Philips CD-i

Luigi in Hotel Mario

The Philips CD-i was a video game console released in 1991 by Philips. Acting in some ways similar to a modern-day DVD player, the CD-i represented a revolutionary new era for video games: a move to compact disc-based media over cartridges that had been used since the early 1980's.

The CD-i resulted from a failed deal between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD-based addon for the SNES called the PlayStation Experimental. Sony, however, wanted a large share of the profit from this addon, as well as to be able to brand it with their logo. Without warning, Nintendo cancelled the deal, moving to make a deal with Sony's rival Philips to make the same addon. Sony's research and development on the PlayStation Experimental led to them releasing the first PlayStation console in 1996 as a rival to the Nintendo 64.

When Nintendo eventually backed out of the deal with Philips, Philips demanded to use several of Nintendo's characters in games for the CD-i, leading to the notoriously poor Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda's Adventure, and Hotel Mario.

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