The famously cancelled CD-Rom add on from Sony for the Super Nintendo console helped birth PlayStation. Now the company’s former president of SIE Worldwide Studios has shared a little about his thoughts about being at the company during that time and the cancelation Nintendo made at the last minute. Shuhei Yoshida said that it was “almost helpful” that Nintendo cancelled the project which ultimately saw Sony sell far more units of the original PlayStation console compared to the Nintendo 64 in the end.
“He had multiple units of the final working prototypes. The system was already done and almost ready for manufacturing, and a few games were already finished. I played one game that was a space shooter, but still it was based on Super Nintendo tech, right? So it was limited.”
“It was almost helpful that Nintendo cancelled the project – otherwise the Sony team would have been stuck as part of a Nintendo system.”
“Nintendo created their big competition. But competition is always healthy. Now, Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation seem to be going in very different directions, and I think that’s great for the overall industry.”
