# History of video games/Platforms/CD-i

* A Philips CD-i 220 with a controller attached.
* A Phillips CD-i 400 with a controller attached.

## History
### Pre-launch

As early as December 1987 the CD-i and the ambitious concept behind it was highly anticipated by some media outlets.

### Launch

The CD-i was launched in 1991. The platform was not marketed well early on, though a 1991 partnership with Nintendo on developing a CD-based add-on for the Super Nintendo gave Phillips the right to produce several games based on existing Nintendo game series.
From October 25th, 1995 to sometime around 2000, the CD-i could access an online service known as CD-Online.

### Legacy
#### System

Phillips stopped active development of the CD-i in 1996 and the system was discontinued in 1998, with between 570,000 and one million CD-i consoles sold worldwide.

#### Games

Mention of the CD-i Zelda games would often be omitted from official Nintendo retrospectives.

## Technology
### Computation

The CD-i was powered by a Motorola 68000 processor clocked at 15.5 MHz. This was a very common processor for this generation of consoles.
The CD-i had one megabyte of RAM. A digital video add-on cartridge added an additional 1.5 megabytes of RAM, as well as allowing the CD-i to decode MPEG-1 video. Finally the CD-i had eight kilobytes of persistent storage based on RAM, powered by a lithium battery, which is prone to failure from age.
At the time of release, the CD-i was seen as a low performance system with a design that was relatively easy to develop for.

### Hardware

The CD-i could read CD-ROM Green Book disks at 170 kilobits per second.
The CD-i runs a custom version of Microware OS9, a real-time operating system called CD-RTOS. The CD-i supported the CD-Online service, which required the use of an adapter cable, software disk, and a 14.4K dial-up modem.

## Notable games
### 1993
#### Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

An early counterpart game to Link: The Faces of Evil with a female protagonist, departing from Zelda-series norms to feature the titular Princess Zelda as the protagonist.
Read more about Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon on Wikipedia.

#### Link: The Faces of Evil

A counterpart game to Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.
The game attracted widespread internet notoriety again in early 2021, when an artist redrew the character Morshu using hyper realistic 3D Graphic techniques.
Read more about Link: The Faces of Evil on Wikipedia.

### 1994
#### Zelda's Adventure

The lesser known of the three Zelda games for the CD-i, it features live action cutscenes, perhaps the only Zelda-series game to do so. It also featured the titular princess as the protagonist, another departure from the typical Zelda-series formula at the time.
Read more about Zelda's Adventure on Wikipedia.

#### Hotel Mario

Read more about Hotel Mario on Wikipedia.

### 1996
#### RAM Raid

A notable early online FPS.

### 1997
#### Brain Dead 13

Read more about Brain Dead 13 on Wikipedia.

#### Burger King CD-i

Early game-based training software.

### 2022
#### Nobelia

Commercial homebrew game and platform exclusive released long after the CD-i was discontinued from the market.

### Cancelled
#### Super Mario's Wacky Worlds

A planned sequel to the SNES game Super Mario World. An incomplete version of the game eventually surfaced.
Read more about Super Mario's Wacky Worlds on Wikipedia.

#### Mario Takes America

Another canceled Mario game for the CD-i, with this title using a combination of real life photography and filming and overlaid 2D artwork.

## Gallery
### Consoles

* CDi 220 from the front right.
* CDi 220 from the back left.
* CDi 220 from the back right.
* CDI 910 front with controller attached. The controller has its direction stick unscrewed.
* CDI 910 rear showing IO and expansion socket. This console was made in Belgium.

### Controllers

* Paddle Controller
* Gamepad
* Roller Controller
* The CDi Mouse

### Remote controls
## References

* ↑ "Philips CD-i 490 - Game Console - Computing History". www.computinghistory.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
* ↑ "Vers un nouveau support : le CD-I Les charmes discrets de l'interactivité" (in fr). Le Monde. 1987-12-17. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1987/12/17/vers-un-nouveau-support-le-cd-i-les-charmes-discrets-de-l-interactivite_4079184_1819218.html.
* 1 2 Damien, McFerran (2017-03-09). "6 games console flops that gave gaming a bad name" (in en). TechRadar. https://www.techradar.com/news/6-games-console-flops-that-gave-gaming-a-bad-name. Retrieved 2020-10-25.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Hardware Classics: Uncovering The Tragic Tale Of The Philips CD-i". Nintendo Life. 2018-07-23. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
* 1 2 "Philips CD-Online - The Service Time Forgot (guest article by RetroDetect about the timeline of CD-i's Internet Kit and the CD-Online service)". Retrieved 2020-11-17.
* ↑ "The 10 Worst-Selling Consoles of All Time (page 2 of 2)". GamePro.com. 2007-11-03. Archived from the original on 2007-11-03. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
* 1 2 "Eiji Aonuma Addresses Those Horrible ‘Zelda’ CD-i Games". 3 December 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20131203072003/http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2013/09/19/eiji-aonuma-addresses-those-horrible-zelda-cd-i-games/.
* ↑ McFerran, Damien (20 September 2013). "Surprise! Aonuma Doesn't Consider The CD-i Zelda Games To Be Canon, Either". Nintendo Life. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/09/surprise_aonuma_doesnt_consider_the_cd_i_zelda_games_to_be_canon_either.
* 1 2 3 "Philips CD-i". Retro Gamer. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
* 1 2 "Video Game Console Library CDi". Video Game Console Library. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
* ↑ "First Steps in OS-9 on Philips CDI605T". Retrostuff. 2019-07-21. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
* ↑ "Random: Morshu From Link: The Faces of Evil Has Been Turned Into A 3D Animation". Nintendo Life. 2021-01-24. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/01/random_morshu_from_link_the_faces_of_evil_has_been_turned_into_a_3d_animation.
* ↑ "Forgotten Zelda NPC Is Horrifying In Full 3D". ScreenRant. 2021-01-26. https://screenrant.com/forgotten-zelda-npc-full-3d-cdi-horrifying/.
* ↑ "Zelda Fan Creates 3D Render of Morshu From Link: The Faces of Evil". Game Rant. 2021-01-25. https://gamerant.com/zelda-fan-creates-3d-render-morshu-link-faces-of-evil/.
* ↑ Whitehead, Thomas (16 March 2022). "Random: 'Zelda Meets Bomberman' In Nobelia, A New Philips CD-i Game". Nintendo Life. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/03/random-zelda-meets-bomberman-in-nobelia-a-new-philips-cd-i-game.
* ↑ Zell-Breier, Sam (2021-01-07). "The Embarrassing Mario Games That Ended Up On Philips CD-I". Looper.com. https://www.looper.com/308532/the-embarrassing-mario-games-that-ended-up-on-philips-cd-i/.
* ↑ "Some Mario Games Just Can't Be Played Properly Anymore". Nintendo Life. 2018-05-19. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/05/feature_some_mario_games_just_cant_be_played_properly_anymore.
* ↑ "The Cancelled Mario Game that was Taken Away by a Bank in Canada". Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!. 15 September 2014. https://www.unseen64.net/2014/09/15/mario-takes-america-cdi-cancelled/.