this made so much sense, SONY's PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE FUQU to its "BFF" Nintendo
Two decades ago, Sony and Nintendo were prepared to partner on a CD-ROM drive for the SNES. *Things went sour. The deal fell apart. And Sony went their own way, eventually launching the PlayStation and paving their own path to success.
Today, the two companies almost seem like best friends. BFFs! And as a dedicated best friend, Sony has decided to do everything that Nintendo does.
Take last night, for example. Sony shared the news that you'll be able to remotely play PlayStation 4 games on your Vita. "Say you're in the middle of an epic battle on PS4, but your kids have just taken over the living room," said Gaikai's Dave Perry as he took the stage to talk about the system's remote play feature. "What do you do?"
The answer? Turn off your TV and play it on the second screen in your hands. Aw! Just like the Wii U! Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, after all, and Sony does want to flatter their buddy Nintendo. Perry didn't add anything about Sony's respect for the Nintendo Wii U—which has a tablet controller that lets you play games on the second screen in your hands—but the message was implied. It was a love letter to Nintendo.
Of course, last night was simply the latest symbol of Sony's undying love for the Mario makers. Remember the PlayStation Move? Sony wanted to honor Nintendo's Wii so much that they released their own version of the Wii controller with a ball on the end. In Japanese culture, balls represent love.
Nevermind that Nintendo accused Sony of stealing their ideas. They're friends! Right? Friends! Would you steal from your best friend?
And what of last fall? Knowing that Nintendo had no plans to release a mascot fighter or kart racer, Sony decided to release their own mascot fighter and kart racer, helping fill the void with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, their Smash Bros, and LittleBigPlanet Karting, their Mario Kart. Imagine how pleased Nintendo must have been when they realized they wouldn't even have to release their own games last year. They could all go on vacation.
Sony loves Nintendo so much, they even draw up ideas that nobody will ever see, like the Vita's "Near" application, a loving tribute to the 3DS's Street Pass function. Sony rarely talks about this function, and most Vita owners have no clue that it exists, which brings a tear to my eye. Sony's love for Nintendo knows no bounds.
It's rare to see this kind of camaraderie in the cutthroat industry of video games, so to Sony and Nintendo I say kudos. May you stay best friends forever.
*for the above article to make sense read this:
HISTORY OF HOW THE PLAYSTATION WAS BORNThe first conceptions of the PlayStation date back to 1986. Nintendo had been attempting to work with disc-based technology since the Famicom, but the medium had problems. The Famicom Disk System's rewritable magnetic discs could be easily erased (thus leading to a lack of durability), and they lacked any sort of copy protection, thus were vulnerable to piracy. Consequently, when details of CD-ROM XA (which had neither of those problems) were released to the public, Nintendo was interested. Simultaneously developed by Sony and Philips, CD-ROM/XA was an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual, and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was signed, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of the PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.[13]
Sony also planned to develop a Super Nintendo-compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super Nintendo cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CDs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.
The DualShock controller.
The product, dubbed the "Play Station" was to be announced at the May 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly canceled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, at 9 am the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknownst to Sony, flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.
After the collapse of the joint project, Sony considered halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what they had developed so far and make it into a complete, stand-alone console. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in U.S. federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of what was originally christened the "Play Station", on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the aforementioned brand new game system was revealed. However, it is theorized that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.[citation needed]
PlayStation Memory Card.
By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached a deal whereby the "Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. However, Sony decided in early 1993 to begin reworking the "Play Station" concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. As part of this process the SNES cartridge port was dropped and the space between the names "Play Station" was removed becoming "PlayStation", thereby ending Nintendo's involvement with the project
