I was thinking we could discuss some gaming moments of the past that almost happened. How would they change the course of gaming history and where would gaming be today if they did.

All of these points below had a very good possibility of happening and some were being negotiated by the companies involved until the talks fell through for some reason or another.

Pick a point or post your opinions on all below.

1. What if Xbox 1 was a joint between Sega and Microsoft? It would have Sega and Microsofts name on the box and would be backwards compatible with the dreamcast. (Believe it or not it almost happened)

2. What if Snes CD addon was released for the Super Nintendo by Sony and Playstation never got to exist as we know it?

3. What if Sega never released the Saturn, but instead released a beefed up 32x/segaCD/genesis machine all in one (and as separate addons) sometime in in 1994 and supported it with good software until 1998 when it would launch the dreamcast worldwide.

4. What if Final Fantasy 7 was not a PS1 exclusive but a multiplat title?

5. What if Wii did not have motion controls and was another regular system made by Nintendo?

1) well i guess Sega might still have had a stake in the hardware business
2) nintendo would have probably never fallen from grace
3) uhh
4) uhh2
5) last place again

Agree with 1, 2, 3, 5

4a) It either would have been prohibitively expensive on the N64, so nothing would change, or
4b) It would be less FMV'd with N64 and PS version equivalency, in which case it is too hard to predict, or
4c) It would be less FMV'd and N64 would have had better graphics than PS version, in which case it is too hard to predict,  or
4d) N64would be less FMV'd and PS version would have more extras (possibly including FMV), in which case nothing would change

So, in at least 1/2 of the scenarios I can come up with, nothing would have changed.

1. A chain of events leading to Sega merging with Microsoft would have likely occurred.
2. A chain of events leading to Nintendo merging with Sony would have likely occurred.
3. Sega would have left the hardware business much sooner.
4. Squaresoft would have gone into massive debt trying to adapt the game to so many differentiated platforms, and sales would have been much more flat due to it not being a must-buy for any one system.
5. The console game market would be on the verge of or in the midst of a crash right about now, with companies folding left and right from the expense of making games for PS3 and 360.

 About your point number 4...Saturn and PS1 in Japan were head to head before Final Fantasy 7 came out. Some stats show that saturn was ahead for a good period in 1996. If Saturn version of FF7 was announced it could have sustained sega in Japan for a while longer.

Saturn had lots of canceled games not becuase they wouldn't have sold(Sega games sold in Japan well) but because the its Japanese userbase wasn't large enough to sustain Sega as a company so other companies knew that Sega would abandon the saturn prematurely. Resident Evil 2 was one of them... the trickle effect.

1. Probably the most interesting, Microsoft would have done far better in Others and Japan where the Sega name is well known. They would have probably done significantly better given the level of investment and would have likely sold at least another 10M consoles because they wouldn't have had to work as hard at the start. Lastly it would have let Sega have their self respect and they were my favourite console company of all time. In a way I trace the lineage of the Xbox and Xbox 360 back to Sega.

1. Xbox would have caught on, especially for the Sega fans.

2. Nintendo would have never fell and almost lost.
2A. Sony would not have had a fair chance with BluRay.

3. Snes still would have won, imho.

4. check alpha_dk's post

5. Nintendo would not be the success it is now and 360 would be winning.

I read from miltiple sources that MS basically tested the Windows OS on the dreamcast and the whole Direct X for a console. Hence why Dreamcast was so easy to develop for. Once it was a succes (or a glorious failure as people call it) MS approached sega and wanted to purchase a big chunk of the company and have them develop for the xbox.

Sega wanted bigger profits from the xbox and backwards compatibility with the dreamcast and they couldn't come to an agreement.

In any case, it would have given MS lots of cred and Sega the finances to keep doing the amazing stuff they were doing.

Too bad it didn't happen.

"Too bad"? Are you aware of what that would have done? Take a look at the various companies which Microsoft has absorbed in the past. How many of them still exist in any meaningful form as a part of Microsoft? And how many of them are even a shadow of what they were before Microsoft absorbed them?

Ha, so true that it's scary.