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graphic Sega had a chance to work with Sony...? graphic
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Shino
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:26 am    Post subject: Sega had a chance to work with Sony...?

Apparently, Sony approached Sega in the past about making a console together.

Come to find out... Sega shot down the idea...

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6153914.html

Gamespot wrote:
Sega shot down joint Sony console
In an interview with Sega-16, former head of publisher's US operations recalls that his superiors at Sega of Japan rejected the plan to focus on original work.
By Patrick Caldwell, GameSpot
Posted Jul 12, 2006 4:34 pm PT

Sega's history as a console manufacturer came to an end with the death of the Dreamcast in 2001, but it didn't necessarily have to end that way.

An interview with the former president of Sega of America, Tom Kalinske, who helmed the upstart US division of the company during the mid-1990s, has revealed that he wanted the company to codevelop a game console with Sony--but was denied by higher-ups.

The first discussions of that partnership dated back to the days of the Genesis, Kalinske said. During Sega's development of the Sega CD, "one of our strongest partners in developing for that platform was Sony," he said.

"[T]here was really this wonderful collaborative effort," he said. "We each benefited from each other's work, and I think that's one of the things that has been forgotten in video game industry lore or history: that this very strong bond existed back then between the two companies."

He said he then proposed a joint console, to be developed by Sega and Sony, to the executives at Sega of Japan. Both companies would have expected to lose money initially on the console, he said, but Sega--the more experienced of the two in game development--vetoed the idea.

"Sega said 'Not a chance,'" Kalinske recalled. "Why would it want to share a platform with Sony? Sega would be much better off just developing its own platform."

"Sega knew how to develop software a hell of a lot better than Sony did," he continued. "They were just coming up the learning curve, so we would have benefited much more greatly--at least in my opinion--than Sony would have, at least initially, at least for a year or two. But Sega of Japan didn't want any of that."

More than a decade after the release of the Sega CD, why didn't we hear about the collaboration between Sony and Sega earlier?

"I don't think it ever came up; I don't think I was ever asked by anybody [for an interview]," said Kalinske, who is now the CEO of LeapFrog, which released the educational game handheld Leapster. "I mean, I don't think that's particularly abnormal. In the United States, once you move from one position to another, they don't generally call and ask you about past stuff."

As it turns out, Sony had the last laugh. After the Sega Dreamcast ceased production, Sony's PlayStation 2 eventually became the best-selling console on the planet, with more than 100 million units sold. Sega, however, wasn't the only console-maker that Sony tried to partner with before going out on its own. The company had approached Nintendo to develop a CD-based console, but after a now-infamous falling out between the two companies at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, Sony went on to develop its own system, the PlayStation.

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Kai
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:27 pm    Post subject:

Hm, i didn't know that.
Interesting article.
But, one thing, what happened at CES in 1991 to cause nintendo and sony having a dispute?

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Shino
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:29 pm    Post subject:

Not sure... I know it had to do with the "CD add on" that the SNES was supposed to get that was being made by Sony.

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Kai
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:31 pm    Post subject:

Oh, yeah, i've heard of that.
hm, interesting.

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Blackmage
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:02 pm    Post subject:

Yeah the CD add-on for the SNES was to be called the "Nintendo Playstation" and theres a bunch of stuff that happened between the companies, like Sony breaking their contract with Nintendo over etc where Nintendo ended up making like 10 billion or so in a lawsuit against Sony.

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Shino
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:16 pm    Post subject:

Blackmage wrote:
Yeah the CD add-on for the SNES was to be called the "Nintendo Playstation" and theres a bunch of stuff that happened between the companies, like Sony breaking their contract with Nintendo over etc where Nintendo ended up making like 10 billion or so in a lawsuit against Sony.


What? Where did you get that?

Nintendo dropped Sony like a bad habit. At CES in '91, Sony talked optimistically about the joint venture between the two companies, then the next morning, Nintendo announced that Sony was dropped all together and they went with Phillips, which turned out to be a horrible decision... anyone remember the Zelda games on the Phillips CD-I...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PlayStation
Wikipedia wrote:
Development
The first conceptions of the PlayStation console date back to 1986. Nintendo had been attempting to work with disk technology since the Famicom, but the medium had problems. Its rewritable magnetic nature could be easily erased (thus leading to a lack of durability), and the disks were a piracy danger. Consequently, when details of CDROM/XA (an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously) came out, Nintendo was interested. CDROM/XA was being simultaneously developed by Sony and Philips. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was struck, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of PlayStation," was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the 8 channel ADPCM sound synthesis set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.

Sony also planned to develop another, Nintendo compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super Nintendo cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CD discs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.

In 1991, the SNES-CD was to be announced at the June CES. However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi (Nintendo Pres at the time) read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he was furious. He deemed the contract totally unacceptable, and secretly cancelled all plans for a joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Indeed, instead of announcing their partnership, at 9 am the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that they were now allied with Philips, and were planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa (President of Nintendo of America at the time) had (unbeknownst to Sony) flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.

The 9am CES announcement was a huge shock. Not only was it a complete surprise to the showgoers (Sony had only just the previous night been optimistically showing off the joint project under the "Play Station" brand), but it was seen by many in the Japanese community as a massive betrayal: a Japanese company snubbing another Japan-based company in favor of a European one was considered unthinkable in Japanese business.

After the collapse of the joint project, Sony considered halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what they had developed so far and make it into a complete, stand alone console. This led to Nintendo filing a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in U.S. federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of the Play Station, on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction. Thus, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the new Sony PlayStation was revealed; it's estimated that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.

By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached a deal whereby the "Sony Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. However, at this point, Sony realised that the SNES technology was getting long in the tooth, and the next generation of console gaming was around the corner: work began in early 1993 on reworking the "Play Station" concept to target a new generation of hardware and software; as part of this process the SNES cartridge port was dropped, the space between the names was erased, and the PlayStation was born.


Additionally...

http://psx.ign.com/articles/060/060188p1.html
IGN wrote:
Because of their contract-breaking actions, Nintendo not only faced legal repercussions from Sony, but could also experience a serious backlash from the Japanese business community. Nintendo had broken the unwritten law that a company shouldn't turn against a reigning Japanese company in favor of a foreign one.

However, Nintendo managed to escape without a penalty. Because of their mutual involvement, it would be in the best interests of both companies to maintain friendly relations. Sony, after all, was planning a port for SNES carts, and Nintendo was still using the Sony audio chip.


So I'm interested to know where you got this info.

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Last edited by Shino on Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Blackmage
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:43 pm    Post subject:

Alright I might had things a lil backwards, I am posting half asleep becuase i'm groggy as hell becuase of my stupid meds. But they talked about stuff during the whole thing about the lawsuit between Nintendo and Sony.

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Shino
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:51 pm    Post subject:

Blackmage wrote:
Alright I might had things a lil backwards, I am posting half asleep becuase i'm groggy as hell becuase of my stupid meds. But they talked about stuff during the whole thing about the lawsuit between Nintendo and Sony.


ok I gotcha. I was just a little confused b/c I pretty much rememberd it the exact opposite.

No lawsuit was filed though... so it was basically Nintendo getting away with screwing Sony.

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Hoth
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:19 pm    Post subject:

CD's do have holes. Though i do wonder what the games would be like if Sega and Sony did come together. There would be Sonic/FF games out the world Smile

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Shino
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:20 pm    Post subject:

probably not, but Sega would still be in the game, Sony/Sega would still be leading, and Sony might not be as arrogant!

Maybe?

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