Super NES/Super Famicom CD-ROM

One thing is certain. Nintendo slapped Sony in the face, when they announced a partnership with Philips at that trade show, while Sony was moments away of announcing the SNES CD add-on / Play Station. It wasn't a smart move, specially if you see how Sony learned while doing the research and development of the SNES CD add-on.

Curiously Nintendo didn't learned anything from that time, since they released the Nintendo64 with cartridges, while everybody already had moved to CD's. Also, Nintendo license and manufacture costs helped Sony even more, with most of the third parties moving to the PS1.

Even if you don't like the PlayStation brand, it's hard to not notice some kind of poetic justice when Nintendo wasn't succesful with both the Nintendo64 and Gamecube and that they were no real competitors to the PS1 and the PS2.

Capcom releasing the port of Resident Evil 4 to the PS2 some time later, after saying Resident Evil 4 would be always a GC exclusive was another interesting moment.

 

Capcom didn't release RE4 for the PS2 though did they, thought it was some middleware company that converted it?

 

It was a smart move actually.
Sony wanted the Nintendo pie using Nintendo.
Sure Sony eventually got it but not at the expense of Nintendo ( in the sense that Nintendo in those years kept their profitability, not as Sega that virtually went out of business with many other players in that generation ).

There was nothing to learn at that time for Nintendo.
Not because the new business model introduced by Sony wasn't sound but because what made Nintendo a dominant force in the industry was a business model based on the strict control of content ( and third-parties ) through the cartridge manufacturing.

Nintendo 64 was the only viable alternative to PS1 in that generation ( Saturn was for a brief period in Japan very early on).
In North America especially N64 was very popular ( almost as the Snes ).
It's in Japan where they lost much from the Snes age.
Said that PS1 and PS2 where dominant in the that decade that's for sure.

I say the lowest moment for Nintendo was when they halted the production chains for GC because the system missed by 50% the initial forecast ( expected 10 million, actual sale 5 million ).

 

It has always been my understanding that the chief reason Nintendo eschewed the CD-ROM format when developing the N64 was the fear of piracy. And, I believe, even to this day all media (cart/disc) manufacturing is all tightly controlled by the console manufacturers.

I also remember some reading a debate where a Rare developer was explaining how the cartridge format allowed the system to be expanded far beyond the original hardware specs, and why that could never happen on a disc-based system. The gist of his argument was something along the lines of "If we want a new feature not provided by the hardware then all we have to do is put another chip in the cart". Then someone fired back that while it was technically possible to put FFVII on a N64 cart, they would have to charge $1000 for it to cover the cost of the memory IC's it would take to store 1.8GB of data. That's not exactly fair considering that about .8 GB of that space is redundant information (maps, character data, etc) but, well, that would still have been expensive.

But steering this back on topic. Does anyone have any more info on Seiken Densetsu 2 on CD?

 

And who was to blame for that? Nintendo only saw that coming after some time of development... They gave Sony too many liberty.

Still, wasn't a classy move. Maybe if they had a better plan for that, Sony wouldn't enter the gaming industry like they did.

Anyway, Nintendo made tons of money thanks to the GameBoy. The GameBoy always was succesful and the whole Pokemon thing made it sell even more. So they didn't had to worry about money.

At that point, i think Nintendo should've learned something. Both the Saturn and PlayStation were launched at late 1994 (Japan), while the N64 only appeared in mid 1996. When it was announced, in 1995, everybody i knew was like: What? Cartridges?!

At that time, everybody knew CD's was the media to choose (even if piracy was a concern). Any new / recent gaming content was already showing the benefits of having CD as their media. PC Engine and Sega CD, on SNES era, showed how sound / fmv could be used and the PC, Saturn and PS1 showed not only that, but how much content a it could have.

Also, that strict control is what made Nintendo lose big support from companies like EA, Squaresoft, Capcom, Konami, Namco,... The cost of development on the Nintendo64, including the high production costs of the cartridges, made them go elsewhere. The loss of a big franchise like Final Fantasy, to a "new" competitor was embarrasing.

As much as the N64 was a popular console, it was never a succesful console. When i say succesful i mean having lots of great games of the generation and to have most of the gamers attention. It probably was profitable for Nintendo, at the cost of the devs, since Nintendo controlled the whole cartridge production process and charged royalties for it. But honestly, it failed to gain attention like it was supposed to. Apart from first party titles, from Nintendo itself and Rare, there's very little to look for.

Don't get me wrong, there are great games on it, but the PlayStation not only brought lots of new IP's to the market, but also consolidated classics like Metal Gear, Castlevania, Megaman, Final Fantasy, R-Type, .... And all this happened on Sony's first attempt on the gaming business.

 

Nintendo were all about spin back then. The only reason they used carts was the much higher licensing model they were used to with carts. They would tell people it was about access speed and durability and so on, but the only real reason was money.


The Mean Machines Archive site has a good scan of info on the SuperCD/Play Station from back in the day here: http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/upload/media/scans/cdromscoop.pdf

 

Like Taucias said, it was all about money ( like everything Nintendo does ).
Nintendo was the only allowed to produce the costly carts for their systems that they would sell to third-parties.
Also choosing the cart media allowed them to cut the cost on the whole system of about 50$.

Nintendo always sell their console at a profit ( or at worst at break even ) from the start and then on those platforms they sell million of their own software that's how they've become the richest gaming company.
If they want to create a system with cutting edge graphics they usually achieve that through two way:
- waiting 1/2 years from when competitors launch their hardware so the prices of component are naturally lower ( at parity of performance )
- cutting features that aren't considered essential ( the slow and ancient cpu used on the Snes for example).

There are some nasty consequence from the first point that I'm glad Iwata understood them.

Classy ? You are talking about the company headed by the ruthless Hiroshi Yamauchi.
Nintendo is always worried about money because they are a bunch of greedy bastards ( and I'm actually saying that in a good way :-D ).
Every systems released by Nintendo ( with the exception of VB ) has made them money.

They chose what brought them lots of money in the past decade, it was a mistake because the market was changing but it was a comprensible one.
No company stay on top forever exactly because what brought success in the first instance is what blind them when there is a market changing condition.

As for definition of "success" that depend on what you base on your judgement.
"Making money" wouldn't be a good measurement for Nintendo cause they always do it.
Growth would be a better one IMO and from that perspective Nes on ward until the Wii Nintendo wasn't successful ( yeah that include the Snes that's probably my favorite console).

PS:
I agree with you that N64 was a minor player compared to PS1 that's why I said "only viable alternative".

 

Talking about success and Super CD-Roms, how was the PSX's success during '94 to '96? That is, between the launch of the PlayStation till the launch of the Nintendo 64?

 

It pretty much anhilated Saturn in America in that period of time. Sega launched first, the surprise launch that backfired spectacularly, at a much higher price. 3D0 never developed momentum and Jaguar was pretty much on the way out.

That period of time was great for Nintendo, tough, since the 16 bit market was still huge and was not ready to jump into the new consoles. Sega of America knew this, but Sega in Japan disagreed, wich I guess made sense for them since the Megadrive was never that sucessful in their region and the Saturn had a strong launch. So under orders of Japan, Sega of America focused in the Saturn and 32x. Because of this, they did not have the inventory or product to match the demand for 16 bit games.