• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

"Nintendo PlayStation" now actually plays CD-ROM games

Robin64

Robin64

Member
We all remember the SNES CD-ROM "PlayStation" prototype that was discovered, but sadly it couldn't play anything from CD and that aspect of it seemed like it was non functional.

nintendoplaystation.jpg
Click to expand...

Well after 18 months, the guy got it working!

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/success-the-nintendo-playstation-prototype-is-fully-functional/

In a newly posted video, Heck lays out how the system's CD-ROM drive suddenly started sending valid data to the system literally overnight. "I was working on this yesterday and the CD-ROM wasn't even detecting the disc," Heck says in the video. "I came in this morning and jiggled the cables around and got ready to work on it some more, and all of a sudden it works... did a magic elf come in overnight?"
Click to expand...

"I should really loan this to one of the emulator writers," Heck says in the video. "The bootstrap code to load games needs to be tweaked now that programmers know how actual hardware works... now it's down to the programmers learning what the hardware can actually do versus what they thought it could do."
Click to expand...

If he's serious with this part, I can think of only one emulator writer that should get their hands on this. byuu, are you around? :)
 
Robin64

Robin64

Member
Amory said:
guy didn't cash in yet?

someone would probably pay a mint for that old thing
Click to expand...

I couldn't even begin to think about how much it's worth. Yeah, he'd be set if he tried to sell it. And while it's his choice to do so, I hope he doesn't until at least after all the functionality has been properly documented (by byuu).
 
B

byuu

Member
If he's serious with this part, I can think of only one emulator writer that should get their hands on this. byuu, are you around? :)
Click to expand...

It's been a lot of fun to look at this thing and see how it works.

But as it stands, all we're left with is a barely understood, barebones CD-ROM reader and that's it. The cartridge only gives a bare minimum 32KB of RAM, which means any games for this system would be constantly loading data off of CDs. Further, there's no additional processing power. So games on this platform would be far worse than cartridge-based games, which would be a really tough sell for a presumably very expensive add-on.

What's evident is that this is not at all what the SNES CD would have actually been. There are many design specs from both Sony and Phillips that described much more capable machines with much more powerful coprocessors being added to the base system, along with more RAM to reduce the frequency of loading screens. This was probably the earliest possible proof-of-concept for reading from CDs: they didn't even bother to make it a proper expansion port device. Yet if they were really going to force people to buy the base SNES again, then they'd have integrated the cartridge guts into the base system, so as to not take up the cartridge slot.

At the end of the day, the MSU1 does everything this prototype can do, but far better. Larger storage, no seek delays, being able to transmit both data and CD audio at the same time, and having the cartridge port free for any additional coprocessors to enhance games. And the MSU1 does so in 3KB of code, that is trivial to implement in any emulator, and will be consistent across all implementations (hopefully.) If anyone wants the experience of this prototype, using the MSU1 and adding intentional delays and handicaps will get you 100% of the way there.

Even still, I would consider emulating this if not for the fact that there is only one prototype of this in the world. It's very unlikely the Diebolds would want to lend me their sole console to run hundreds of hours of intensive software tests on it, and it's possible that stress could cause the system to fail again. It's already 20-30 years old, after all. I can't handle the pressure of being "the guy who ruined the only SNES CD prototype in existence."

And even if I could run all the tests in the world to get things as accurate as possible (and it wouldn't come close to the accuracy we're at with the base system -- that would take 15+ years of research by dozens of people), there's still the major issue that the NEC controller has firmware on it that is undumped. Dumping it would require desoldering the chip from the board. Right now, nocash is using high-level emulation (which I prefer to call simulation) to support its functions, but that's not something I'll ever go back to with higan.

The real tragedy is that NEC chip is programmable memory. Which means the data is subject to bit-rot, and in fact is already past its expected lifetime. That data *will* rot, and when it does, this prototype will cease to function. And without that data having been dumped, not even Ben Heck will be able to salvage the system. It will well and truly be lost forever. I've explained this risk to the Diebolds, but that's all I can do. I don't see them taking the risk to dump the firmware today to protect against the system failing in the future.

And so, emulating the system with what we know now will just result in more cases like Magic Floor and Super Boss Gaiden: games that run on emulators, but fail when actually put on the real hardware. A very similar situation to what happened with regular SNES games designed in ZSNES.

All that said, I do still want to see the hardware preserved. But higan/bsnes is about accurate emulation, and there's just no way I'm ever going to get that with the SNES CD. Anything I implement would just be a huge hack filled with guesses that would result in games made for it not even working on the real thing. Just as what happened to nocash with his emulator.

Sorry to disappoint =(

guy didn't cash in yet?
Click to expand...

Why do you think they're touring every game convention and getting this on Ben's show repeatedly?

Things being rare do not make them valuable. Press coverage, media attention, and fame make things valuable.

They're building up to what will likely be the biggest sale of a piece of retro gaming gear in history.

And I don't begrudge them at all for it. They're handling this whole thing very intelligently.
 
K

KlytusImBored

Member
Happy to call the Diebolds friends of mine and I don't think Terry and Dan are ever gonna sell the thing unless times get REAL hard. They love the thing and going around to conventions. They're great people - they deserve it. It's way more than a "cash in" for them.

We hosted them at AVGC, and also got to play a bunch of games on it at a private party at MagFest - they're amazingly open with it considering its rarity and place in history. if they come to a con near you I recommend going - they're super friendly and willing to take pics with it.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
byuu said:
It's been a lot of fun to look at this thing and see how it works.

But as it stands, all we're left with is a barely understood, barebones CD-ROM reader and that's it. The cartridge only gives a bare minimum 32KB of RAM, which means any games for this system would be constantly loading data off of CDs.
Click to expand...
I thought he said it had two megabits, with one of the two games he tried two megabits large and the other one four (so designed to load twice).

As for emulation authors, I think NoCash has been doing the most work to emulate the device (he's the one who supplied one of the games to try out).
 
W

Wowfunhappy

Member
byuu said:
The real tragedy is that NEC chip is programmable memory. Which means the data is subject to bit-rot, and in fact is already past its expected lifetime. That data *will* rot, and when it does, this prototype will cease to function. And without that data having been dumped, not even Ben Heck will be able to salvage the system. It will well and truly be lost forever. I've explained this risk to the Diebolds, but that's all I can do. I don't see them taking the risk to dump the firmware today to protect against the system failing in the future.
Click to expand...

Sounds like that NEC chip really should get dumped. If the owner doesn't want to do it, it won't happen, but it pretty clearly is what should happen IMO.
 
C

capylikesgames

Banned
This wasn't meant to run 3D games, right? I've been replaying Sonic CD, and reading about this device makes me wonder what a CD addon for the SNES could've been. I love how that game compliments crisp pixelart with high quality audio, and traditional animation. It's this weird kind of 2D game that there aren't many of, but its parts mesh together really well to create a comfy experience, like watching a saturday morning cartoon. Makes me wonder how Nintendo would approach that type of hardware. Their devs never got the chance, but they almost did.

byuu said:
No. If released as-is right now, it would be about as impressive as the PC Engine CD. If released with the additional coprocessor, it'd be about on-par with the Sega CD / Mega CD.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be complaining! It is what it is, though.
 
C

c0de

Member
Dreamwriter said:
I thought he said it had two megabits, with one of the two games he tried two megabits large and the other one four (so designed to load twice).

As for emulation authors, I think NoCash has been doing the most work to emulate the device (he's the one who supplied one of the games to try out).
Click to expand...

I always feel sad when somebody talks about no cash... The guy deserves way more appreciation and especially more money :-(
 
J

Justin Bailey

------ ------
c0de said:
What is that about?
Click to expand...

The story goes that Square had a bigger version of SoM in development for the SNES CD add-on, but scrapped it when the deal between Sony and Nintendo fell through. Then they had to take out a bunch of stuff to get it to fit on a cartridge.

Don't know any specifics about what was taken out, or if this was just a rumor that got out of control. The composer for the soundtrack did an AMA on reddit a few years ago and I asked him about it. He said it was probably just a rumor and that he didn't know anything about it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamemusic/...i_kikuta_the_composer_for_the_secret/cfn1nwz/
 
L

lensoftruth

Member
Peltz said:
I don't think it got very far at all actually. It's been a while since I've read up on it.
Click to expand...

I dunno, there's so many similarities between the snes and Ps1 it's unreal. I remember prototype images in magazines showing stuff the SNES certainly couldn't do, but trivial for the PS1.
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
patientx said:
What would potentially can come out of this ?
Click to expand...

Well, maybe you could get MSU-1 type games where everything is packed away neatly in an iso file so you won't have to worry about where to put your files and whatnot, when you emulate. Edit: Or not ;P. Still I'm a big dummy and would love if you could package MSU-1 enabled roms into a neat archive, but maybe thats already possible and I missed it because I'm a dummy.

Chinbo37 said:
I really wish we could get the original version of secret of mana
Click to expand...

That project died to give us Chrono Trigger. Last I read, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana started as the same project and were intended to be a disc based game, then that got canned and it splintered off into two different titles. Dunno if Secret of Mana itself was still gonna be disc based or not though, it's a messy history :p
 
C

ChaosXVI

Member
Man I'd love to see this thing in person, it's such a piece of gaming history. A physical manifestation of Nintendo's hubris in the 1990s leading to their downfall as market leader.

If I had the money, I would pay a ridiculous amount for it.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Welp, byuu shot down that pipe dream, but I figured even that was likely unrealistic. Thanks for the info though!
 
L

lensoftruth

Member
ChaosXVI said:
Man I'd love to see this thing in person, it's such a piece of gaming history. A physical manifestation of Nintendo's hubris in the 1990s leading to their downfall as market leader.

If I had the money, I would pay a ridiculous amount for it.
Click to expand...

They were still market leader, just not on the home console space. I often wonder what the portable scene would have been like had Nintendo stuck with this system.
 
B

byuu

Member
Happy to call the Diebolds friends of mine and I don't think Terry and Dan are ever gonna sell the thing unless times get REAL hard
Click to expand...

They really should. Once the NEC firmware goes, the CD portion will be a paperweight =(

They're great people - they deserve it.
Click to expand...

They do seem like really great people. But at the risk of being tactless, I do feel there is one thing people should know.

The cartridge BIOS was originally given by Dan to his friends. None of which included emulator developers. It was not made public.

One of those friends leaked it to a gaming news site without his permission, who then leaked it to the rest of the world.

And that is the reason the public has the BIOS today, and why nocash was able to partially emulate the device, and why we have two games for the system (even if one doesn't yet? work on the real thing.)

Once this happened, Dan said it was his intention to release the BIOS. And it's very likely he would have. But then again, I can't really say either way. Nobody can now. I don't understand why he chose to wait, and share it only with his personal friends at first. But I think that was his one real mistake made so far. There will forever be a shadow of doubt about his intentions due to that.

Now by all means, he never had to share anything! And we are very lucky he had it dumped, and that we now have it. I'm just saying ... I wish he had released it himself immediately. That said, if it were me, I wouldn't have released it at all for legal reasons. So you guys would've hated me even more had I received it :(

Barring that, again, Dan and Terry both seem like great guys. They could have been infinitely less open with this than they have been.

I thought he said it had two megabits
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was wrong. It's been a long time since I worked on emulating this. Thank you for the correction. Here's my old research:

https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=165566#p165566

It's actually 1 megabit, or 128KiB. That's less space than the smallest SNES game ever released. Nearly every SNES games was 1MiB or larger.

Sounds like that NEC chip really should get dumped. If the owner doesn't want to do it, it won't happen, but it pretty clearly is what should happen IMO.
Click to expand...

Yes, it really needs to happen. And if anyone screws up even a little, they could kill the system immediately instead of having it happen from bit-rot in 1-10 years from now.

If they are successful, they'll be able to reflash this chip once it bit-rots. I even tracked down several old CD players that use the same NEC chip, so replacement ICs can be found and programmed again, since the chip isn't OTP.

However if they are unsuccessful, I'll be the one blamed for destroying the only SNES CD prototype, since I'm the one advocating for it.

This wasn't meant to run 3D games, right?
Click to expand...

No. If released as-is right now, it would be about as impressive as the PC Engine CD. If released with the additional coprocessor, it'd be about on-par with the Sega CD / Mega CD.

They actually claim that the offers they've been getting haven't been very big.
Click to expand...

It takes time, and a clear intention to actually sell, before people will submit true offers.

I can see this going for a low six figures.

I always feel sad when somebody talks about no cash... The guy deserves way more appreciation and especially more money :-(
Click to expand...

nocash does amazing reverse engineering work and his documentation, even when mostly addendums to existing documentation, is invaluable.

But he's made plenty of money selling no$gba's debugger to professional development studios for thousands of dollars per license. And the closed source nature of his work is detrimental to progress in the emulation scene as a whole. As is, in my view, selling his standard emulators as he has in the past.

Overall though, and unlike with Cemu, I feel the scene is luckier to have him than to not.

Sorry for the ignorance, but why is this the case? Can't you just make sure the board isn't powered and then affix wires to the appropriate pins on the chip?
Click to expand...

That is possible, but it's risky. Current can flow through to other chips, and there's no guarantees that wouldn't cause issues. I'm not an EE, so someone else might decide it's an acceptable risk.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
After watching what Ben Heck did to get the thing working, I don't think he at least would have a problem desoldering a chip and then resoldering it afterwards. He did a lot of things I would consider risky to it :)
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
byuu said:
Yes, it really needs to happen. And if anyone screws up even a little, they could kill the system immediately instead of having it happen from bit-rot in 1-10 years from now.

If they are successful, they'll be able to reflash this chip once it bit-rots. I even tracked down several old CD players that use the same NEC chip, so replacement ICs can be found and programmed again, since the chip isn't OTP.
Click to expand...
What's the model number of the NEC chip? I'm embedded systems rather than electrical, but I wanted to make sure the firmware isn't readable via software. Two questions since I'm ignorant of the part number and circuit:

1. If it's not OTP (One-Time Programmable) could it have a software access path?
2. I know the device is old, but is there a remote chance of the chip being in a JTAG chain?

I realize both of these are unlikely and it's probably some hard to access chip instead.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
byuu said:
It's been a lot of fun to look at this thing and see how it works.

But as it stands, all we're left with is a barely understood, barebones CD-ROM reader and that's it. The cartridge only gives a bare minimum 32KB of RAM, which means any games for this system would be constantly loading data off of CDs. Further, there's no additional processing power. So games on this platform would be far worse than cartridge-based games, which would be a really tough sell for a presumably very expensive add-on.

What's evident is that this is not at all what the SNES CD would have actually been. There are many design specs from both Sony and Phillips that described much more capable machines with much more powerful coprocessors being added to the base system, along with more RAM to reduce the frequency of loading screens. This was probably the earliest possible proof-of-concept for reading from CDs: they didn't even bother to make it a proper expansion port device. Yet if they were really going to force people to buy the base SNES again, then they'd have integrated the cartridge guts into the base system, so as to not take up the cartridge slot.
Click to expand...
IMO, the term "SNES CD" is a bit of a catch-all for a wide range of vaporware.

This particular system (more accurately called the Original Sony PlayStation than the Nintendo PlayStation) was designed by Ken Kutaragi to explore the benefits that CD could bring to gaming, so it's not really surprising that the only thing it brings to the table is CD. Nintendo argued that it more-insidiously built a Sony-controlled backdoor into the Super Nintendo, an access which Sony was selling to Nintendo's allies (like Square with Secret of Mana) for pennies on the dollar. This system was supposed to come in two flavors, add-on and standalone, both made/controlled by Sony.

Then Nintendo approached Phillips and asked if they could deliver a CD-i which bolted onto the bottom of the SNES, because Nintendo needed to go to war with Sony, and this was the fastest way for them to get another SNES CD to bring to the fight. Technically, the CD-i Zelda games could have been considered SNES CD games, if the Nintendo/Phillips SNES CD had existed. This SNES CD was supposed to be more powerful than merely CD because it was a fusion of the SNES and the CD-i.

An eventual Nintendo/Sony truce was declared and Nintendo set about leading the development of a new Nintendo/Sony/Phillips SNES CD dream project, better than all previous iterations combined, but Sony soon pulled out saying that Nintendo's designs were nonsense, and started work on their own PlayStation-X revenge project.

Nintendo said "Who needs you?" and made the border wall ten feet higher.

Eventually it became clear to everyone that Nintendo's SNES CD was vaporware and was never going to happen. Especially after Nintendo announced carts on the N64, and wouldn't even consider a CD add-on for the N64, preferring magnetic floppy disks.

Not counting the CD-i, the Original PlayStation is easily the closest the SNES actually came to having an SNES CD.
 
B

byuu

Member
After watching what Ben Heck did to get the thing working, I don't think he at least would have a problem desoldering a chip and then resoldering it afterwards. He did a lot of things I would consider risky to it :)
Click to expand...

I mean, I explained all of this to Dan many months ago.

What's the model number of the NEC chip? I'm embedded systems rather than electrical, but I wanted to make sure the firmware isn't readable via software.
Click to expand...

It's a NEC D75P308GF.

The chip does have a software readout mode. I actually managed to find a guy who used to use these in a commercial product, and he's pretty much certain it's not a "stock firmware" affair where dumping a different device would give us the same ROM used here.

I read the tech manual and indeed there is a ROM readout mode on the chip.

We have a general idea of how the chip works and how you send commands to it, which is why we can simulate it with HLE.

This system was supposed to come in two flavors, add-on and standalone, both made/controlled by Sony.
Click to expand...

Ah, see that actually makes a lot of sense to offer both models like that. Cover both SNES owners and people without the base system.

Technically, the CD-i Zelda games could have been considered SNES CD games, if the Nintendo/Phillips SNES CD had existed.
Click to expand...

Thank the gods that partnership fell though. I'd have had to refuse to emulate the SNES CD in that case just to spite those games.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
byuu said:
Thank the gods that partnership fell though. I'd have had to refuse to emulate the SNES CD in that case just to spite those games.
Click to expand...

It might not be as bad as it sounds, because when Nintendo signed up with Phillips they agreed in writing to put Zelda games on the CD-i-based SNES CD.

If Nintendo had put the A Link to the Past team on the job of making CD-based Zelda games, that should have been amazing.

But then the deal fell apart (due to Nintendo's lack of interest in CD beyond it being a way to fire back at Sony) and Phillips asked Nintendo "So are you still going to deliver on those Zelda games?" and Nintendo said "LOL no." And Phillips said "Well, one way or another, we are going to have Zelda games on the CD-i..."
 
S

Schopenhauerian

Member
Each source seems to describe the terms of the Nintendo/Sony deal as having been unfavorable for Nintendo, so is there any indication of why Nintendo had agreed to those unfavorable terms in the first place? Did they simply have bad/inadequate negotiation/legal teams?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRail-6p--U&t=3m5s
Super Bunnyhop – Jan 2017
[2:22]… But Sony’s contract with Nintendo to make CD-based software was cleverly worded to give Sony absolute control over the licensing and manufacing of CD games... [3:05]...consider that their original contract with Sony would have had them forfeiting profits for games made on non-proprietary formats… [4:05] ...But for the short-term, back in ‘91 and ‘92, [Nintendo’s] move [with Philips] was a fleeting victory. After leaving to work with Sega on games for the Sega CD for a few months, Sony did eventually come back to Nintendo. In October of ‘92, Nintendo, Philips and Sony all agreed to use the same format of CD standards worldwide, with Nintendo being given control and licenses over gaming software for Sony’s upcoming 32-bit PlayStation… and Sony was instead given control non-gaming CD software… at this point it was evident that the Sega CD and NEC’s [TurboGrafx-CD] were failing...
Click to expand...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/farewell-father-article?page=2
Eurogamer – April 2007
...[Yamauchi] believed - and he was probably correct - that the deal that had been signed with Sony was completely catastrophic for Nintendo. Under the terms of the contract, Sony - which had created the technology for the CD-based games - would actually control the SNES-CD format. It alone would have its hands on the reins of this format, essentially removing Nintendo's control over releases on one of its own consoles... [Yamauchi] sent Lincoln and Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa to Europe to negotiate a deal with Philips at the eleventh hour - one which would give Nintendo control over all of its licensed software on the system… Sony decided to push forward with its gaming ambitions regardless of Nintendo's "betrayal", and while the SNES-CD was shelved, the Play Station lived on. Nintendo was caught wrong-footed by Sony's decision; it's clear that the firm believed that Sony would never continue with a games system without Nintendo on board...
Click to expand...

https://web.archive.org/web/20120831045434/http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-playstation
Edge Magazine – April 2009
...But the very day after Sony’s announcement, Nintendo declared that it would be breaking its deal with Sony by partnering with Philips instead… This humiliating turnabout enraged Sony president Norio Ohga, but  though it seemed sudden from the outside, problems had been boiling between the two companies for some time. The main issue was an agreement over how revenue would be collected – Sony had proposed to take care of money made from CD sales while Nintendo would collect from cartridge sales, and suggested that royalties would be figured out later. “Nintendo went bananas, frankly, and said that we were stepping on its toll booth and that it was totally unacceptable,” explains Chris Deering, who at the time worked at Sony-owned Columbia Pictures but would go on to head the PlayStation business in Europe. “They just couldn’t agree and it all fell apart.” But Ohga was dead set on remaining in the game. At the end of a July meeting to plan litigation against Nintendo, he declared defiantly: “We will never withdraw from this business. Keep going.” And so Kutaragi went to work with strong support from the very top of Sony…
Click to expand...
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
byuu said:
It's a NEC D75P308GF.

The chip does have a software readout mode. I actually managed to find a guy who used to use these in a commercial product, and he's pretty much certain it's not a "stock firmware" affair where dumping a different device would give us the same ROM used here.

I read the tech manual and indeed there is a ROM readout mode on the chip.
Click to expand...
Thanks! The datasheet indicates the PD75P308GF is a one-time PROM model. The good side of this is that there's no window so there shouldn't be a risk of sunlight erasing it.

There are a crapload of pins, so any alternative to desoldering / soldering would be great.

I didn't realize it was an entire 4-bit microcomputer, not merely a storage device. If MD0-MD3 are connected to other pins on the system, it MIGHT be possible to write a custom SNES ROM that configures pins properly and does the memory read procedure.

However, this requires a precise sequence (section 3.3) of voltages, timings, and pin control that I highly doubt the connected hardware provides. As a result I suppose desoldering would be the only way.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
After reading a bit further, if the chip could be safely desoldered, not all of the 80 pins would be needed for reading the contents.

* VPP, VDD (power supply pins with varying voltages)
* X1 (external clock input pin)
* P40-P43, P50-P53 (8-bit data output pins)
* MD0-MD3 (memory mode pins to select the read mode)


I don't know if programming will simply fail since this is a write-once model, but I would STRONGLY advise against attempting to interface with the chip while power is off to the main system because if MD0-MD3 are not properly floating / tied high / whatever, the chip could end up in program mode instead of verify mode.
 
Link1110

Link1110

Member
Justin Bailey said:
The story goes that Square had a bigger version of SoM in development for the SNES CD add-on, but scrapped it when the deal between Sony and Nintendo fell through. Then they had to take out a bunch of stuff to get it to fit on a cartridge.

Don't know any specifics about what was taken out, or if this was just a rumor that got out of control. The composer for the soundtrack did an AMA on reddit a few years ago and I asked him about it. He said it was probably just a rumor and that he didn't know anything about it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamemusic/...i_kikuta_the_composer_for_the_secret/cfn1nwz/
Click to expand...
Interesting because I always thought the soundtrack was the biggest proof there was a CD version. Notice how every time there's a sound effect part of the music cuts out? That's something that happened all the time in nes games but pretty much stopped completely on SNES. I always thought that reeked of trying to shoehorn music meant for better tech(like CD audio, or a cd system with more sound channels like Sega cd had) onto vanilla snes
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
Schopenhauerian said:
Each source seems to describe the terms of the Nintendo/Sony deal as having been unfavorable for Nintendo, so is there any indication of why Nintendo had agreed to those unfavorable terms in the first place? Did they simply have bad/inadequate negotiation/legal teams?
Click to expand...

David Scheff in Game Over muses whether Hiroshi Yamauchi might have been intimidated by Sony at the time, but I think it was much more likely due to Scheff's other theory, that Yamauchi/Nintendo didn't recognize/understand the threat. Also, lawyers heavily involved in corporate Japan supposedly wasn't a thing at the time, and the contract was probably hammered out by Nintendo and Sony's CEOs personally over drinks at a titty bar.

Ken Kutaragi went behind Sony's back and designed the SNES sound chip without permission. He asked for permission to work on the SNES only after he already had Nintendo standing there with a purchase order in their hands.

For Kutaragi's next trick, he wanted to bring the greatness of CD to the SNES, and Yamauchi gave him permission. I think Yamauchi saw this as nothing but a good thing, and didn't recognize how this could have dire consequences for Nintendo.

The SNES CD contract was signed (according to Game Over) in 1988, two years before the Japanese launch of the SNES (probably around the time Nintendo bought Sony's sound chip, maybe even in the same contract). According to Wikipedia, CD had just overtaken vinyl as a second-place audio storage medium in 1988 (with cassette tapes holding the lead). I can't see Yamauchi realizing CD's potential.

I don't believe game approval rights and royalty fees were negotiated into the contract. Nintendo simply "gave permission" for Kutaragi to go crazy and build something great, assuming it would work out as well for Nintendo as the sound chip did. After Kutaragi built the Nintendo PlayStation, Nintendo expected to simply be handed the keys to it (along with a better explanation of what "it" was), and Sony said "What? We made this, with your permission. These keys are ours." In the absence of a deal specifying who owns the backdoor which Kutaragi legally created, possession is 9/10ths of the law.

Nintendo was only able to extract themselves from this unexpectedly terrible position (of Sony/Kutaragi being primed to usurp Nintendo on their own Super Nintendo) by threatening to go nuclear, and prepping the bombs to back their words up.
 
B

byuu

Member
Thanks! The datasheet indicates the PD75P308GF is a one-time PROM model.
Click to expand...

Ah ... shoot. Well, it can still be replaced with another unprogrammed chip, but obviously that's not going to be an easy find. But it won't be impossible, we found some blank uPD7725's a few years back.
 
J

Justin Bailey

------ ------
Link1110 said:
Interesting because I always thought the soundtrack was the biggest proof there was a CD version. Notice how every time there's a sound effect part of the music cuts out? That's something that happened all the time in nes games but pretty much stopped completely on SNES. I always thought that reeked of trying to shoehorn music meant for better tech(like CD audio, or a cd system with more sound channels like Sega cd had) onto vanilla snes
Click to expand...

Yeah his answer really surprised me, because I had always heard the story that way. It makes me doubt the whole thing now.
 
S

Schopenhauerian

Member
Cheerilee said:
David Scheff in Game Over muses whether Hiroshi Yamauchi might have been intimidated by Sony at the time, but I think it was much more likely due to Scheff's other theory, that Yamauchi/Nintendo didn't recognize/understand the threat. Also, lawyers heavily involved in corporate Japan supposedly wasn't a thing at the time, and the contract was probably hammered out by Nintendo and Sony's CEOs personally over drinks... I think Yamauchi saw this as nothing but a good thing, and didn't recognize how this could have dire consequences for Nintendo... The SNES CD contract was signed (according to Game Over) in 1988... I don't believe game approval rights and royalty fees were negotiated into the contract. Nintendo simply "gave permission" for Kutaragi to go crazy and build something great, assuming it would work out as well for Nintendo as the sound chip did... In the absence of a deal specifying who owns the backdoor which Kutaragi legally created, possession is 9/10ths of the law...
Click to expand...

Will have to look at Sheff’s book some day! Also some interesting discussion/speculation, thanks for your post.

Just now bringing up available stories from the day of the Nintendo/Philips announcement, I see that there were ‘experts’ and ‘industry executives’ (terms used by the NYT) speaking to the NYT who were claiming to be privy to specific details of the Sony/Nintendo agreement, but the phrasing later in the piece ("...had apparently ceded the right...") does seem to leave open the possibility that these 'industry executives' were arriving at their conclusions (about the contents of the Sony/Nintendo agreement) merely by some process of inference, rather than by direct knowledge of the agreement:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/03/business/nintendo-philips-deal-is-a-slap-at-sony.html
June 2, 1991
...The Nintendo Company evidently turned to Philips N.V., the Dutch electronics giant, to try to maintain its domination of the $4.7 billion video game market after signing what some experts say is an unfavorable deal with the Sony Corporation… Industry executives said Nintendo had linked up with Philips to negate the unfavorable impact of its arrangement with Sony. Under that deal, Sony has the right to sell and profit from the game disks. Nintendo, however, is disputing how broad that right is. The companies are expected to try to settle their differences through negotiation… Asked if the Philips agreement was more favorable to Nintendo then the deal with Sony, Mr. Lincoln said, "I would rather not comment on that or try to compare the two." ...In the past, Nintendo maintained strict control over the right to make game cartridges, which provide the bulk of its revenues and profits. "The key to the video game industry is software, not the hardware," said Mr. Lincoln of Nintendo… "There is a dispute between Sony and Nintendo as to the terms of the agreement," Mr. Lincoln confirmed. He declined to elaborate… Industry executives said they were surprised that Nintendo had apparently ceded the right to profit from software on games sold on the Sony compact disk machines…
Click to expand...
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
Schopenhauerian said:
Each source seems to describe the terms of the Nintendo/Sony deal as having been unfavorable for Nintendo, so is there any indication of why Nintendo had agreed to those unfavorable terms in the first place? Did they simply have bad/inadequate negotiation/legal teams?
Click to expand...

The most crucial aspect of the story is that the failure of the SNES CD add-on led to the believe that they should go with a format which was completely under their own control for the next system. .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Lost, circa-2008 Timesplitters 4 prototype discovered on PS3 dev kit
5
648
Heimdall_Xtreme replied
[VGC] Nintendo has now dominated Japan game sales for 19 consecutive years
34
2K
Hudo replied
How To Play PlayStation Exclusive Games On Xbox Using Boosteroid
2
92
6K
Goalus replied
  • Poll
(Somewhat) How Not To Retrospective: The Nintendo 64 Chronicles (Sakhura Baguette)
Opinion Analysis Retro
23
2K
Katajx replied
[PC Gamer] How Cyberpunk 2077 clawed its way back from disaster to complete one of the greatest redemption arcs in gaming history
Opinion News 2
99
7K
EDMIX replied
Top Bottom