> I always wondered why they hung onto cartridges for as long as they did.
Well, they tried to start getting CD tech in the mid 1980s but fucked up badly.
Sony and Nintendo were going to produce an add-on for the SNES so it could load data from CDs. The licensing agreement would not have worked out well for Nintendo. That led to drama at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show when Sony announced the product one day, and Nintendo announced that they were partnering with Philips instead the next day...[0]
After more false starts and some lawsuits, Sony basically then went on to produce the PlayStation without Nintendo. [1]
As for Nintendo's partnership with Philips -- that didn't work out either, though I don't know the details. I do know that Philips developed a system called the CD-i (which flopped), and got the rights to use some of Nintendo's characters. Philips later contracted other companies to produce games for the CD-i, which is why Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and Zelda's Adventure exist.[2]
Well, they tried to start getting CD tech in the mid 1980s but fucked up badly.
Sony and Nintendo were going to produce an add-on for the SNES so it could load data from CDs. The licensing agreement would not have worked out well for Nintendo. That led to drama at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show when Sony announced the product one day, and Nintendo announced that they were partnering with Philips instead the next day...[0]
After more false starts and some lawsuits, Sony basically then went on to produce the PlayStation without Nintendo. [1]
As for Nintendo's partnership with Philips -- that didn't work out either, though I don't know the details. I do know that Philips developed a system called the CD-i (which flopped), and got the rights to use some of Nintendo's characters. Philips later contracted other companies to produce games for the CD-i, which is why Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and Zelda's Adventure exist.[2]
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/03/business/nintendo-philips-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_%28console%29#Deve...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-i_games_from_The_Legend_of_...