Why the Super Nintendo CD Would Have Been the Greatest Console Ever

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by Jarrod S. Lipshy

Let me start out by confessing a slight bias: I love the Super Nintendo to death. My XBox 360 crapped out on me nigh on four years ago, and while I have had the pleasure of playing Skyrim on my former roommate’s unit, I have had no desire to replace my own, dead system since he moved out. In the meantime, I get my gaming fix from my older consoles: NES, N64, Sega Genesis, and of course my venerable Super Nintendo. Of these, the Super Nintendo seems to have the most quality library, even considering the vast amounts of entertainment to be had in blockbusters of today like Bioshock Infinite and Arkham Origins. Games like Chrono Trigger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Earthbound constantly dominate the conversation of “Best Games of All Time” and show no sign of waning relevancy despite their old age.

With this legacy in mind, I adamantly, nay vehemently assert what could have been one of the greatest consoles ever to exist, and unquestionably what would have been my console of choice to this day. What we lost when the plans for the Super Nintendo CD (abbreviated SNES-CD) went up into thin air was no less than what was lost when the Library of Alexandria, the Acropolis, and the final print of London After Midnight went up in flames, combined. Hyperbole, you say? Well, I haven’t even begun to hyperbolize, because the system peripheral would have been no less than the pinnacle of human achievement; the crown jewel of modern society’s capitalistic mass-production. Entire societies’ functions would have to cease –  even briefly  – to witness the marvel that would have been the SNES-CD in action, I say this because…

It Would Have Worked, and It Would Have Worked Well

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The Super Nintendo was an amazing achievement in not just graphical capability and processing power, but also in sound output, thanks mostly to Sony’s S-SMP chip. The chip was developed almost entirely in secret by Ken Kutaragi, who was unimpressed by the NES’s then-current sound chip. He only revealed his hours of on-and-off-the-clock labor to his boss once the project had been near completed. His boss was furious, thinking video games were a waste of time for a giant multinational corporation like Sony, but nonetheless he let Kutaragi enter into a deal with Nintendo to sell the chip. Nintendo gobbled it up, and this is where the agreement for Sony to produce a CD peripheral was born.

The success story of Sony’s sound chip technology married to Nintendo’s console could have been the beginning of a beautiful relationship (more on that later). Nintendo had proved themselves internationally as the dominant producer of fun machines, beating back Sega for market share with an aging console trashed in ad-campaigns as “inferior” to the 16-bit Genesis, but still capable of producing Super Mario Bros. 3 in its twilight years – which went on to sell 17 million+ units. When the Super Nintendo was released, the public flipped again for gems like Super Mario World and F Zero, and their appetite seemed only further stimulated by the possibilities of games that lie in the future.

It was about this time (1992) that the first details of the project to develop a CD add-on were being revealed in magazines. The promise of the technology within the Super-NES was dwarfed by the (what felt at the time) near-infinite storage space and versatile formatting of the CD medium. While Sega was caught up in re-hashing the garbage heap of a scrapped VHS game console, the SNES-CD seemed poised to take advantage of the size and scope of CD games, creating the potential for a Mario game that had twice as many levels as Mario World, and with advanced graphics and effects, not to mention beautiful, expansive soundtracks. The possibilities could have been endless when considering the impressive scope of later games in the SNES library such as Chrono Trigger or Starfox.

As an example, look at the game The Secret of Mana, the only official title that was indicated for an SNES-CD release. The game we got had gigantic sprites for an RPG of its time, and massive areas to roam around in – at least in the beginning sections of the game. Towards the end of the game, however, the engaging storyline takes a backseat to what is obviously dungeon-hopping towards the lackluster climax. It’s like if Link to the Past had all the areas around the last dungeons cut out and instead had a magic dragon drop you off at their doorstep. The reason for this was that the game had to be gutted drastically for a cartridge release rather than wait around for a peripheral that may or may not have ever materialized. What we missed out on could have easily filled the game map’s massive globe, and is only hinted at by the breathtakingly complex tracks released on an album called Secret of Mana: Genesis (no relation to the console) which would have been what the game would have presumably sounded like on the SNES-CD.

With so few examples, however, to pull from, who’s to say that the SNES-CD would not have been as short-lived and ill-fated as the Sega-CD? Well, aside from the fact that the SNES-CD would have avoided the pitfalls of obtaining a weak library of games that were already licensed to the Sega-CD, and that Nintendo could have learned from Sega’s mistakes, there’s the point that Nintendo would have had a powerful ally in Sony’s burgeoning gaming division, a fact which leads me to believe that…

The Console Industry As We Know It Would Be A Different Ballgame

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Consider this: Sega’s own shortcomings and lack of clear direction put the company on the short list to near bankruptcy by the early 2000’s. With the demise and liquidation of Sega’s console division soon after the release of the Dreamcast, and barring the entry of Microsoft with their XBox later that year, this left just Nintendo’s Gamecube and Sony’s PS2 competing for market share during this brief window. Well, what if they were the same company?

This would have made a powerful alliance against Microsoft’s entry into the console business, and arguably would have deterred them from wanting to penetrate the mainstream market. With Nintendo and Sony being allied as the only console manufacturer, game developers would have no choice but to release titles for their system. This means that Grand Theft Auto 3 could have been a Nintendo game, their censorship policies notwithstanding. Also, the spirit of innovation that possessed Nintendo with the console gen that birthed the Wii could have been coupled with Sony’s manufacturing know-how and tech savvy. Instead of two nearly identical consoles and something that resembles a toy, we would have had a technical powerhouse developed by Sony and backed by Nintendo’s creativity along with their unstoppable first-party library. Just lay back and picture what Brawl could have looked like on the PS3. Feel free to wipe the drool from you mouth before you continue reading.

The sad fact of this never-was scenario of Nintendo and Sony against pretty much nobody was that it was thrown out the window because of a simple foul-up in the beginning of the SNES-CD’s development. Nintendo neglected to secure a fair portion of the licensing rights and royalties to the peripheral, meaning they would have been unable to collect enough profits from the games released on the SNES-CD to justify the risk of its release. Furthermore, nothing in the agreement prevented Sony from releasing their own console capable of running SNES-CD games without Nintendo’s explicit permission. Rather than try to re-negotiate these terms and strike a fair deal for both parties, Nintendo opted to be a bunch of paranoid jerks and partner with Phillips for the sole purpose of pissing Sony off enough to call off the deal entirely.

Shortly thereafter, the Play Station project, originally designed to be a synthesis of SNES-CD and in-house technology, went rogue and eliminated all hope of a partnered release with Nintendo. In 1994 the Sony Playstation was released, and it created an entirely new market for video games hitherto unaccessed by Nintendo, Sega, or ill-fated smaller competitors like the 3DO. The Playstation’s popularity with older gamers caused the new N64 to be seen akin to a baby’s toy, complete with candy-colored buttons and an asininely designed controller. While many amazing titles were released for the N64, some of which hold up quite well today, a lot of developers like Square jumped ship to release critically-acclaimed system-sellers like Final Fantasy VII on rival consoles. By Nintendo purposefully deeming CD’s as an inferior technology and sticking to smaller, more expensive cartridges, the N64 had to rely on a steady stream of first-party titles and select third-party titles made by companies like Rare Ltd. (who produced Goldeneye and Banjo Kazooie to name a few). To put it bluntly: the transition from 2D to 3D was bumpy and unkind to Nintendo, creating a distinct gap in genres like traditional RPGs and unfulfilled franchises like an N64 Metroid or Mother title.

Nintendo maintaining their relationship with Sony would have also meant sparing the public memory from the abomination that was the Phillips CD-i, complete with the worst Mario and Zelda titles by a large margin – bastard games born of spite rather than creative inspiration.

The Bottom Line

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To summarize this eulogy/history lesson, I’d like you to use your powers of imagination to envision a brief utopia; one where the SNES-CD and the Sega Saturn are the only consoles on the market. The SNES now has the added benefit of Super FX chips, so it’s able to produce effects on par with the reviled Sega-CD and 32X consoles, only with quality titles full of thought and intensive artistic attention to detail. Games like Final Fantasy VI would have more vibrant effects, and segments of art synced with beautiful, dynamic soundtracks, advanced lighting effects, and massive, detailed sprites. Super Metroid and Earthbound could have had the sequels they deserved instead of being swallowed up in nightmarish 3D dev hells. The masterpiece that was Ocarina of Time would have had added years on the backburner, and a new 2D Zelda game might be out in the meantime, on par with Link to the Past. There would be no people thinking they were cool just because they could play Jet Moto while you played Donkey Kong Country 2. Instead, we’d all be in it together; men, children, women, and babies alike, all joined together, hand-in-hand in the streets, talking about how amazing and massive Secret of Mana was, and how the future could only be brighter.

Rather than punishing consumers with expensive cartridges and then stupid, tiny discs, Nintendo would have always been on the cutting edge of console technology. They would still enjoy the full third-party support that they had with the Super Nintendo. No longer would gamers have to choose between Madden and Mario, or whether to play Smash Bros. or Metal Gear Solid. They would all be one in the same, a choice as easy as paying for one game now or later, without having to invest in multiple consoles.

Now, as we push forward into the next gen, many are saying “Why couldn’t the Wii U have just been a peripheral?” and “Is there really a discernible difference between the XBox One and the PS4?”. Little do they know the reason for these deeply ingrained narratives lies in a simple negotiation mistake, and a lot of mistrust by what used to be the greatest video game company in the world.

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9 Comments

  1. Playstation came out in ’94? Geez I must’ve really blown it off at 10 years old because I honestly don’t remember hearing anything about playstation until 1996. In 94 the only systems I knew of outside sega and nintendo brands were jaguar, neo geo and 3DO.

    1. It was released in Japan in ’94 and the US in ’95 and took a while to gain some steam considering its relatively high price tag and small library. Once it started gaining better games and notoriety it became more popular with the gaming public — about the same time you noticed it, I imagine. Sorry for the lack of clarity! ~Jarrod

  2. How expensive were the cartridges anyway? I know high profile IP like OoT and MM were at least $50 and Conker’s Bad Fur Day was way above that but what was the actual price range between cheapest game and most expensive one? like was it from $50 to $100 or something?

        1. No prob! From what I remember, nearly every new N64 game was $60 unless they were bundled with an accessory and then they were usually 70-80.

          For comparison, most, non-bundled PS1 and Saturn games were $45-50. There weren’t nearly as many budget titles as there were on the PS1 which ran $20-$35, although finding a new N64 game for $50 wasn’t uncommon if it wasn’t selling well.

          1. Wow. That’s seriously expensive for that time. I didn’t realize Nintendo was actually the first to break that barrier. I can’t even imagine paying $80 for a game honestly. No wonder many third party devs such as Square Enix moved over to PS1. It’s a miracle Nintendo survived that era, and also a no brainer for why they went ahead at the last minute and lowered the retail price for the system to $200 when it first came out. I am quite shocked the difference was that huge. At least Nintendo kept up the quality amid the costs associated with it-I’m sure that was no small feat. I hope someday games go back to being cheaper than $50-the whole price hike each gen is getting annoying.

  3. The biggest flaw here is that neither company would ultimately give up enough control. Nintendo is VERY specific about their design (see: “asininely designed controller”) and Sony would have to made due with being a parts manufacturer.
    You make mention of it, but keep in mind that Nintendo became ‘laxed on it’s mature games’ policies AFTER Genesis and, later, Sony made huge amounts of cash in that area (and even then they were always behind). Who’s to say that the Nintendo Play Station would have had any of the M rated games that made Playstation so damned popular among the older crowd? Keeping with the speculation, who’s to say devs wouldn’t have moved to Sega’s camp? Remember, Nintendo had tons of support branching from the fact that they had a strict IP ruling (that’s why barely anyone who made Nintendo games couldn’t port them to Master System). This let up (a ton) during the SNES years, but there’s no saying that Sega couldn’t have taken the role of Sony as the ‘mature’ console of choice.
    Finally, with one super-dominant console (in your vision of this story) there is a loss of competition and in some ways quality games. Obviously it’s not like Tekken or Ridge Racer would cease to exist, but why have Crash Bandicoot if not to draw consumers to a different console? No crash might mean no Jak and Daxter -> Uncharted -> Last of Us…hell, maybe Naughty Dog would stick with 3DO for one reason of another.
    We all love to speculate, but the variables this would introduce to what we know creates way too many obstacles in simply stating “it would have been amazing”

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