Re: OT: Re: Sony's entrance into gaming (was:reading material)

> Where did you hear crap like this. The CD system was never a stand-alone.
>  It was an expansion that locked onto the bottom of the SNES via the 
> expansion port (we've seen the proto-type). There would have been no way 
that
> Nintendo  would have designed it as a stand-alone anyways 

Don't blame whoever mentioned that in their post...blame the gaming media.  
At the time all of the nonsense was going around and around about the 
Nintendo CD, it was reported that there were two versions of the system...one 
would be an add-on hooked through the expansion port from Nintendo and Sony 
themselves would market a standalone all-in-one system (the 
PlayStation...heh).  All of this, of course, is most likely a bunch of bunk 
as only artist conceptions were ever shown.  Where, pray tell, did you see a 
prototype system?  Personally, I don't believe there was ever even a 
semi-completed chipset for the thing...I don't think Nintendo ever was 
serious about bringing the system out.  To me, it all smelled of vaporware 
intended to combat an unknown entry into the market (the Mega CD); however, 
when that system ended up NOT cutting into Nintendo's market share, the need 
for such an expansion proved to be unnecessary.  I do believe, though, two 
things:

- First, that a Super Famicom CD could have been greatly profitable and given 
even further life to the SFC.  Additionally, it would have given companies 
like Square further incentive to stay with Nintendo.

- Second, Sony might not have taken the world.  The sour deal with Nintendo 
seemed at the time to have given them incentive to tackle the market on their 
own (the greatest mistake Nintendo ever made).  If they had brought a 
successful product to market with the SFC CD, Sony and Nintendo might have 
later jointly developed its successor (a natural progression in thinking). 

Anyway, no matter how it panned out, I think we would have been looking at a 
different market.  And, in the grand scheme of things, the scrapping of the 
Super Famicom CD was probably the single most important gaming moment in the 
past decade.  Like I mentioned before, this event led to the development of 
the PlayStation as separate Sony hardware.  However, we can assume and 
reflect all day on this, but it gets you nowhere.  We are left with the 
festering market we currently have.