PlayStation: The Bastard Child of Nintendo and Sony

It's definitely up for debate, but I think it's safe to say that most people feel the SNES produced higher fidelity sounds than its main competition, the Sega Genesis.  That's because the SNES has a Sony sound chip in it.  Developed by Ken Kutaragi in secret due to the fact that Sony had zero desire to do anything related to video games, the chips success softened Sony executives enough to consider developing a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo called the Play Station.

Like many other business ventures, egos mucked everything up.  Sony wanted to retain licensing rights for their CD-ROM format, thus having a great deal of control over what would be developed for the system.  Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo at the time, did not want to cede so much power to Sony.  So he secretly had the President of Nintendo of America work a better deal with Philips.  This resulted in a very angry Sony, and this pile of turd:

The Philips CD-i

Spurred on by their recent spurning at the hands of Nintendo, Sony started to aggressively pursue making a video-game console of their own, with Ken Kutaragi at the head of the venture.  It took a fews years, but in 1994 Sony released their first console.  As a middle finger to Nintendo they retained the name PlayStation.  The brand would go on to claim the largest share of the home console market, as would its successor, the PlayStation 2.

Don't worry though, Philips managed to deliver so great content on their CD-i.  Content that was so good, Nintendo won't even acknowledge its existence, presumably because Nintendo is insanely jealous that they have yet to produce games of this quality:

Or maybe their just supremely bitter that while Philips released games like Link: The Faces of Evil, Sony was preparing to overtake Nintendo's spot as the dominant home-console developer.  You decide.

If you enjoyed this article be sure to like and/or share it on Facebook, Google +, and Twitter.  Please feel free to follow this blog so you will never miss a Fun Fact of the Day!

Do you like video games from the 90s?  Check out my YouTube Channel  where I post videos exploring the totally rad games of the past! In fact I am currently doing a Nuzlocke Challenge of Pokemon Yellow...Check it out here!

For all things 90s related and beyond be sure check out my other blog at www.theninetieskid.com. 

If you like what you read/saw please take a moment to like me on Facebook  and follow me on Twitter!