SNES CD-ROM suppression reasons?

[kammedo]

I was babbling around on some SNES-CD info when something called my attention...Could there have been more than just commercial reasons for the SNES's CD suppression?
A first reason instantly blowed through my mind :
surely a CD would bring lots of additional space that ROM images couldn't have handled at all...but wait a minute...SNES's architecture has only a 24 bit address line, thus a 24 Bit (16 MB) address space.

So there you have a valid reason for burying the SNES's CD add-on before it ever could see the light....The SNES's architecture wasnt planned to work with Address spaces above 16 MB without any driving architecture, which would had obviously slowed down the whole system...

Correct in your opinion?

[MottZilla]

CD-ROM memory wouldn't be memory mapped to address space. Some sort of micro controller would be told by the SNES CPU, give me the data from this file, it would grab the data and send it to the SNES which would load it likely into some kind of RAM that is on the memory map where the SNES would then use it.

Again, the address space doesn't matter at all. Did you forget NEC's PC Engine with an 8-bit cpu had a CD-ROM add-on?

For the SNES, a brief setup, you could have a Cartridge containing a CD-ROM system bios and some DRAM, like 16Mbits (2 MegaBytes) just mapped to the ROM space with the system bios in the first ROM bank so it can startup the system and load the CD-ROM game's program into RAM and execute it. It would be more complicated than that but you should get the idea that no system memory maps the entire CD-ROM into address space.

[karsten]

personally i think they felt they were late, since their opponents were already about to exit and were looking far more intimidating than they proved to be...

so they tried to jump a stage. also knowing nintendo they must have pissed their pants on the tought of piracy :D so they came out with N64 cartdridges that were AWFULLY costy, but almost impossible to clone

[TapamN]

but wait a minute...SNES's architecture has only a 24 bit address line, thus a 24 Bit (16 MB) address space.

The Genesis only has a 24 bit address space, too, but that didn't stop Sega.

[Barc0de]

The DC was a great consumer success with a loyal following, that didn't stop SEGA either :lol:

The SNES-CD was originally envisioned to position itself in the market where the Famicom Disc System was for the Famicom. If it were to be released in 1990 or 89, it would have made some sense to have a CD-drive for the old bucket, but its late release , the surely complex setup (that would have plenty of bottle-necks ) and the price tag, in my view, were all reasons for nintendo rightfully deciding not to release the accessory.

Nintendo's biggest mistake lay in the fact that they backstabbed sony really, because the then president of Sony would have it the whole thing die since he wasn't interested in the games market to boot.

[subbie]

The DC was a great consumer success with a loyal following, that didn't stop SEGA either :lol:

The SNES-CD was originally envisioned to position itself in the market where the Famicom Disc System was for the Famicom. If it were to be released in 1990 or 89, it would have made some sense to have a CD-drive for the old bucket, but its late release , the surely complex setup (that would have plenty of bottle-necks ) and the price tag, in my view, were all reasons for nintendo rightfully deciding not to release the accessory.

Nintendo's biggest mistake lay in the fact that they backstabbed sony really, because the then president of Sony would have it the whole thing die since he wasn't interested in the games market to boot.

Esentualy what barc0de said mixed in with a little N64 DD to prove the same point (costly, late in the consoles life).

Address spacing has never been an issue. Even in old systems where they could only address so much on a cart, they would expand the size still by using bank switching. The snes in no way would need to address more then 24bit in the first place. It would just need to do 2-3 instructions to write the CD offset and tell it to load into buffer X in memory addressed space.

[Barc0de]

if addressing space was an issue, you wouldn't get CD-based SNES backup kits for example, or GB/DS flashcarts etc. Abstraction layers can be used.

By the same coin, the x86 platform is limited in memory addressing, and that's the reason it started using Extended Memory for example.

[Shadowlayer]

Nah, piracy wasnt a problem, the SnesCD used this permanent cases in the CD like MDs do, with a memory/antipiracy chip to add more safety. They called it Nintendo Disk.

The thing is that if the popularity was big enough somebody would do a pirate version of course, but at the time CDR drives were already rare and expensive, so a pirate version of the ND (with an emulated chip) would be so costly that it would makes pirated games expensive, and therefore there would be no reason to use them at all.

[Maks]

if addressing space was an issue, you wouldn't get CD-based SNES backup kits for example, or GB/DS flashcarts etc. Abstraction layers can be used.

Actually the CD-ROM back-up unit isn't really a fair comparision as those files are not accessed at all directly by the SNES. It's the backup unit accessing the files and placing them into the copier's memory. The SNES has no idea there's a CD-ROM hooked up.

[Barc0de]

the same goes for the SNES CD to some extent, or else it wouldn't need a System Cartridge hooked in the top cart. drive.

[Maks]

I would assume the SNES would have the ability to determine it needs a file, then ask another device to retrieve it. In the case of a copier, the SNES itself doesn't request files, the copier does. That's the difference as I see it. In the case of the SNES CD, it would be aware of the device and query it, or tell something else to query it.

[Barc0de]

well the SNES , without knowing it, makes the copier query in the same manner that the SNES without knowing it would make the System Cart access and query the SNES-CD.

In both cases, the SNES does not have native control or logical understanding of the expansion device's existence. It relies on an abstraction layer, which in the case of the SNES is found inside the System Cart.

The only difference between the two is found in the type of commands issued (the copier presenting a single file, whereas the SNES CD actively looking for more files, on the command of its software nevertheless), but the mechanism is the same, and indeed it's 'just another cartridge' for all the SNES knows, in both cases.

[ccovell]

I think it has a lot to do with all the Japanese companies jockeying for the dominant position by releasing (or usually just announcing) a peripheral that copies their competitors'. I think when you look back at all the released/unreleased peripherals (disk drive, BASIC, modem, downloadable content, CD unit), you see a lot of companies announcing a similar unit at the same time as their competitors have announced or released theirs, thereby taking the wind out of the sales [pun intended] of the unit being released.

The way I see it, Nintendo wanted to slow sales of the MSX by releasing their disk system, BASIC, and keyboard. I don't know who came up with the idea of the modem first, but Nintendo released a useless modem for the Famicom, then Sega released theirs. The public really didn't need these things, but the companies made them anyways...

Regarding CD, I don't know what to say. NEC had some great success with the PCE CD add-on, but perhaps Nintendo thought it was a gimmick and not worth the investment in time and technology.

[Barc0de]

piracy, royaltees and transfer speed were also issues that barred the n64 from officially supporting CDs as its main storage medium.

It should be known that nintendo was seriously considering CDs early in the n64's design - the low speed of transerred data however would not do justice to their (relatively) fast processor and co-processor - let's not forget that streaming of PSX-titles came much later on, with games such as Apocalypse, starring Bruce Willis (lame)

[Taucias]

They shelved the Super CD because of greed. It made them extremely late to the multi-media party and by the time they got there they saw it was a let down so didn't bother knocking.

[karsten]

Nah, piracy wasnt a problem, the SnesCD used this permanent cases in the CD like MDs do, ...

untrue, the very first plans the idea of plastic cased discs was scrapped

[ASSEMbler]

no supression

Nintendo just wasn't willing to give up it's per cartridge / manufacturing money
it made off developers.

It bit them in the ass and it's probably the worst decision they ever made.

[MottZilla]

The CDROM add-on would have been interesting if they had included into the system cartridge a powerful coprocessor chip. More powerful than those used in game cartridges like SA-1 or SuperFX. Something like SA-1 but faster with graphics decompression like the SDD1, hell if you could include the SuperFX's ability for primative 3D then it'd have been one hell of an add-on.

If SNES could have had a CD add-on as successful as PC-Engine's CD system, oh the wonderful games we could have gotten. :O

[karsten]

The CDROM add-on would have been interesting if they had included into the system cartridge a powerful coprocessor chip. More powerful than those used in game cartridges like SA-1 or SuperFX. Something like SA-1 but faster with graphics decompression like the SDD1, hell if you could include the SuperFX's ability for primative 3D then it'd have been one hell of an add-on.

If SNES could have had a CD add-on as successful as PC-Engine's CD system, oh the wonderful games we could have gotten. :O

by analyses on press news and official comunicates from nintendo, you can safely think that the snes cdrom would have a fast coprocessor able to make some 3d and clocked EXACTLY at the same speed as the Super FX chip.

check the snes cdrom topic for my intuition about that and other answers to other questions

[Shadowlayer]

untrue, the very first plans the idea of plastic cased discs was scrapped

Really? I thought that was in the final, since the article in EGM mentions it...