Alternate history: N64 goes with CDs instead of cartridges

[The_Liquid_Laser]

d21lewis said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

I agree with everything you are saying, but sticking with cartridges wasn't actually the dumbest part.  The dumbest part is that Sony was originally their business partner.  Nintendo brought Sony into the gaming space, so that Sony could develop a CD based system for them.  After Sony develops the hardware, the Nintendo Playstation, Nintendo backs out and partners with Phillips instead to make the CD-i (e.g. Wand of Gamelon, etc...).

Nintendo could have actually had Sony as their partner.  Instead they turned Sony into their competitor.  This was the ultimate self-destruct move.  Nintendo wasn't anti-CD or anything.  They just backed out of their original CD system, the Nintendo Playstation, because they got a better deal from Phillips instead.

It all depends on which story you want to believe. On one side, yes Sony was their partner developing hardware and Sony got betrayed in the deal. On the other hand, peripherals were more often than not failures and Sony stood to potentially make an unfair amount of profits off of the Nintendo name.

Sony was already in the gaming industry but they weren't exactly setting the world on fire with their software. 

Do you have a source for this side of the story?  I have read more than one book about this topic and I have never heard anything like the bolded statement.