious as to how all you people play your games if you get stick drift so much. I’m actually genuinely curious. I play a fairly decent amount, as my games of choice are usually RPG type games. I just don’t understand how I couldn’t have even gotten one bad joycon if they are so seemingly common. I had a launch switch up until the OLED and those things worked perfectly when I sold it

[@emblemblade9245]

All companies have their good and bad sides. It’s up to you to choose what you want to put up with most.

[@0miy0]

Nintendo was right in what they did expect wrong in how they did it. They humilliated Sony on the world stage by not talking about plans to cut them off

[@matthewferguson6524]

However, Sony's entire plan was to pull the rug put from under them and brick them in the room.

[@0miy0]

@@matthewferguson6524 not necessarily. It was only add ons and games for add-ons that Sony had power over. Nintendo could've easily and later did make their own CD based consoles later on. Sony's trajectory in gaming was more Niche and was aiming for more educational material before Nintendo made them change gears.

[@Crono_Triggered]

Great video! Defiling that SNES controller though.....😢

[@johnburnes7039]

This is an interesting video, I hope to see more from you in the future.

[@medium_x]

Thanks for watching!

[@Sudamericat]

Interesting video with a bold statement. I liked it but did you had to bully that poor snes controller? ;-;

[@medium_x]

The SNES controller might make a full recovery...I just have to get around reassembling. It sits on top of the to do pile

[@madnessarcade7447]

Sony would have released their own console anyway regardless

[@SeanOfEarth]

Nintendo didn't save the games industry after the crash The crash was just a north American thing. In Europe and Japan, we never felt it. As soon as Americans were ready to spend money on games again, there were consoles and microcomputers out there for them to buy.

[@ordovicianscourge9520]

gamers these day only care about self myhlogy too rather than actual games

[@colororb4105]

It's worth noting the art lead on Hotel Mario later went on to be the art lead on Luigi's Mansion 3, which also took place in a hotel

[@yeolemillinial8295]

i always said that shovelware really took on a literally meaning once ET got dug up lol

[@Dominicn123]

Lateral thinking was only applied by Yokoi towards the Gameboy line to explain for the dated tech on it, this was never the philosophy behind consoles. People always assume Nintendo’s always had this dated hardware philosophy, when in reality it is a modern shift. It wasn’t until the Wii/DS that Nintendo finally caved in and shifted stradegies. Before that they were the traditional hardware upgrade Why?? Because, by the GameCube they realized that they could no longer compete with Sony, people just wouldn’t buy their consoles anymore if Sony was in the same field, Sony literally forced them to innovate to survive. When rumor went around Sony was gonna enter the handheld market, it literally forced Nintendo to cut the GBA’s lifespan short to rush out the DS just to compete. As I said prior they knew they couldn’t compete with a traditional handheld, Sony was pushing the tech so much closer to modern tech, it made them slap on a second screen and make it touch just to differ lol This gave them the confidence to apply that to the Wii. Sony was the first company to successfully release a handheld with the PSP, it was a game changer. Even though the DS sold more, 90 million units is nothing to scoff at. They left the handheld market after the vita debuted because Microsoft tumbled with the Xbox one and left the throne for the home console market wide open for Sony to take, Sony then diverted all resources to home console and we just had the most amazing generation thanks to that. But Sony’s little thumb stick on the psp influenced Nintendo’s circle pad when it came to how to do analog on a handheld. Nintendo even used it again for the Wii U prototype lol. Then Sony unveiled the vita with the first pair of real analog sticks to once again show everyone how it’s done. Nintendo quietly changed analog sticks on the Wii U shortly after that. Listen, I love Nintendo as much as everyone else, I was a Nintendo kid. Still love them, but I don’t like when people love to justify Nintendo’s every mistake and only hold them as “good guys” and everyone else as bad. Nintendo had no choice but to backstab Sony. Yamauchi HIMSELF made that call when he told his staff that he didn’t want Sony to have any business in the game industry, HE KNEW what threat they would pose. But him making that call would cement Sony as having the most successful game brand of all time. You could easily say Nintendo created the most successful game company of all time (PlayStation) because of that lol

[@NuiYabuko]

Proof for any of that? Because it seems like you put your own spin on things HARD.

[@OxygenC2]

You are saying a lot of stuff that's unverified. For ex, Nintendo already did dual screen for the Game and Watch 20 yrs before. The PSP had nothing to do with it. The GBA SP had the clamshell form factor before DS too. Don't pass off your speculations as fact.

[@1.N.Decent]

Speaking of shovelware, Android is full of it

[@Doktario_Mystario]

the history of the video game industry is very interesting because there are so many ways that, if they had happend a little differently, it would be wildly different than what what we have now like Mario & Kirby got their names from real people, Mario originating from the owner of a warehouse and Kirby originating from a lawyer

[@ScooterMcgavunTV]

Great video! Can't wait to see more. :D

[@medium_x]

More to come! Thank you!

[@Nintendude.]

I am glad Nintendo ditch Discs and went back to cartridges, for those of you that live on the north or where it normally can snow and or rain in your area, discs are fine. But here in the deserts heat, watch how beautifully and magically bends, form bubbles or (in Gamecube's case either turns transparent or black and unreadable to the system), I avoided the Wii and WiiU during it's time on disc-based gaming, now I have a room with better insulation, AC and where the sun won't shine through but buying a disc is still pretty risky. As for PS players, even in the 90's I don't think I ever met a single PS player that has an original copy of a game, piracy has always been a very popular thing here.

[@carlosleyva-calistenia6400]

I've always wondered what happened to electronics in deserts and rainforests. Do power supplies and hard drives also suffer from shorter lifespans?

[@headshotmaster138]

talking out of your ass for views I see?

[@Nintendude.]

@@carlosleyva-calistenia6400 I've heared that small batteries can burst or pop if they are left out in the sun. Personally I've never seen it, plus car batteries are expose to the heat all the time and their always fine. Can't say about laptops since I rarely use one nor would use it outside. Personally all my PCs have been ok and their hard drives (most, I'll get to that part soon enough) are working fine but I do try to keep then in a room where it's nice and cool. The same thing can be said for schools and the workplace, the real problem for hard drives, at least the old mechanical hard drives are dust and sand (this was the part I was referring to) still you should have no problem if you keep the place clean, just make sure you don't leave any windows open when you are away from home, you never know when a breeze might want to throw a bucket of sand inside the house The new type of hard drives have no issue with this of course, it doesn't hurt to have backups. - - - - - - - - As for lifespan the instruction manuals say that a hard drive can last 4 - 5 years but I have some pretty old PCs that still work and I have no problem with the hard drives, aside from 2 that I have lost thanks to sand and dust. My oldest working PC is sometime before 2009 and my newest one is 3 years old. My last workplace uses PCs a lot and they are ON 24/7 and some have be ON for over 5 years, the place is considered cold for a lot of folks that always lived here but if you ever lived in a place like San Francisco you might find it to be warn for you and it was very strict in keeping the place clean. As someone who likes to do digital art as a hobbie at least I don't have to worry anymore about my PC burning for keeping it on for more than 3 days but I'll never keep it on more than a week. After all unlike my last job, I don't have computer technicians at my beck and call ready and willing to fix my PC in the rare case something does go bad. - - - - - - - - Cellphones do have a problem here though, if you ever use one outside in the sun the cellphone will not tell the diffrence that it is your finger or the sun and the touch screen will start acting up. In some cases if you've been outside for to long and you just casually pick up your cellphone for anything, you'll get a message saying the phone is to hot and then automatically shuts down right on your face, you will not be able to turn on your cellphone until you find a cool place to stay or put it next to a fan, you can then try to turn it on after 15-30 mins. When you have data, movies or games it's best to have them in USB, SD cards or Cartridges. Discs are not something I would recommend here but if you have to used disc-base media, keep them well protected in it's case as best as you can in a room away from sand, dust, heat and direct sunlight, and hope that second hand copy of Splatoon or Call of Duty you bought wasn't dirtcheap for any of these reasons.

[@carlosleyva-calistenia6400]

@@Nintendude. Thank you so much for taking your time for writing such a detailed explanation 🙂

[@LaztheLax]

This is interesting lore. Always wanted to know the details between the consoles and how the War started

[@Farkonso]

Fire video. Nothing gimmicky or annoying, just a confidently great video

[@patrickjones2843]

Here's my impression of all recent Sony AAA Games: 20 minutes of talking.... 5 minutes of sneaking around or a short combat section more platforming and talking. The stories are cool but its not what I want when I want to game.

[@blahblahblah7586]

This is the Dumbest shit I’ve heard in a minute

[@porky1118]

14:45 It's always fun when someone creates their own enemy. It always reminds me of my favorite episode of BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo, where BoBoBo lays an egg, and inside there's an enemy they have to fight.

[@keaton718]

Gamecube mini discs was like twice the capacity of the PS1 CDs. And load times were very low in optimised games.

[@noahradford9218]

Im dying inside seeing the destruction of that controller.

[@AustinLodgeYT]

If Nintendo had continued their deal, they'd be DEAD

[@mr.twogoobs]

Glad they split, would have gotten too comfortable otherwise

[@medium_x]

As cool as an edgy Mario would be, I agree with you. Nintendo is best doing their own thing

[@therealjaystone2344]

More like a monopoly would’ve happened

[@medium_x]

@@therealjaystone2344 also likely

[@TheSelectGaming]

Nintendo publicly disrespected Sony, and ended up creating a monster. Kind of glad this all went down, otherwise we would have never gotten the consoles we all deserved from both companies.

[@GOLDENoPP7]

It was not a partnership, it was a hostile takeover

[@PullStar05]

Again, if Nintendo hadn’t cut ties with Sony, everything their inventive and creative mindset stands for would have been absorbed into the greater Sony umbrella. Nintendo on record has higher highs and lower lows, which I think has made them far more interesting in terms of the things they produce. Nowadays they have the Super Nintendo World Theme Parks with Universal, their once legal enemy after they entered a lawsuit over the Donkey Kong IP, now Donkey Kong Country alongside Super Mario Land will be a major areas at their Epic Universe Park in Orlando Florida. What makes Nintendo successful is it’s innovation with the medium of video games via unique control setups and uses of emerging tech that hasn’t been seen in gaming before, hence why analog sticks, touch screens and motion controls have become main stays of the industry. That combined with their IP like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and their joint ownership of Pokemon have made them a sort of untouchable Disney-esque company who is in their own league separate from whatever Sony and Microsoft have been doing since 2005. Nintendo realized that what made them successful wasn’t in joining the powerscaling rat race that Sony and Microsoft fought for about 20 years, and now in the 2020’s we see a Playstation console with very few games to it’s own, and an XBOX console that is mostly a software companion for Windows Computers with an option for a physical box to play their GamePass service on.

[@randomcommentog]

This is one of the details that people don’t talk about when it comes to the Nintendo PlayStation and should be talked about as it’s important context as to why Nintendo decided to back out on the deal

[@QuantumNova]

They didn't want to die. They're known for thinking 100 steps ahead. Like the E3 thing. Everyone called them crazy for backing out, years later, E3 died lol.

[@randomcommentog]

@@QuantumNova Let’s not forget there failures like with the Virtual Boy,N64 not being dev friendly,Gamecube not being dev friendly, Nintendo being slow with adapting to current online inner structures, etc.. I love Nintendo’s games but wouldn’t say they are 100 steps ahead

[@QuantumNova]

@@randomcommentog Everyone copies them. So they're always ahead. They did analog stick and rumble. Everyone else copied. They did motion controls. Everyone else copied. They made the Switch. There's 60+ Switch clones form other companies. 100 steps ahead. They lead.

[@user-vw6nb5bl3n]

Dont think i can forgive you for what you did to that snes controller 😭