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History

The original PlayStation, renowned more than anything for the immense mainstream exposure it afforded video game culture, has a long and convoluted history, dating back almost a decade prior to its release in 1994, and involves an unlikely partner... Nintendo.

Nintendo had been pursuing the idea of using disc technology in their games since the conception of the Famicom / NES, but fears over security and piracy halted progress of the idea for a number of years. They decided to approach Sony, the pioneers of CD technology at the time, after news of a more secure CD format (CDROM/XA) reached the company's ears. The plan was to create a CD add-on for the SNES, not surprisingly named as the "SNES-CD".

With the foresight provided by the failure of SEGA's Mega-CD, it's probably a blessing that the SNES-CD never came to fruition. Sony's planned to also release it's own CD based console around the same time, which could also support SNES cartridges.

Its name? The Play Station.

A contractual loop-hole provided Sony the luxury of almost completely control over the titles released for both machines. Nintendo - who have always been totalitarian about their licensing agreements - were understandably furious about this,. The head of Nintendo at the time, Hiroshi Yamauchi, canceled the contract in secret, and quickly formed an alliance with Phillips.

The release of Sony's joint console was put on hiatus.

Attempts were made to repair the rift between the two companies - including a standalone console made by Sony, the "PS-X", but supporting SNES games, which Nintendo would this time have full control over. A small number of the "PS-X" consoles were actually produced; The number is estimated to be less than 200. Nintendo declined this deal, since SNES games were quickly starting to show their age by this point (1992), and started work on the what would eventually become the N64.

Sony decided to go it alone, without Nintendo's supported, and work started on the production of the PlayStation (now one word). Many critics believed the lack of support from Nintendo would be a commercially suicidal move for Sony...

We all know what happened next...