The former Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida has revealed some information about one of the cancelled titles that was being developed for the SNES PlayStation in a new interview with the media outlet MinnMax.
By now, everyone and their uncle has probably already heard the story about Sony's failed partnership with Nintendo. But just in case you haven't, we'll do our best to give you a brief recap going over some of the major bullet points.
Essentially, in the early '90s, Sony and Nintendo almost went forward with an ambitious deal that would have seen the two tech companies join forces, with Nintendo being able to produce a CD-ROM drive for the SNES, while the latter could create their own all-in-one console called the "Play Station".
Details of the partnership were shared in the press at the time, generating a ton of excitement and intrigue among players. But, in the end, the deal ended up collapsing, with Nintendo instead signing an agreement with Philips and leaving Sony at the altar.
This eventually led Sony to create its own system, the hugely successful Sony PlayStation. However, before the deal was cancelled, Sony put together several prototypes of the SNES PlayStation console — one of which was sold online back in 2020 for $360,000.
Over the decades, there has been plenty of discussion about some of the titles that were being developed for the console, including talk that Secret of Mana was originally intended as a launch title for the system. But recently, in an interview, Yoshida shared some details of a title we've personally never heard about — a Silpheed-style "2.5D" shooter that was being developed for the console that had almost been finished.
Yoshida told Minnmax:
"It was very fun. Everybody who joined Ken’s team at around that time, the first thing they showed us was the Sony Nintendo PlayStation, like a prototype already working. Also, they had almost finished a game on it, and I got to play the game on the system on the day I joined. It was like a shooter thing. You remember the Sega CD system, there’s an amazing, great game from Game Arts - a space shooter but all the assets were streamed from the CD. So it had lots of assets coming in. I forgot the name. So it was the same kind of idea."
Unfortunately, Yoshida couldn't remember the name of the developers of the game, or whether it was being developed in the US or Japan. But it is still fascinating to hear about the title, as it likely would have been one of the first games that players would have got their hands on for the cancelled system, had the deal gone ahead.
You can watch the full interview from Minnmax with Yoshida below. Also, if you want to support the channel, you should head over to Minnmax's Patreon to help fund more videos like this one.