A long time ago, Sony was going to develop the SNES-CD add-on for the SNES, called the Play Station, but unfortunately, it was cancelled. Apparently, Nintendo didn't like the idea that Sony had the rights to develop all games on the SNES-CD, so they cancelled the SNES-CD add on, and went with Phillips to create the Phillips CDi, which turned out to be a failure.

CD-i may have made a mockery of zelda and mario, but it didn't really have any affect on Nintendo really.  SNES-CD would have been a failure too, add-ons are never a good idea.  We saw add-ons hurt Sega quite a bit, and I doubt Nintendo would have been much more successful with it.  Nintendo's problem was not cancelling the SNES-CD, their problem was the lack of support for 3rd parties with the N64 and the choice of using cartridges.

Did you know that most standard keyboards come with this spectacular thing called an Enter key, sometimes called a Return Key?

The more you know.

nobody's bashed nintendo yet? i watched a documentary or something on TV one night and it was about the video game industry. i thought Nintendo totally "betrayed" Sony; apparently they pulled the plug either the day of or the day before a press conference to announce the collaboration.

i don't know what the nintendo brass was thinking back then. to enter into and agreement and then back out... they didn't seem to know what their goals were. the action seemed downright despicable, even if this is business.

it led to 10 lean years for Nintendo--sometimes, you do wonder if karma is for real.

 Thank you Twestern. That was sorely needed.

Infact, as a dutiful mod, I will edit the original post for maximum readability

A long time ago, Sony was going to develop the SNES-CD add-on for the SNES, called the Play Station. Unfortunately, it was cancelled. Apparently, Nintendo didn't like the idea that Sony had the rights to develop all games on the SNES-CD, so they cancelled the SNES-CD add on, and went with Phillips to create the Phillips CDi, which turned out to be a failure.

 After the SNES-CD add-on was cancelled, Sony went on to make the PlayStation. So did Nintendo betray Sony? If they did, I find it funny how they betrayed Sony, a company that would later create the Playstation, and Playstation 2, two of the best selling consoles of all time, for Phillips, a company that would create the disastrous Phillips CDi, and further slap Nintendo in the face by making three terrible Zelda games, and one terrible Mario game. 

So who was the bad guy here? Nintendo, or Sony? It seems as if Nintendo's Nintendo 64, and Gamecube got punished by Sony's Playstation, and Playstation 2, after Nintendo slapped Sony in the face for cancelling the SNES-CD add-on, for Phillips. I guess Nintendo would have been smarter to keep the SNES-CD add-on. They would have avoided getting slapped in the face by Phillips, for producing the CDi, a complete failure, and Sony, by producing the PlayStation, and PlayStation 2, two successes that burned the Nintendo 64, and Gamecube down. So do you agree with Nintendo's actions, or no? Did they betray Sony for good reasons, or no?

Worst mistake Nintendo ever made, and possibly one of the worst betrayals between japanese companies.

Still, around 200 PlayStations were released, with SNES controller ports and all. Those must cost more than their weight in gold nowadays.

Sony was going to join forces with nintendo but as I have been hinting in other threads...sony was rejected :(

We would be looking at one console right now.

Yes, it was considered a horrible slap in the face in Japan because they went with a non-Japanese company, but if I remember right, all the things Sony wanted the rights to were kinda ridiculous as well. It certainly created some bad publicity for Nintendo in Japan, and helped start Sony in on the video game market, but there's no way to know how things would have turned out. Yes, it was a horrible thing for Nintendo to do when Sony found out about them backing out of the deal by announcing the deal with Phillips, but they've learned some from their former arrogance (hopefully).

From what I recall, the reason why Nintendo backed out on the deal was because it would have given Sony complete rights over the CD games produced for that system, and that they would have even had access to use the Nintendo icons like Mario and Zelda without any input from Nintendo.

While admittedly, it was a bit of a slap. It was a necessary slap for Nintendo to survive as a company. While Nintendo may have lost ground since the Playstation came out, they might not even exist at all right now if they had stuck with the original deal.

Either way, I think the competition is good. I was dissapointed with how the N64 and Gamecube were handled, but I don't think there would have ben as much advancement as there has been without the competition spurning them to make the attempts. I'd be incredibly sad to think of what things might have been, if DDR or Smash Bros. had never been created. Without Nintendo as a competitor, Sony might not have bothered to come out with DDR, and without Sony to compete against, Nintendo might not have been willing to try for a game like Smash Bros.

Also, I don't think we would have EVER gotten a system like the Wii if Nintendo hadn't been completely backed up against the wall like this. Nintendo is also perhaps the only company that could have risked the type of innovation they introduced with the Wii. The Playstation's success has all been from 3rd party games and the like. Sony never would have been able to risk the chance that the 3rd party companies wouldn't support the new technology. Nintendo on the other hand has managed to survive almost completely on their own 1st party titles, and so the risk wasn't nearly as huge for them.

I see, so basicly sony was trying to gather all the rights on nintendo games, and then after gather enough money and momentum to take the company by whole! Evil huh..