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Nintendo's biggest mistake: The PlayStation

Surprisingly few people know the history of the Sony PlayStation line of consoles. This might not be news to tech-savvy console aficionados, but it's nevertheless quite little known.

The fact is, Nintendo effectively created the Sony PlayStation.

Or, more precisely, caused it to be created.

You see, back when the SNES was at the end of its lifespan in the early 1990's, its greatest competitor, the Sega Genesis, had a CD peripheral (which could contain an entire CD worth of a video game, including CD quality sound and some primitive video footage.)

So in order to compete with it, Nintendo wanted to also create a CD peripheral for the SNES. So Nintendo partnered with Sony to create such a thing. The tentative name for this peripheral was, and I kid you not, PlayStation.

However, the corporations got into some kind of argument, and they dissolved the partnership. But rather than just forget about it, Sony decided to create their own console. The Sony PlayStation. Which was, unsurprisingly, CD based. (How they got to keep the name, I have no idea. Maybe some kind of deal between the corporations.)

The rest is, as they say, history. The PlayStation came to be one of the most successful consoles of the era, and its successor, the PlayStation 2, became the best-selling console in history, so far. The PS3 and PS4 are not far behind either.

I wonder if Nintendo is kicking themselves because of this.

(Although, in retrospect, this might have been a blessing for gamers. Nintendo consoles are not exactly known as the platforms for badass games for hard-core gamers. They used to be, back in the SNES era, but not in a long time.)

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