The Nintendo Playstation.

[VG_Addict]

As we all know, Nintendo and Sony were working on a SNES add-on, but Nintendo made a deal with Phillips, and that led to the PlayStation.

I hear about how Nintendo betrayed Sony, but why is Nintendo in the wrong? Sony was going to get all the profits for the games. It's not like Sony was completely innocent. I'm tired of people making the birth of the Playstation seem like the big bully Nintendo screwed over the helpless victim Sony, when Sony was the bigger company at the time.

[Ziggy]

From what I've gathered, the anger from Sony wasn't just that Nintendo decided to back out of the project. It was the WAY Nintendo did it. Sony announced the partnership and then just a short while after (days?) Nintendo announced they were going with Philips instead. Sony saw that as an embarrassment.

[VG_Addict]

From what I've gathered, the anger from Sony wasn't just that Nintendo decided to back out of the project. It was the WAY Nintendo did it. Sony announced the partnership and then just a short while after (days?) Nintendo announced they were going with Philips instead. Sony saw that as an embarrassment.

I know that. It's just that I'm tired of people acting like Sony was completely innocent.

[Nemoide]

I'm curious: what did Sony do that made them not-innocent? Aside from absolutely demolishing Nintendo and Sega in the 32-bit era, I guess. I'm not intimately familiar with the details of their partnership! I read the book Console Wars but don't remember what kind of dirty pool Sony might have been playing.

Nintendo was definitely a big bully of a corporation in the early 90s, but their turning their back on the partnership with Sony isn't what I'd point to as a prime example of that. It was probably the choice that ended up hurting them the most later on though.

[MrPopo]

The contract was incredibly lopsided towards Sony in terms of where the money would go for everything that would be produced for the CD addon.

[Ziggy]

The contract was incredibly lopsided towards Sony in terms of where the money would go for everything that would be produced for the CD addon.

That's the story you hear, but there has to be more to it than that. I mean, why would Nintendo ever agree to something like that? That doesn't sound like something they would ever do.

[marurun]

If they had actually signed the contact there would have been penalties for Nintendo pulling out of the deal. I suspect they had a working agreement and were nearing the point where they had to commit and Sony put that contract on the table. That’s probably when Nintendo said “no dice” and walked away.

[Ziggy]

If they had actually signed the contact there would have been penalties for Nintendo pulling out of the deal. I suspect they had a working agreement and were nearing the point where they had to commit and Sony put that contract on the table. That’s probably when Nintendo said “no dice” and walked away.

If that's true, then really it's Sony's fault for publicly announcing a deal before papers were actually signed.

Also, I'm not sure about that since at least one prototype was produced. Would you really make a prototype before a deal is finalized?

By the way... Wasn't it the Nintendo Play Station (and not the PlayStation)?

[marurun]

Oh, I’m sure Nintendo and Sony signed some contracts before the last one, but I can’t imagine Nintendo signing anything giving most of the profits to Sony, even in the early phases. Which has me questioning if the profit sharing language didn’t show up until later contract revisions. The kinds of contracts they would sign for the early phase of the partnership would be mostly about NDAs and cost-sharing during development steps I would think.

But then, I’m also not a contract lawyer, so I’m making a lot of speculation, here. Has anyone actually seen the contract language in question?

[marurun]

Ok, so the Wikipedia article details things pretty specifically. It claims the contract was worded such that Sony retained control of the Super Disc format. That, combined with Sony’s history requiring expensive Sony dev software for the sound chip in the SNES meant that Sony would soak up a lot of licensing money through dev tools and technology licensing and control. That would leave very little for Nintendo. Reading between the lines, it also means Sony would probably be manufacturing the discs, where Nintendo traditionally profited greatly from cartridge manufacturing. So it’s more that the balance of profit came out heavily in Sony’s favor due to their desire to retain control of formats and technology IP rather than a more explicit revenue agreement.

I still find it odd that Nintendo would pursue a contract like that, though. It’s not like those profit outcomes would take months of poring over the contact to discover.