A former PlayStation employee talks about the cancelled console project with Nintendo
, by Thibaut
Before releasing the famous PlayStation in December 1994, Sony was working with Nintendo to create a console with a CD player. However, the brand behind Mario aborted the partnership, eventually going for Philips. And so, to make up for this affront, Sony single-handedly designed the PlayStation we all know today.
In an interview with the YouTube channel MinnMax, Shuhei Yoshida, who recently left Sony after 31 years of loyal service, looks back fondly on this long-ago period. He says he was able to play a prototype of this Nintendo PlayStation on his first day at the company.
"The first thing they showed us was that Nintendo-Sony PlayStation - a prototype already working. They had almost finished a game on it, and I got to play the game on the system the day I joined."
Yoshida specifies that this mysterious game was a space shooter inspired by Silpheed, which had been just released on the SEGA CD back in 1993. Alas, the main party here doesn't know who designed this title for the PlayStation at the time.