Super NES CD-ROM

Lore & Background

By the early 1990s, compact discs had gained traction as a storage medium for video games, offering larger capacity, full-motion video, and high-quality audio. NEC and Sega had already released CD add-ons, prompting Nintendo to seek its own solution. Nintendo entered negotiations with Sony, which had designed the SNES sound chip, to create a CD-ROM project. Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi, who had secretly designed the S-SMP audio chip for the SNES, proposed a CD-ROM drive for the system. Development began in late 1988, resulting in a Sony-branded console called the PlayStation that would support both SNES cartridges and a new CD format called the Super Disc. Initial plans reportedly called for integration of the Super FX coprocessor for 3D graphics, though this was not present in produced prototypes.

Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi became wary of Sony's proposed agreement, which would give Sony control over the Super Disc format and software licensing. He sought an alternative partner and turned to Philips, a Sony rival. Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa and executive Howard Lincoln negotiated a deal with Philips. Nintendo's intent to go with Philips was publicly announced two days before the Consumer Electronics Show in May 1991. At the June 1991 CES, Sony unveiled its hybrid PlayStation, and the next day Nintendo revealed its Philips partnership, an event later called 'the greatest ever betrayal' in the industry.

Negotiations between Nintendo and Sony continued after CES 1991, and two to three hundred PlayStation prototypes were produced. In early 1992, a deal was reached allowing Sony to produce SNES-compatible hardware, but the strained relationship led Kutaragi to persuade Sony to abandon the SNES CD-ROM and develop a standalone console, which became the PlayStation in 1994. Sony cut all ties to Nintendo in May 1992. The Philips partnership led to development of an add-on CD-ROM peripheral with a 32-bit coprocessor and the Nintendo Disc format, but Nintendo reportedly canceled the project quietly as late as September 1993 before any prototypes were produced.

Reader's Guide

The Super NES CD-ROM projects are notable for their direct role in the creation of Sony's PlayStation, a console that would dominate the next generation. The failed Sony collaboration led Sony to develop its own standalone console, dropping SNES compatibility and featuring more powerful hardware. The Philips partnership resulted in Nintendo granting Philips licenses for some Nintendo properties for its CD-i platform, many of which were unsuccessful and poorly received. Nintendo would not release an optical disc-based console of its own until 2001 with the GameCube. The Sony PlayStation prototypes (model SFX-100) have become collector's items; at least two known examples exist, with one discovered in 2015 that had been abandoned by former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson and later acquired at a bankruptcy auction. A tear-down of that unit revealed features including two Super NES controller ports, a cartridge slot, a tray-loading dual-speed CD-ROM drive, and various audio-video outputs.

Did You Know?

• Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi secretly designed the S-SMP audio chip for the SNES without full corporate approval and was nearly fired for it.
• The Sony PlayStation prototype (SFX-100) included a serial port labelled 'NEXT', likely for debugging.
• Nintendo's announcement of its Philips partnership came two days before the June 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, surprising Sony.
• The Philips project would have used a CD format called the Nintendo Disc (ND) based on CD-ROM XA technology.