Former PlayStation boss speaks out on cancelled console that's now worth $360,000 each
The gaming world has shown off some weird and wonderful inventions over the years, but up there with the Nintendo Entertainment System's maligned Power Glove, the KFConsole being able to warm your chicken (yes, it's real), and playing Resident Evil 4 on the PlayStation 2 with a chainsaw, few have such an unusual legacy as the Super NES CD-ROM.
While Microsoft and Sony continue to lock horns with the Xbox and PlayStation wars, Nintendo largely does its own thing and breaks records with the Switch 2.
Many seem to underestimate the power of the House that Mario Built, but back in the day, Sony saw how teaming up could make these gaming giants into a gaming Goliath. Back before Nintendo was riding high on the success of the N64, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was its big breadwinner. Remembered for giving us classics like Super Mario All-Stars, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Mario Kart, the SNES sold a whopping 49.1 million units from its initial release in 1990 to its being discontinued in 2003.
If you thought the console wars between Microsoft and Sony were fierce, that's nothing compared to the pixel-laden battlefield of Nintendo versus Sega in the '90s. In the early '90s, there were plans for the Super NES CD-ROM, which would be a union between Nintendo and Sony that added CD-ROM capabilitiesto the SNES. As well as accepting traditional Super NES cartridges, Sony would retain control of a new CD-based format known as the Super Disc.
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With Sony poised to reap the exclusive benefits of hosting music and movie content via the Super Disc, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi disagreed with the terms and noted Sony's ambitions to launch its own console.
With Nintendo seeking further help from Philips as a direct rival to Sony, the whole thing fell apart after between 200 and 300 prototypes were built. Still, with most being destroyed, the Super NES CD-ROM remains one of the rarest consoles of all time. One went for $360,000 in a 2020 auction, although the unit's mere existence is something of a myth.
Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida explained how the collapse of the Super NES CD-ROM project worked out in Sony's favor, and ultimately, led to the release of the OG PlayStation. Ironically, the early name for Sony's version of the Super NES CD-ROM was the PlayStation.
Yoshida recalls being invited by Ken Kutaragi (former head of the PlayStation group) to play the original PlayStation prototype, which had initially been developed as the Super NES CD-ROM: "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."
Thanking Nintendo for the now-infamous moment where Nintendo cut Sony out and announced its partnership with Philips at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, Yoshida continued: "It was almost helpful that Nintendo cancelled the project – otherwise the Sony team would have been stuck as part of a Nintendo system."
More than this, Yoshida thinks that Nintendo shot itself in the foot by forcing Sony's hand into evolving the Super NES CD-ROM prototype into the PlayStation: "Nintendo created their big competition," says Yoshida. "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."
At the time of writing, it's thought that only two Super NES CD-ROMs are still in existence. Kutaragi apparently owns one of them, although Yoshida doesn't think he'll be sticking it on eBay anytime soon: "He's earned quite good money already."