Ever take a good hard look at your Playstation controller? Yes, you may have spent hours with this 16 button and two joystick devise but it has some similarities that few really notice. Namely that this controller shares a basic button pattern with a pinnacle of game evolution. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
The “revolution” in gaming many children of the 90’s praise is using a controller setup from 1991. Some might call me a liar. This image should sufficiently illustrate the similarities before you are too quick to dismiss this. Thusly why I illustrated below.
MY GAWD!!! That SNES controller has an erection!!!
“Surely just a coincidence!” Someone might exclaim. Well! There is an very interesting piece of information that helps to explain this. Once upon a time Nintendo was considering CD for their follow up to the first NES. Back in the late 80’s the tech intrigued them. Nintendo as usual was planning ahead. Realizing CD-ROM potential before even Sega or the Panasonic had even caught on. They consulted Philips and Sony on an SNES that used CD-ROM discs instead of cartridges.
“SNES-CD” was meant to be something to upgrade their wildly popular 16-bit System. While not abandon it. Philips and Sony both wooed The big N at. In the end Sony showed a little more. This Edge SONY had was not just that they were a fellow Japanese company... NO NO NO. Legend tells of Sony fanboy hero, Ken Kutaragi, creating a presentation for what their SPC-700 processor tech could do. SONY is well known for their incredible presentations and this must have wowed Nintendo quite a bit because Nintendo announced their partnership in their next endeavor in CES 1991. When the SNES-CD was announced along side the release of SNES in the US.
Hiroshi Yamauchi circa 1987
*Artists rendering*
Unfortunately during the span between 1988 and 1991 Nintendo’s CEO, Hiroshi Yamauchi, had failed to read their contract with SONY all the way. Apparently their was a Evil little clause Sony hid in that fine print. Basically it gave sony not just a little but ALL rights to every game or franchise made for the SNES-CD. Sony could have owned Mario... yup... how weird is that?
Angered by Sony’s dirty tactics Hiroshi decided to drop the contract deeming it “Unacceptable”. Nintendo was not losing the most beloved licenses in history due to some sneaky wording and it was broke off.
Nintendo then foolishly struck out and tried to move the project to Philips. Sneaking behind Sony’s back, the jilted lover joined forces with a competitor totally abandoning every bit of support for their SNES-CD project with Sony. They just made sure they would have ownership over all games they made on the Philips machine.
Together more issues arose between Philips and Nintendo. Essentially Nintendo did the same thing to Philips as they did to Sony when their R&D department came up with the N64. Of course it was this treacherous relationship resulted in the blackest hole in the Nintendo game library. The Notorious CD-i Zelda titles and a number of awful Mario titles.
Item 1... A rough breakup letter from Philips to Nintendo.
Meanwhile Sony was left with a near done R&D project of their own. Nintendo left them holding the bag. So with as good as sony was at tech they must have figured they could do better. They were already ahead of the game (no pun intended) on the technology. Compact Disks were easily the future. More storage and cheaper production costs meant it should really be done. But Sega had inferior processors and Nintendo was staying on it’s cart marketing. They decided to finish it up and present the world with the Play Station .
Nintendo actually tried in vain to sue Sony out of releasing the Play Station on the grounds that Nintendo came up with the name. This wasn’t enough for the judge it would seem and Sony released it’s first Playstation under the name Play Station. Apparently their is alot of difference that can exist in a space. One of those differences was an actual SNES cart slot. The first ever PS had an SNES slot in it.
I tried in vain to find a picture of this crazy devise showing the twisted amalgamation of sony and Nintendo eloquently embodied in a prototype. Few of these machines exist and it seems even less of the actual pictures exist as well. Even on the internets home of all bizarre info (including the research for this blog). The meanest bit was Nintendo had the upper hand on this machine. Nintendo owned the rights to franchises and games for the devise. Sony could use the port for SNES carts and Nintendo got to keep the tech from sony that made the audio in our favorite SNES titles sound so damn good. (opera scene in FFVI anyone?).
In the end... sony made a bold choice. They decided to nix the SNES cart slot and just release the system with a CD reader and the SPC-700 tech. Sony would strike out on it’s own in the seas of gaming history. Almost in a nod to the systems roots Sony refused to drop the name for the project. Nintendo birthed the name but Sony took it anyway. With one minor alteration... one little space. Sony’s Play Station became The Sony Playstation.
Ken defends himself on C-span.... this image is for realZ!(not really).
So now you sony kids know. While Sony might have shaped your little adolescent minds it was ultimately Nintendo who funded the development of your precious game machine in it’s early life. It’s okay if your angry but at least you know the truth. Perhaps now you can stop attacking us poor Nintendo fans since we are both cut from the same cloth. Perhaps now that you know this peace will reign between our kind on this clusterfuck known as N4G.
At least until someone brings up Microsoft that is... go get em slugger!
Sources: Wiki, IGN: History of Playstation
(PS Sorry for the alterations made it in a text editor and didn't expect the complications involved in my simple html :-/
GSC Game World has shared a new gorgeous trailer of STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, as well as a few screenshots.
Stellar Blade’s combat may take some getting used to at first, but when it gets going Eve becomes an unstoppable force in the PS5 RPG.
only one hour in after I played the demo. So the sword play is definitivelly slower then DMC or Bayonetta. Once we unlock some extra moves things open up a bit. So far less frenetic then the two aforementioned titles (not necessarelly a bad thing). Eve's movement is a bit stiff all around the edges but not a deal breaker.
Well, yeah, it's more like Sekiro, it does get better momentum as you unlock extra moves but it's not like DMC and Bayonetta imo.
"The Jyväskylä-based (Finland) indie games developer Act Normal Games today announced with great delight and thrill that their isometric post-apocalyptic point-and-click adventure “Rauniot“, is now available PC (via Steam, GOG, and GMG." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
sorry to anyone who read this thing between 12:30 am and 1:30 am Saturday Evening/Sunday Morning. I was still fumbling with getting all my goofy Photoshops just right.
EDIT:
Fiddled with this until 2am sunday morn just to make sure it was alright. Hopefully it is.
I knew half of this already. But it is bloody hilarious the way presented.
This is common knowledge.
Sony is the new Nintendo
Microsoft is the new Sega
I love revisiting history. While this is common knowledge to many gamers, many kids don't know of a time without Sony consoles. I remember when Sony was considered the MS of the industry lol. I however, did not know about Nintendo and Philips ending in such a bad way. It totally makes sense though cause those ZELDA games were horilble. Is that letter from Philips to Nintendo for real?? If it is, that is amazing! Very funny letter, but they obviously failed. Didn't CD-i have a litle analog stick on the pad of the controler. I guess Nintendo jerked them out of that one too lol.
I agree Sony mimicked Nintendo. I also think MS did the same with SEGA and their controler.
EDIT: the earthworm jim soundtrack on SNES was also incredible.