A Mega-CD ITTL that is a beast with roughly the power of OTL's 3DO and the Jaguar? Count me in! Also, will Nintendo and Philips' SNES-CD ITTL be roughly a 3DO/Jaguar too in terms of power, or will they have to beef up the specs to be like OTL's PS1/Saturn or at least between the 3DO/Jaguar and the PS1/Saturn if the Mega-CD's specs get reported on early enough into the development of the SNES-CD?
Dear Pesky Partners... - A Nintendo-Philips Timeline
- Thread starter SubparLario
- Start date
I... know next to nothing about Phantasy Star, but I'll take your word for it. If you could link me some stuff about it, that would be great!
SNES-CD will be closer to 3DO/Jaguar, rather than PS1/Saturn. Otherwise, I think it might be too big of a jump.
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/unse...with-your-memories.134203/page-3#post-8411913 some pictures are lost but will try to find it too
Chapter 5: Not Your Momma's RPG (Mid-1989 Part 1)
Not Your Momma's RPG (Mid-1989 Part 1)
Stephen Radosh was far from his home in California. Having worked for Atari and Sega in the past, he was eventually hired by Philips Interactive Media as their Vice President. And now, all the way in Kyoto, Japan, he was leading the team of engineers helping Nintendo get accustomed to the hardware Philips was working with them on. Nintendo! There were three main development teams working on Super Nintendo titles: one was working on a fast-paced racing game, another was making a game where you piloted an attack helicopter titled "Dragonfly," and then you had the group he was working with today, the Super Mario Bros. 4 team. Philips engineers had recently finished a port of Super Mario Bros. 3 to the new hardware to use as a base for Mario 4. Now, Nintendo could go full steam ahead with development, asking for Philips's assistance when necessary. They were working on this green dinosaur for Mario to ride when Takashi Tezuka approached Radosh with a note.
"Excuse me, but could you deliver this status report to Miyamoto-san? I'd do it myself, but there's this bug with Mario's movement that we're trying to squish right now."
"Oh, yes, of course! Where is he right now?" answered Radosh in slightly-stilted Japanese. Although he had been making good progress on his Japanese skill, there were still plenty of things that tripped him up.
"He's in one of the playtesting rooms, I'll write it down for you…" replied Tezuka.
As Stephen Radosh made his way down to Shigeru Miyamoto, he began to reflect on the man. The creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda, Miyamoto was an incredibly creative, yet humble man. Always coming up with new ideas, there was something about the way he approached game design that Radosh knew was different. Something that Radosh wanted to take back to Philips.
As Radosh opened the door to his destination, he saw Miyamoto speaking to a suave-looking Japanese man. Several Famicoms were hooked up to TV'S with playtesters at some. The game looked to be an RPG like Dragon Quest or that "Final Fantasy" game that was exclusive to Japan at the moment. At least, he thought it was, as the enemies seemed… weird. From a distance, it looked like one person was fighting… a hippie? Definitely not the typical goblins or slimes that he was used to seeing.
"Ah, Radosh-san! What brings you here?" exclaimed Miyamoto, smiling.
"Tezuka wanted me to bring this status report to you," replied Radosh, handing over the note. Miyamoto muttered some things to himself as he read it over. "What game are you guys playtesting right now? It looks… interesting."
"It's called 'Mother,'" answered the suave man. "It's named after a John Lennon lyric."
"Oh, Stephen, this is Shigesato Itoi, he's been working on an RPG called Mother for Nintendo. Itoi-san, this is Stephen Radosh, he's with Philips helping out with the Super Famicom."
"A pleasure to meet you," said Radosh, bowing.
"Same to you," responded Itoi. "You know, it would be useful to have a Western perspective on my game. Would you like to give it a try?"
"Oh, it'd be my pleasure! Though let me report back to Tezuka-san first. That way, he doesn't think I got lost." Miyamoto chuckled at that remark.
After returning to Tezuka and coming back to the playtesting room, Radosh sat down at one of the desks as Miyamoto and Itoi watched. He actually had a better time reading the text than usual; the limitations of the technology meant that all of the text was written in kana, no kanji. You play as this young boy named Ninten, who has psychic powers and must prevent an imminent alien invasion. It's an RPG, yet instead of knights and wizards exploring medieval villages, you're just an average American kid exploring modern-day towns. The setting is just so different to everything else, and that intrigued Radosh the most. Not to mention, the game’s story was far more involved than a lot of other games and it was a blast to play, although it suffered from some major difficulty problems. But that would hopefully be worked out during the playtesting phase.
"So, do you know when this game is coming out?" asked Radosh, after getting a game over.
"If everything goes to plan, our Japanese release date is July 27th," answered Itoi. "As for the US… well, I'm not sure if it will cross over in the first place."
"But why not? Everything about the game screams America!" From his time in Japan so far, Radosh had noticed quite a number of games that hadn't made the jump to the West. Some of that was because they dealt with Japanese culture or history very heavily. There were things that only the Japanese really enjoyed. Radosh had never even heard of things like Shogi until coming over to work with Nintendo. But Mother wasn't like that.
Miyamoto frowned. "Although nothing is set in stone yet, Nintendo of America has explained that Americans don't care very much for RPG's, it would seem. They need to do more market research, but right now, they don't have much faith in Mother."
Throughout its development, Mother and Itoi faced an uphill battle. The first time he pitched the idea, Miyamoto turned him down. Only later did he relent and give Itoi a team to make his dream game. And now, there were doubts as to whether or not it would even get an international release at all.
But Stephen Radosh wanted to give Mother a chance. While Philips could develop games for the NES, they were focusing all of their efforts on the Super Nintendo. But publishing an existing game? Now that would be a good way for Philips to get their foot in the door of the game industry proper. And if Mother was marketed in just the right way in the West, it could be a real success. After all, what kid WOULDN'T want to discover that they have psychic powers and go fight aliens?
But first, the game could use a bit of a name change.
Stephen Radosh was far from his home in California. Having worked for Atari and Sega in the past, he was eventually hired by Philips Interactive Media as their Vice President. And now, all the way in Kyoto, Japan, he was leading the team of engineers helping Nintendo get accustomed to the hardware Philips was working with them on. Nintendo! There were three main development teams working on Super Nintendo titles: one was working on a fast-paced racing game, another was making a game where you piloted an attack helicopter titled "Dragonfly," and then you had the group he was working with today, the Super Mario Bros. 4 team. Philips engineers had recently finished a port of Super Mario Bros. 3 to the new hardware to use as a base for Mario 4. Now, Nintendo could go full steam ahead with development, asking for Philips's assistance when necessary. They were working on this green dinosaur for Mario to ride when Takashi Tezuka approached Radosh with a note.
"Excuse me, but could you deliver this status report to Miyamoto-san? I'd do it myself, but there's this bug with Mario's movement that we're trying to squish right now."
"Oh, yes, of course! Where is he right now?" answered Radosh in slightly-stilted Japanese. Although he had been making good progress on his Japanese skill, there were still plenty of things that tripped him up.
"He's in one of the playtesting rooms, I'll write it down for you…" replied Tezuka.
As Stephen Radosh made his way down to Shigeru Miyamoto, he began to reflect on the man. The creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda, Miyamoto was an incredibly creative, yet humble man. Always coming up with new ideas, there was something about the way he approached game design that Radosh knew was different. Something that Radosh wanted to take back to Philips.
As Radosh opened the door to his destination, he saw Miyamoto speaking to a suave-looking Japanese man. Several Famicoms were hooked up to TV'S with playtesters at some. The game looked to be an RPG like Dragon Quest or that "Final Fantasy" game that was exclusive to Japan at the moment. At least, he thought it was, as the enemies seemed… weird. From a distance, it looked like one person was fighting… a hippie? Definitely not the typical goblins or slimes that he was used to seeing.
"Ah, Radosh-san! What brings you here?" exclaimed Miyamoto, smiling.
"Tezuka wanted me to bring this status report to you," replied Radosh, handing over the note. Miyamoto muttered some things to himself as he read it over. "What game are you guys playtesting right now? It looks… interesting."
"It's called 'Mother,'" answered the suave man. "It's named after a John Lennon lyric."
"Oh, Stephen, this is Shigesato Itoi, he's been working on an RPG called Mother for Nintendo. Itoi-san, this is Stephen Radosh, he's with Philips helping out with the Super Famicom."
"A pleasure to meet you," said Radosh, bowing.
"Same to you," responded Itoi. "You know, it would be useful to have a Western perspective on my game. Would you like to give it a try?"
"Oh, it'd be my pleasure! Though let me report back to Tezuka-san first. That way, he doesn't think I got lost." Miyamoto chuckled at that remark.
After returning to Tezuka and coming back to the playtesting room, Radosh sat down at one of the desks as Miyamoto and Itoi watched. He actually had a better time reading the text than usual; the limitations of the technology meant that all of the text was written in kana, no kanji. You play as this young boy named Ninten, who has psychic powers and must prevent an imminent alien invasion. It's an RPG, yet instead of knights and wizards exploring medieval villages, you're just an average American kid exploring modern-day towns. The setting is just so different to everything else, and that intrigued Radosh the most. Not to mention, the game’s story was far more involved than a lot of other games and it was a blast to play, although it suffered from some major difficulty problems. But that would hopefully be worked out during the playtesting phase.
"So, do you know when this game is coming out?" asked Radosh, after getting a game over.
"If everything goes to plan, our Japanese release date is July 27th," answered Itoi. "As for the US… well, I'm not sure if it will cross over in the first place."
"But why not? Everything about the game screams America!" From his time in Japan so far, Radosh had noticed quite a number of games that hadn't made the jump to the West. Some of that was because they dealt with Japanese culture or history very heavily. There were things that only the Japanese really enjoyed. Radosh had never even heard of things like Shogi until coming over to work with Nintendo. But Mother wasn't like that.
Miyamoto frowned. "Although nothing is set in stone yet, Nintendo of America has explained that Americans don't care very much for RPG's, it would seem. They need to do more market research, but right now, they don't have much faith in Mother."
Throughout its development, Mother and Itoi faced an uphill battle. The first time he pitched the idea, Miyamoto turned him down. Only later did he relent and give Itoi a team to make his dream game. And now, there were doubts as to whether or not it would even get an international release at all.
But Stephen Radosh wanted to give Mother a chance. While Philips could develop games for the NES, they were focusing all of their efforts on the Super Nintendo. But publishing an existing game? Now that would be a good way for Philips to get their foot in the door of the game industry proper. And if Mother was marketed in just the right way in the West, it could be a real success. After all, what kid WOULDN'T want to discover that they have psychic powers and go fight aliens?
But first, the game could use a bit of a name change.
Next time, we'll be taking a look at the second Super Famicom press demonstration. It'll be a fairly short chapter, so I'll see you soon!
This is neat! Mother 1 gets localized far sooner than OTL, and Philips publishes their first game on the NES.
Philips and Ape, Inc. will be forming a good working relationship with each other as time goes on. From the research I've done, while Philips did have internal development studios (one in France and another in the Netherlands,) they ended up outsourcing development to other studios a lot more. That's what happened with the CD-i Nintendo games in OTL. The potential butterflies actually become really big once you remember what happened to Ape, Inc. in our timeline...
Not only that
Hmm, very interesting... also, not only does the game that you linked look pretty odd, it's seemingly lost media! Would really love to look into it more, but ah, what can you do...
I'll certainly keep this in mind. Philips will have a lot of more casual-oriented games in their catalog, and Ape did make quite a number of them. I've been keeping my eye on these two Japan-only Monopoly games that they made, the second of which had RPG elements. (As an aside, apparently Shigesato Itoi is a really big fan of Monopoly. He's the president of the Japan Monopoly Association and got 8th place at the 1992 Monopoly World Championships.) They also collaborated with Jupiter on the Mario Picross spin-offs, and expect more of that series to come over to the West.
Yeah that game is ultra rare, that's the only footage online and i got lucky it still up, i used to track about JIM AND seems did was a Phillips 'first party' effort. Regardless the JIM could work alongside Ape, Jupiter and others too,
'Minus World: New Game Plus' — A Successful Philips SNES-CD Timeline
Polly Klaas never gets kidnapped ITTL, with Richard Allen Davis tripping over Polly's SNES-CD combo unit like he did in Player Two Start.
www.alternatehistory.com
'Minus World: New Game Plus' — A Successful Philips SNES-CD Timeline
One idea I had was Philips publishing a strategy game called A Song of Ice and Fire for the SNES-CD, which adapts the first book of the series that IOTL gave rise to Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin helped adapt the game's script from his book.
www.alternatehistory.com
Oh, I hadn't noticed you'd started! Let me catch up, and then I'll give my comments if I end up having any for what's posted so far.
(Edit: Added 9:35 PM EST the same day.)
(Edit: Added 9:35 PM EST the same day.)
The text in this paragraph got cut off at the end in the post it was in.
Last edited:
Ah, my mistake! I had moved what was there originally to a later paragraph, and forgot to fix it. Thank you for catching that!
Thank you very much! I appreciate all of the kind words from people so far.
The next update should be out later today, so be sure to keep an eye out for it!
You're welcome. Will pop culture change as well? If so, I have some ideas.
Ok! Sure will.
Yes, it will! Movies, TV, music, a little bit of sports, all that jazz. Only real exception is politics, which I'll only cover in terms of really major events. Definitely shoot me a PM with any ideas you might have!
As a matter of fact, Chapter 7 will be our first look at a change to wider pop-culture outside of video games. Though I can only change so much at the moment, since most of what's been going on right now is behind-the-scenes stuff at corporations.
Chapter 6: More Super Famicom News (Mid-1989 Part 2)
More Super Famicom News (Mid-1989 Part 2)
July 28th, 1989
A day after Mother’s Japanese release, Nintendo held another press demonstration of the Super Famicom at their Kyoto headquarters. Titled Shoshinkai, it would end up becoming a yearly event where Nintendo showed off brand new games and hardware/accessories. And it began with one major announcement: the Super Famicom would not see a release for another year. Even though the hardware had largely been finalized by now (only receiving an upgrade from 32 to 128 kilobytes of RAM later in development,) Nintendo and Philips wanted to give developers ample time to finish their games before the console’s release. And games were the main focus of this presentation.
The first of the games to be shown off was Dragonfly, where you piloted an attack helicopter shooting down aliens.[1] It made extensive use of Mode 7; the ground would scale based on the helicopter’s altitude, and rotate with the helicopter. And then there was the big kahuna: the next Mario platformer, Super Mario World. It too was a great demonstration of the Super Famicom’s hardware, showcasing parallax scrolling, translucency, sprite rotation, masking effects, and more. Though both of these games were far from finished, they were shaping up quite nicely.
Even though these were the only Nintendo-developed games that were shown off, Philips had one of their own to show off. Titled Super Pinball, it looked like your typical pinball video game. But it definitely didn’t sound like a typical pinball game. It used samples of real pinball machines for its sound effects, and although they had to be compressed, it still sounded quite nice and better than other pinball games on home consoles. While only one board had considerable work on it done at the time, Philips stated that at least 4 would be available in the finished game.
Of course, there were more games that were in development but weren’t shown off. Nintendo was also working on a futuristic racing game, the next Legend of Zelda title, among others, whereas Philips was developing a port of Tetris[2]. Numerous third-party developers like Squaresoft, Enix, Namco, and Konami had all signed up to make games for the system as well. The Super Famicom would seemingly have a great lineup of games going forward.
Much like the previous year, there were questions about a CD add-on and modem for the Super Famicom. Nintendo and Philips did confirm they were working on a modem accessory; however, they had nothing to show off at the time. And they remained tight-lipped about a CD add-on, saying it was “in consideration.” Well, for the most part… In the Spring of 1990, Philips made an amendment to the Green Book standard for the CD-Interactive, specifically in regards to CD-i players. These new baseline specifications shared a number of components with the Super Famicom, and a few keen gaming magazines were able to pick up on this at the time. However, a majority of publications didn’t notice it all, so their secret hadn’t spread too far.
Footnotes:
[1] This is the prototype for Pilotwings. Just like OTL, it’ll shift from a shooter to a flight sim.
[2] The two games Philips is working on at the moment are analogues to two early CD-i titles, Pinball and Tetris.
Next time, we'll take a look at the first non-video game butterfly in this timeline. See you soon!
July 28th, 1989
A day after Mother’s Japanese release, Nintendo held another press demonstration of the Super Famicom at their Kyoto headquarters. Titled Shoshinkai, it would end up becoming a yearly event where Nintendo showed off brand new games and hardware/accessories. And it began with one major announcement: the Super Famicom would not see a release for another year. Even though the hardware had largely been finalized by now (only receiving an upgrade from 32 to 128 kilobytes of RAM later in development,) Nintendo and Philips wanted to give developers ample time to finish their games before the console’s release. And games were the main focus of this presentation.
The first of the games to be shown off was Dragonfly, where you piloted an attack helicopter shooting down aliens.[1] It made extensive use of Mode 7; the ground would scale based on the helicopter’s altitude, and rotate with the helicopter. And then there was the big kahuna: the next Mario platformer, Super Mario World. It too was a great demonstration of the Super Famicom’s hardware, showcasing parallax scrolling, translucency, sprite rotation, masking effects, and more. Though both of these games were far from finished, they were shaping up quite nicely.
Even though these were the only Nintendo-developed games that were shown off, Philips had one of their own to show off. Titled Super Pinball, it looked like your typical pinball video game. But it definitely didn’t sound like a typical pinball game. It used samples of real pinball machines for its sound effects, and although they had to be compressed, it still sounded quite nice and better than other pinball games on home consoles. While only one board had considerable work on it done at the time, Philips stated that at least 4 would be available in the finished game.
Of course, there were more games that were in development but weren’t shown off. Nintendo was also working on a futuristic racing game, the next Legend of Zelda title, among others, whereas Philips was developing a port of Tetris[2]. Numerous third-party developers like Squaresoft, Enix, Namco, and Konami had all signed up to make games for the system as well. The Super Famicom would seemingly have a great lineup of games going forward.
Much like the previous year, there were questions about a CD add-on and modem for the Super Famicom. Nintendo and Philips did confirm they were working on a modem accessory; however, they had nothing to show off at the time. And they remained tight-lipped about a CD add-on, saying it was “in consideration.” Well, for the most part… In the Spring of 1990, Philips made an amendment to the Green Book standard for the CD-Interactive, specifically in regards to CD-i players. These new baseline specifications shared a number of components with the Super Famicom, and a few keen gaming magazines were able to pick up on this at the time. However, a majority of publications didn’t notice it all, so their secret hadn’t spread too far.
Footnotes:
[1] This is the prototype for Pilotwings. Just like OTL, it’ll shift from a shooter to a flight sim.
[2] The two games Philips is working on at the moment are analogues to two early CD-i titles, Pinball and Tetris.
Next time, we'll take a look at the first non-video game butterfly in this timeline. See you soon!
Last edited:
So hey I just spent a good part of today reading your story And I have to say this is freaking awesome adding this to my watch list.