I meant the Sega CD’s performance and reception might have been a factor in Nintendo deciding they didn’t actually want to bring their project with Sony to market.

That said, I looked at the actual timeline and see that that speculation was incorrect as the Sega CD came out in December 1991 while Nintendo backed out of the deal in June of that year.

Hooooly fuck @ the story, too.

Sony had completed a prototype but were positioning themselves to gain control over licensing and distribution of the disc format they were using, which made Nintendo think they weren’t going for a partnership but full control.

So at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony did a tech demo of their prototype. The very next day, Nintendo announced their partnership–with Philips, not Sony. This was the CD-I, another console I forgot about in my last comment (that also failed because of its focus on FMV games, including the only Zelda games for a non-Nintendo console).

Kinda interesting that this one story seems to contain both companies’ full gaming arcs. Sony wanting control over their software ecosystem but being hated for it, and Nintendo wanting to keep control and pulling surprise dick moves to do so. There were no good guys in that story.

Though back to the original point, it wouldn’t surprise me if the reception of all those initial disc-based consoles helped Sony steer away from shitty FMV games and make sure they had the great games library the PSX did have. But again this is just speculation that could also be based on an incorrect understanding of timing.