This year marks 30 years since Sony entered the video gaming industry and released the first ever PlayStation. Details about what happened have gradually come out over the years, including how much Nintendo was involved in why Sony began to make video gaming consoles in the first place. There was a point in the SNES era where Nintendo and Sony were in talks of making an add-on for Nintendo's 16-bit console that would've allowed the SNES to play CDs.
However, it ultimately didn't pan out, with Nintendo backing out of the deal. With Sony abandoned, they've eventually decide to make their own console, and the rest is history. That said, a new Eurogamer interview with former PlayStation head Shawn Layden revealed just how close Nintendo and Sony's collaboration came to happening.
According to Layden, "Nintendo realized cartridges had already maxed out their memory footprints and so we - or rather, Ken Kutaragi - created the compact disc technology to support the SNES. And we were just about ready. I think it was at CES [Computer Entertainment Show] 1993, we were going to announce the partnership. And Nintendo left us standing at the altar, after they did a pivot at the last minute and went with Philips. So there was Ken, proverbially standing at the altar with his optical disc drive in his hands. And, indignant, he went back to the leadership at Sony at the time and said: 'All I need is an OS and some more connecting tissue for this thing, and we can build our own game machine'.
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