Sony Crushed Nintendo with a Console Originally Designed for Them
It is probably the biggest faux pas in the history of gaming
It is probably the biggest faux pas in the history of gaming
What does the founder of Pets.com, Sony, Nintendo & Sega have to do with the best-selling games console of all time?
It sounds like an intro to a Mob-movie, but the story behind this product isn’t as simple as it seems.
In short, a hidden prototype of the ‘Nintendo Play station’ was recently sold at auction for $360,000. That wasn’t a typo. I said ‘Nintendo Play station’.
Why? Because the Playstation, an irrefutable giant of the Sony company, was originally designed for Nintendo — and they stupidly passed on it.
Where it all started
Ken Kutaragi, originally a Computer Entertainment Engineer for Sony struck a deal with Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM add-on to the Super Nintendo.
His view was that CD’s were superior to cartridges. They could hold more data and would become the future of gaming. Time has taught us that he was right.
Unfortunately, the deal went sour and Nintendo ended-up pulling away from the partnership with Sony. Instead, they brokered a deal with Phillips and Sony’s prototype was dismissed.
That original prototype was recently auctioned and acquired by Pets.com founder, Greg McLemore for $360,000. It’s believed that the other 199 of 200 original prototypes were destroyed when Nintendo tanked the deal.
This one decision would later become the greatest mistake in Nintendo’s entire history of the business.
Working with the enemy
At the time, Kutaragi, who later became CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment decided to seek out a new partnership with Nintendo’s fierce competitor, Sega.
We all know the proverb…
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Kutaragi wouldn’t give up on the product, he fully believed in his vision and the work that had gone into it. Just because Nintendo didn’t value it, it didn’t mean the Playstation was dead in the water.
After seeking out a deal with Sega, it was Sony who later decided the deal wouldn’t be fruitful enough this time. They pulled out of the partnership.
To save the project, Kutaragi had to pitch to his CEO at the time; Norio Ohga, to convince him that Sony should be the ones to eventually bring Playstation to the market… To enter the gaming industry as a player, not a supporter.
As reported in Polygon, to drive his message home, Kutaragi reminded Ohga about the failed partnership with Nintendo, asking him if he’d sit back and accept what the company had done to Sony. This reminder was enough to enrage Ohga, who, the legend goes, told Kutaragi, “Go for it. Do it. This is a project that Sony needs to be in.”
Playing them at their own game
We all know by now that the Sony Playstation was and is a hit… but by how much?
Digital Trends ranked the Top 10 games consoles of all time, by quantity sold — and the numbers were staggering.
According to those figures, Nintendo has sold 41% fewer consoles than Sony with all of its entries combined. Playstation and it’s four saleable iterations dwarf all of the sales of Nintendo’s various consoles.
Specifically, Sony’s 451 million consoles sold, completely drowns Nintendo’s measly sales of 267 million consoles. It’s almost double.
Now it’s not new for major companies or even competitors to work together, like how Apple commissioned Samsung to make screens for their iPhones.
However, in this case, Nintendo’s faux pas might be one of the greatest lessons in business.
That is, don’t just stick with what works.
The market always changes, it adapts, develops and evolves with the changing technology. To stay current, you need to be the one carving the path, not following it.
Every missed opportunity to innovate becomes an opportunity for your competitors to gain market share.
After learning from their Sony mistake, Nintendo’s current strategy seems to be disrupting the console market by focussing on areas where their competitors aren’t present.
The Wii was massively successful in its own right, when not compared to Playstation and the Switch and upcoming Switch Pro seek to expand on area’s that Xbox and Sony can’t compete with — that being handheld, portable gaming.