Sony and Nintendo are two of the biggest companies in the world with a major influence in gaming. But more than two decades ago, Sony and Nintendo actually worked together in an effort to create something powerful at that time but for some reason, did not come to fruition: SNES CD-ROM.
Sony's Add-on for SNES
From the latest 80s to the early 90s, Nintendo is king in the gaming industry with its NES and SNES. In a bid to be part of the gaming industry, Sony pitched to Nintendo that they would produce an add-on to the SNES that could play CD-ROM based games according to Nintendo Everything. There was an initial agreement between two companies that will allow Sony produce a gaming hardware that would complement the incredibly popular SNES.
But the agreement between two companies abruptly ended and the planned add-on to the console was scrapped. Even though Sony already introduced the "Play Station" as SNES that could read CD-ROM games, the plan to release games on CD-ROM did not push through.
Sony and Nintendo part ways as the latter partnered with Philipps to develop the CD-ROM add-on according to Nintendo World Report. As history would have it, SNES continues its cartridge-based games as Philipps did not produce anything compared to Sony's initial introduction of the CD-ROM add-on.
The Birth of PlayStation
Sony parting ways with Nintendo may just be a blimp in gaming history but it ushered an extremely significant milestone for Sony. Because they are no longer in partner with Nintendo, they have to develop a game console on their own. Sony first introduced the integrated CD-ROM for SNES in 1991 without any follow-up but eventually released the first PlayStation in 1994.
Nintendo on the other hand, continues its cartridge based games in Nintendo 64 and ultimately shifted to CD-ROMs in GameCube.
One of the biggest partnership in the gaming industry could have happened in the early 90s with the introduction of Nintendo's SNES with Sony's CD-ROM add-on. But even though the partnership did not push through, it did pushed Sony to develop their own console that would ultimately rival Nintendo gaming console.
