And it’s been sealed away in the National Videogame Museum.
As I perused the web, as you do, I stumbled upon a happenstance. A fluke. A coinkydink. And what it was, was an incredible discovery that aligns with one of my favorite bits of trivia about the Sony PlayStation.
Nintendo created it’s own worst enemy.
And just how would they do that? Well through corporate folly, no doubt created by both parties involved, they would sleight Sony at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show. This would lead to Sony packing a sad and going “fine, we’ll just go and make what we were going to make then”.
While it’s well-known that there are multiple prototypes of the consumer model, it was only in rumours that devkit versions existed. Up until now.
The National Videogame Museum located in Frisco, Texas in the big ol’ US of A has found one. While they don’t disclose from where, the overall condition is pristine and represents a timeline we’ll never get to see. One where the Super Nintendo CD existed. That’s right, it wasn’t planned as a successor to the Super Nintendo. It was going to become its own thing, akin to that of the Sega Mega Drive and its Mega CD add-on.
Like the tweet says, it really is one of the biggest “what ifs” in gaming. Especially when you look at what the success of the PlayStation did, and also what the Nintendo 64 would later bring (Ocarina Of Time was the first game to have a lock-on for enemies in third-person after all).
I also love this reply to the museum. This person created their own version of what the PlayStation add-on may have looked like with the Super Nintendo. And it certainly could have looked like that. It would let players experience the powerful new games being developed. But also let them play the SNES games they love. Almost a first look at being able to play previous generation’s games in a way.
While it’s a question we’ll never see answered, it’s always one that deserves a hearty “thank you” to Nintendo for creating the landscape of gaming we have today.
