Super NES/Super Famicom CD-ROM

If this is a topic that has been discussed to death already, you have my apologies and admission that I suck at searching the forums.

I've read quite a lot about the device (both of them) and I have bought several old magazines just for pics of it. You might say that it would be my holy grail of gaming. I can still remember being 12 and daydreaming of the day that the awesome world-changing device would rest beautifully beneath my SNES. I have come across so many amazing and obscure things through Assembler Games that I thought if anybody knew a guy who knew a guy, it would be here.

So, were there ever any working prototypes produced? Obviously there would be nothing remotely resembling commercial software for it, but maybe there's a tech demo, or an audio CD playing program? (I did hear a rumor somewhere that Seiken Densetsu 2 began life as a SFC CD title - though I could never find anything to corroborate it) I doubt I would be able to afford to buy one if ever one was for sale, though I would likely trade my whole collection for the chance. In any case I'm not really in the market for it, I just want to know if it's out there in someone's private collection. If it is, then I can dream of one day being in the market for it.

 

All of the concept drawings and pics of what I assume were mock-ups had the drive beneath the super fami - very closely resembled a satelleview (or however it was spelled) and there were some hybrid concepts that vaguely resembled the saturn with a top-loading CD drive and a cart slot behind it.

The book Game Over had a very in-depth discussion of the events surrounding the conception and ultimate abandonment of the device. It has been some years since I read it, but as I recall Hiroshi Yamauchi had made the agreement with Sony expecting that it would not amount to anything, but when it appeared that the CD-ROM format was gaining traction in the computer industry he realized that, unlike nearly every other business arrangement he had brokered, the deal with Sony to produce the add on was not tipped 90/10 in Nintendo's favor. I can't remember if pride kept him from trying to re-negotiate the deal with Sony or if Sony had refused to re-negotiate, but Yamauchi decided to thumb his nose at Sony rather publicly by secretly negotiating a deal with Philips to make the addon instead, and revealing that plan at a trade show where Sony was getting ready to promote their version of the device. It was more or less when they were blindsided by Nintendo that Sony upper management wanted to scrap the "Play Station" project but Kaz Hirai (or was it Kutaragi?) had already committed to the project and convinced Sony to let him make something of it. And Nintendo paid dearly for nearly 10 years when it came to fruition.

Still, I have always wondered what would have become of it if fate had not made it vaporware.

 

Dangerboy had a couple of SNES CD/Play Station prototypes on his website. Here is one:

http://www.game-rave.com/psx/playstation_perfect_guide/features/feature_psx_fami/index.html


I can't find the other one, but Dangerboy had a SNES CD prototype that plugged into the cart slot of the SNES.

 

I concur re. your search suckage, lol ;-) It has been a while, though. We did have two fairly large discussions on the topic.

Incidentally, there were actually three attempts at a SNES CD - firstly with Philips, then Sony, then back to Philips.

Here are a few threads of relevance:

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5156

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2208

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3794

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7665

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13352

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16751

 

As I remember it, what got Yamauchi into such a strop was the realisation that Nintendo had inadvertently given Sony the rights to produce PlayStation hardware, i.e. they could manufacture SNES + CD as a single unit and not have to pay Nintendo anything. It's a curiously sloppy business move for a company that were so good at exploiting such mistakes from their competitors.

 

Wow, thanks. Maybe i just don't know how to use the search right, but when I searched terms like "SNES CD" and "Super Nintendo CD-ROM" it flagged hundreds of threads and after digging through about 10 of them and finding no mention of these things I just gave up.

But those links are awesome, I will digest them as I get time this weekend.

 

Nope, it was Sony, then Philips, then Sony/Philips partnership.

Regarding the licensing issue with Nintendo, the Sony manufactured console was not the issue. The issue was licensing of CD format software would not go to Nintendo I believe.

 

Fair shout, I think you're right.

I should re-read that book, it's great.

 

Oh yeah, I have a pretty good thread on the SNES Central message board with tons of links on relevant articles on the SNES CD:

http://www.snescentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=154.0

 

The one thing I want to know is.. Did the original version of Secret of Mana for the cd drive make it in to any collector's hands? I can't imagine what the game would be like if the cart version is only 25% of what it was supposed to be.

 

It would be an interesting thing to find, but as far as I know, the only game that was actually working on SNES CD hardware was 7th Guest.

 

I think some of the Digital Pictures games (Sewer Shark, Night Trap) were also in development. I remember reading some quote from Tom Zito saying that they looked great on the SNES, better than they would on the SegaCD.

 

Perhaps I remember wrong, but I seem to recall it was rumoured then that "Axelay" was at first planned as a SNES CD game.

 

Legend of Mana was released for the PSX. Can't imagine Secret of Mana being for the PSX at all, I've got the japanese Secret of Mana 2 which is a SNES cart so SoM1 was already long gone.

 

It was originally a SNES CD/PSX game, and had a pretty strange development process. Lots had to be cut at the last minute, and the Japanese dev team were all moved to America for reasons that now escape me - something to do with the main programmer. There's plenty of info online if you're interested.

 

Make sure not to mix up the Play Station and the Playstation splith, two separate things.

 

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3113932

Paragraph just above the second blue box:

On a side note, Splith, I'm assuming when you say SoM2 from Japan, you mean Seiken Densetsu 3 (just for clarity's sake) and not SD2.

 

Wow, interesting. Yeh, SD3, I always refer to it as SoM2 though. Got the official OST for it too.
Were there any pictures or screenshots of the SNES Playstation SoM by any chance?

 

That's perfectly fair.

On a related note: did anyone ever do a full translation of SoM to include all the missing storyline the 1UP article refers to?

EDIT: I know there's the FuSoYa variable-width version, but as I understand they simply took the standard US text and added their own story to it rather than retranslating the whole game.