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[Bas]

I didn't expect this story to get a lot of bad remarks, some of which I feel are too 'loose' and have no arguments in his defense. So I moved that part to here, where you can fluently bash about it all you like.

Read the original story here.


by: Anonymous:
"Quite a senseless discussion, because it's just hot air. Who is that supposed ex CD-i developer who claims to have worked for ICDIA, and were are the development documents? He remained anonymous and never proved what he said. Furthermore, a "potential application" is something that could be done on a system as a side-effect, not something the system was designed for. "

And next:

"The guy who's currently active on many forums claiming to be an ex-dev and that the CD-i was DESIGNEDd for games (which is simply wrong) remains anonymous and never showed the documents he claims to have. I asked who that guy is, and where the proof for his statement is, but it seems such reasoned questions aren't allowed.

I'm also very shocked that people these days are seemingly too stupid to distinguish between 'designed for games' and 'games as a potential application'. Seems like the internet lowers everyone's IQ.

Finally, if the CD-i was indeed DESIGNED for games, then congrats for running a blog about the worst piece of gaming hardware ever made. The CD-i always had the excuse of not being made for games.

So long "

OK, I removed a few insulting parts which is basically why I deleted them from the blog. But I'd like to give his view a chance! It's funny to stay anonymous because I never get a chance to talk back. I guess, although 'Anonymous" claims the same thing the other way around, that he confuses the difference between 'designed for games' and 'games as a potential application'.
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Interactive Dreams | The Black Moon Project

[Devin]

I think it's quite evident that gaming was an after thought that Philips regrets. After all the most units of software shifted for CD-i was gaming related!

[cdoty]

The lack of some form of gaming hardware (sprites or tiles) is an odd choice for a game system around that time period.

There are a few systems, from the time period, that didn't have dedicated hardware. The Atari ST and Archimedes both lacked any type of sprites or tiles, and didn't have a blitter.

Maybe Philips figured with a processor twice as fast as the Atari ST, and an 8 bit linear video buffer, developers could write games as good for the cd-i. This also gave it the flexibility to realize the 'promises' of the cd-rom.

Could the focus on training/learning systems have caused the down playing of games?

Could the gaming crash, in the US, have played into initially not labeling it as a game machine?

It would be interesting to see the initial designs and the announcement designs, and compare them against the released product. This would give some clues as to how computers and game systems released affected the design, or if they did at all.
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[Bas]

early statements I found in the press and from ex-employees tell that Philips didn't want to compete with the likes of Nintendo and Sega. They predicted a large future in the 'edutainment' and movie segment. It was remarkably positioned towards an 'older' audience, where Nintendo and Sega clearly focused on the youth of "hard core" gaming. Apparently after slow sales Philips realized that the only profit they got was caused by the games.
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Interactive Dreams | The Black Moon Project

[Devin]

I recently bought a book introducing CD-i published way back in 1989.

The consumer market actually illustrated was a middle class 40 something on a dull afternoon with nothing better to do but play a golf or maybe baseball game via the invention of interactive TV! In retrospect it is quite comical but back then this was serious stuff. Personally I'd rather spend $20 on a bat and ball than $1,000 on a CD-i player if I was the 40 something during the 90's