History is full of “What if?” moments across all walks of life, especially when it comes to industries where many entities either try to work together or compete against one another. Simple actions or deals can lead to ripples that echo across time. In the gaming industry, we know of many such “ripples” that happened, including one of the biggest ones that led to the creation of the PlayStation brand. Once upon a time, Sony was only interested in gaming by helping Nintendo with a new CD add-on that would’ve come with the upcoming system, the N64. However, The Big N pulled out of the deal, and Sony went on its own path.
In a chat with Eurogamer, former Sony lead Shawn Layden broke down more of the specifics that led to that big decision:
“Nintendo realised cartridges had already maxed out their memory footprints and so we – or rather, Ken Kutaragi – created the compact disc technology to support the SNES. And we were just about ready. I think it was at CES [Computer Entertainment Show] 1993, we were going to announce the partnership. And Nintendo left us standing at the altar, after they did a pivot at the last minute and went with Philips. So there was Ken, proverbially standing at the altar with his optical disc drive in his hands. And, indignant, he went back to the leadership at Sony at the time and said: ‘All I need is an OS and some more connecting tissue for this thing, and we can build our own game machine.’”
Sometimes, bitterness can be a good thing, and we all know how that turned out. The PlayStation was a big risk, but Sony did some big things to help ensure its success, including bringing in certain developers, making key mascots like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, and even getting Square Enix to bring its soon-to-be epic RPG hit to the PS1 instead of Nintendo. Apparently, that just took a lot of whiskey to get done. Who knew?
After that moment, Sony and Nintendo have been honest-to-goodness rivals, with each side taking blows from the other in big ways. Right now, The Big N is on top, as the Switch has been dominant over the last seven years, and the Switch 2 is highly anticipated, while Sony and its PS5 are kind of spinning their wheels at the moment.
Then again, Sony was “down and out” before and pulled off something great, so who knows what happens next?
