The Official Phillips CD-i Thread Page 1

DanielPrimed 11.10.2006#1

I've been rather intrested in this little system after reading aboutsome of the Zelda games released for it, so therefore I have decided to create this informative thread. If you want to contribute feel free. I am lacking quite a bit of the split between Sony and the rest of the developers.

CD-i General

The CD-i is the console that eventually lead to the Playstation. I am sure that a majority of us have heard about this break up. Where Nintendo wanted a CD drive for the SNES and teamed with Sony, whom they lied to about something and then Sony split, Nintendo joined with Philips and made some rubbishy games based off of famous Ninty franchises.

Here's the summary of the console as provided by Wikipedia:

CD-i or Compact Disc Interactive is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard utilized by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was co-developed by Philips, Sony and Nintendo in 1986. The first Philips CD-i player, released in 1991 and initially priced around USD $700, was capable of playing interactive CD-i discs, Audio CDs, CD+G (CD+Graphics), Karaoke CDs, and Video CDs (VCDs), though the last required an optional "Digital Video Card" to provide MPEG-1 decoding.

The actual step by step history of the console can be found at the CD-i referenc site: History of the CD-I

The brand name debarkle

I have a rather large snippit about it from the Hyrule Times IGN blog.

To explain how these games came about, we have to travel back to 1988, three years before the release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Sensing that the emerging CD-ROM format could become the storage media of the future, Nintendo entered into a deal with multimedia powerhouse Sony to collaborate on a new gaming platform, codenamed Play Station Experimental (or short: PSX). This enhanced CD player would utilize proprietary CD-ROMs called Super Discs for multimedia and gaming content, as well as be fully compatible with Nintendo's forthcoming Super NES game console. The idea was to create a machine that didn't only appeal to kids and broaden the appeal by featuring both a CD drive for movie and software playback and a SNES cartridge slot for Nintendo's popular games. Everything seemed set for a joint future between two entertainment company giants.

Fast-forward to 1990. When it became clear that CD-ROMs weren't a fluke and could turn into a major business, Nintendo Co. Ltd. president Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that the proposed alliance with Sony meant giving up the very foundation of Nintendo's business: absolute control over license and manufacturing. Under the agreement, Sony would be the exclusive worldwide licensor of the Super Disc format. Third-party publishers would no longer have to pay Nintendo to manufacture games unless they were created for the more restrictive cartridge format. And what publishers in their right mind would choose the more expensive of the two formats? Not able to gracefully bow out of the agreement, Yamauchi allegedly devised a new plan -- without telling Sony about it. According to David Sheff's book "Game Over," Nintendo of America's Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa flew to Eindhoven in the Netherlands in 1991 and signed an agreement with Europe's biggest electronics manufacturer, Philips N.V. Under this new alliance, future Nintendo games would be playable on Philips' new CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) system -- and Philips would in turn develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Famicom (SNES). Nintendo would of course control all licensing for software made for the CD drive.

The executives at Sony soon found out about Nintendo's little affair. Only hours away from its announcement of the agreement with Nintendo at the 1991 CES in Chicago, Sony tried everything to destroy the Philips/Nintendo partnership. Nintendo maintained that the Philips deal did not compete with the Sony agreement and Sony had no choice but to announce its system and partnership despite Nintendo's perceived breach.

The events that followed would shape the gaming industry forever.

Sony announced its SNES-compatible PlayStation console on the first day of CES. Nintendo's press conference on the second day, thought to further explain the alliance, shocked the world by instead announcing a close partnership with Philips. The fact that one of Japan's major entertainment companies had "screwed" a Japanese partner and allied itself with a foreign competitor made headlines in every business daily from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

It initially looked like Nintendo would resolve its differences with Sony in 1993 via an altered licensing agreement that was more favorable to Nintendo, but as everyone here knows, Sony would ultimately emerge as the dominant force in gaming and release the PlayStation as a standalone videogame machine in 1994. But that's another story. Let's get back to what you've come here to read about... When it became clear that CD-i sales weren't setting the world on fire (after all, these so-called "Imagination Machines" shipped for a whopping $1,000), Nintendo decided to downplay the software agreement with Philips. Instead of creating CD-i compatible games itself, it gave Philips the license to create a set number of games based on its two flagship franchises: Mario and Zelda. This agreement produced three Zelda games, two of which actually starred the princess herself in the title role. The first one, Link: The Faces of Evil was released internationally in 1993 alongside Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.

CD-i Games

Most of the games released on the console were generally of pretty bad quality. Mainly puzzlers, but there were also a few games released based on popular Nintendo franchises. Nintendo themslves didn't actually make the franchise based titles they were made by Philips Interactive Media. But for now:

Complete list of CD-I games

Mario Games

There was only one Mario based game released on the console, another Mario game was in development but was then canceled. Some details of it can be found here.The other game released was Mario's Hotel; a puzzle title.

Details about the game can be found at the Wikipedia page

Videos of the game can be found at YouTube. Here's one of the intro

The Zelda Trilogy

Three Zelda games were released on the console being:

-Link: The Faces of Evil
-Zelda's Adventure
-Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

Link: The Faces of Evil

Overview of the game
Video of the game

Zelda's Adventure

Overview of the game
Videos of the game

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

Overview of the game
Videos of the game

More videos of the games and the CD-i itself can be found over at YouTube.

Resources
The Phillips CD-i reference site
CD-i Wikipedia page
Hyrule Times

Phew - that took a while. Smilie

( Edited on 11.10.2006 10:07 by Daniel Primed )

( Edited on 11.10.2006 10:16 by Daniel Primed )

( Edited on 12.10.2006 05:07 by Daniel Primed )

( Edited on 12.10.2006 05:12 by Daniel Primed )

Edit this post:

[IMG]http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/7019/cdiwg8.jpg[/IMG]

I've been rather intrested in this little system after reading aboutsome of the Zelda games released for it, so therefore I have decided to create this informative thread. If you want to contribute feel free. I am lacking quite a bit of the split between Sony and the rest of the developers.

[b]CD-i General[/b]

[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/cdiplayer_facesofevil.jpg[/img]

The CD-i is the console that eventually lead to the Playstation. I am sure that a majority of us have heard about this break up. Where Nintendo wanted a CD drive for the SNES and teamed with Sony, whom they lied to about something and then Sony split, Nintendo joined with Philips and made some rubbishy games based off of famous Ninty franchises.

Here's the summary of the console as provided by Wikipedia:

[i]CD-i or Compact Disc Interactive is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard utilized by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was co-developed by Philips, Sony and Nintendo in 1986. The first Philips CD-i player, released in 1991 and initially priced around USD $700, was capable of playing interactive CD-i discs, Audio CDs, CD+G (CD+Graphics), Karaoke CDs, and Video CDs (VCDs), though the last required an optional "Digital Video Card" to provide MPEG-1 decoding.[/i]

The actual step by step history of the console can be found at the CD-i referenc site: [url=http://www.philipscdi.com/history.htm]History of the CD-I[/url]

[b]The brand name debarkle[/b]

I have a rather large snippit about it from the Hyrule Times IGN blog.

[i]To explain how these games came about, we have to travel back to 1988, three years before the release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Sensing that the emerging CD-ROM format could become the storage media of the future, Nintendo entered into a deal with multimedia powerhouse Sony to collaborate on a new gaming platform, codenamed Play Station Experimental (or short: PSX). This enhanced CD player would utilize proprietary CD-ROMs called Super Discs for multimedia and gaming content, as well as be fully compatible with Nintendo's forthcoming Super NES game console. The idea was to create a machine that didn't only appeal to kids and broaden the appeal by featuring both a CD drive for movie and software playback and a SNES cartridge slot for Nintendo's popular games. Everything seemed set for a joint future between two entertainment company giants.

Fast-forward to 1990. When it became clear that CD-ROMs weren't a fluke and could turn into a major business, Nintendo Co. Ltd. president Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that the proposed alliance with Sony meant giving up the very foundation of Nintendo's business: absolute control over license and manufacturing. Under the agreement, Sony would be the exclusive worldwide licensor of the Super Disc format. Third-party publishers would no longer have to pay Nintendo to manufacture games unless they were created for the more restrictive cartridge format. And what publishers in their right mind would choose the more expensive of the two formats? Not able to gracefully bow out of the agreement, Yamauchi allegedly devised a new plan -- without telling Sony about it. According to David Sheff's book "Game Over," Nintendo of America's Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa flew to Eindhoven in the Netherlands in 1991 and signed an agreement with Europe's biggest electronics manufacturer, Philips N.V. Under this new alliance, future Nintendo games would be playable on Philips' new CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) system -- and Philips would in turn develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Famicom (SNES). Nintendo would of course control all licensing for software made for the CD drive.

The executives at Sony soon found out about Nintendo's little affair. Only hours away from its announcement of the agreement with Nintendo at the 1991 CES in Chicago, Sony tried everything to destroy the Philips/Nintendo partnership. Nintendo maintained that the Philips deal did not compete with the Sony agreement and Sony had no choice but to announce its system and partnership despite Nintendo's perceived breach.

The events that followed would shape the gaming industry forever.

Sony announced its SNES-compatible PlayStation console on the first day of CES. Nintendo's press conference on the second day, thought to further explain the alliance, shocked the world by instead announcing a close partnership with Philips. The fact that one of Japan's major entertainment companies had "screwed" a Japanese partner and allied itself with a foreign competitor made headlines in every business daily from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

It initially looked like Nintendo would resolve its differences with Sony in 1993 via an altered licensing agreement that was more favorable to Nintendo, but as everyone here knows, Sony would ultimately emerge as the dominant force in gaming and release the PlayStation as a standalone videogame machine in 1994. But that's another story. Let's get back to what you've come here to read about... When it became clear that CD-i sales weren't setting the world on fire (after all, these so-called "Imagination Machines" shipped for a whopping $1,000), Nintendo decided to downplay the software agreement with Philips. Instead of creating CD-i compatible games itself, it gave Philips the license to create a set number of games based on its two flagship franchises: Mario and Zelda. This agreement produced three Zelda games, two of which actually starred the princess herself in the title role. The first one, Link: The Faces of Evil was released internationally in 1993 alongside Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.[/i]

[b]CD-i Games[/b]

Most of the games released on the console were generally of pretty bad quality. Mainly puzzlers, but there were also a few games released based on popular Nintendo franchises. Nintendo themslves didn't actually make the franchise based titles they were made by Philips Interactive Media. But for now:

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CD-i_games]Complete list of CD-I games[/url]

[b]Mario Games[/b]

There was only one Mario based game released on the console, another Mario game was in development but was then canceled. Some details of it can be found [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario's_Wacky_Worlds]here[/url].The other game released was Mario's Hotel; a puzzle title.

[img]http://www.retrogames.co.uk/stock/assets/images/CDI_-_Hotel_Mario.jpg[/img]

Details about the game can be found at the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Mario]Wikipedia page[/url]

Videos of the game can be found at YouTube. Here's one of the [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDpyPd1PAPk]intro[/url]

[b]The Zelda Trilogy[/b]

Three Zelda games were released on the console being:

-Link: The Faces of Evil
-Zelda's Adventure
-Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

[b]Link: The Faces of Evil[/b]

[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/linkfoe0_460.jpg[/img]
[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/link_happy_460.jpg[/img]
[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/link_store.jpg[/img]

[url=http://blogs.ign.com/Hyrule-Times/p4]Overview of the game[/url]
[url=http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/010/010254/vids_1.html]Video of the game[/url]

[b]Zelda's Adventure[/b]

[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/zad_title_460.jpg[/img]
[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/zeldasadventure_box.jpg[/img]
[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/zad_monsters.jpg[/img]

[url=http://blogs.ign.com/Hyrule-Times/p3]Overview of the game[/url]
[url=http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/017/017125/vids_1.html]Videos of the game[/url]

[b]Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon[/b]

[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/gamelon_disk_460.jpg[/img]
[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/article/316/316803/zelda-the-wand-of-gamelon-20060505064243105.jpg[/img]
[img]http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/gamelon_7460.jpg[/img]

[url=http://blogs.ign.com/Hyrule-Times/p3]Overview of the game[/url]
[url=http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/010/010256/vids_1.html]Videos of the game[/url]

More videos of the games and the CD-i itself can be found over at YouTube.

[b]Resources[/b]
[url=http://www.philipscdi.com/]The Phillips CD-i reference site[/url]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-i]CD-i Wikipedia page[/url]
[url=http://blogs.ign.com/Hyrule-Times/p1]Hyrule Times[/url]

Phew - that took a while.:-D<p><p><p><p>

Save Changes Cancel Full Edit

Nexus 12.10.2006#2

Interesting thread. The videos are rather interesting too. The CD-i looks like an old VCR compared to what is on the market today.

// My Bookmarks
// My Last.fm

JoeBTW 14.10.2006#3

Philips Smilie .

Satoshi 14.10.2006#4

No don't show those fake (not made by nintendo anyway) zelda games!!!!

They spoil its name and reputation!!!!

Avoid Games Like the Plague, productivity++

Faust_D 15.10.2006#5

20m920r2xBbQ! Too...Much...Crapics...Can't...Watch...! Eyes...Burning!!11!!

~Getting on C3's massive tits since 2K5.~

Frazzle.d 15.10.2006#6

Nice insight into videogame history Smilie

"We're mentalist psychic Scots, which means we can read your mind. If you're lying, your head explodes and we laugh." Fly fast, stay low, hit hard
Guide to using the Metroid Bounty Hunters.