Talk:CD-i

message: This para removed, having little in common with this list of models:
:The Philips CD-i system came in four models: the CD-i 450, which was the "video game CD-i", the CD-i 210, which was the common multimedia version, the CD-i 220, which was the full featured top model and the CD-i 550, which was basically a 450 with the Digital Video Cartridge installed plus it came with an arcade pad.
Dtcdthingy 03:21, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Models

message: As far as the loophole, I've heard it numerous times, and when I get home from work I'll take a look into finding a trustworthy source on it, because I don't believe Nintendo willingly let them do it, but they were allowed to based on the language of the contract. --Visual77 20:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I know from reading old video game magazines, Nintendo and Sony split ways, then Nintendo went to Philips, because the CD-i was already in development. Nintendo then assured, in some random blurt in a random issue of Nintendo Power in 1992, that Nintendo's CD-ROM unit would be 100% compatible with CD-i. Now what does that mean? Nintendo didn't do a damn thing about the four "Nintendo" games released on CD-i, and I remember if somebody called 1-800-255-3700 and asked the rep about CD-i, before Nintendo split with Philips and went with SGI for Project Reality, they were giving info out that those games were approved or whatever. Anyways, it's been too long to really remember. I suggest just getting a bunch of old-ass magazines from the era and carefully reading the news and previews sections, maybe even gossip, and see what and who said what. Coffee5binky (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah originally Nintendo and Sony worked on a CD-ROM extension for the Super Nintendo, but Nintendo cancelled in late stage of development as they couldn't agree about split of profits. Then Nintendo went to Philips for a CD-Rom option and there the CD-I came from and also the fact that you had Nintendo IP themed games, Like Hotel Maria and Zelda game. And then Sony released few years after Playstation 1 with CD use, while Nintendo used still cartridges with Nintendo 64. 2001:1C03:4918:A100:2895:BC7B:930A:D90D (talk) 19:07, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: The Loophole

message: Well, the emulator entry sure links to a lot of them.  In general, content providers may claim that emulators themselves are illegal, but it's my understanding that at least in the US, distributing emulators is legal, since they don't infringe on copyright.  Distributing the ROMs is, however, illegal, which is why  doesn't provide any.  -- Dwiki 19:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was stunned by the lack of mention of any emulators, so I added a subsection (while making other edits). Sadly the only discussion of emulator details is on unreliable web sites. -- Skierpage (talk) 07:25, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Linking to emulators

message: I removed the line stating "The most popular games for the system were The 7th Guest and Burn: Cycle." Unless there's a verifiable source, this seems to be inherently biased. Genocidal 01:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Most popular games

message: While Philips did dabble with the idea of expanding into the edutainment market, there was never a presumption that they would compete with Nintendo or Sega. At best there was the idea of competing with the 3DO as a multi-media appliance (or as Pioneer called it, "in­teractive home-entertainment system") in the high-end market, and a limited number of games were presented at tradeshows to round out the platform library. This was a way to sell their video platform to the affluent A/V consumer by adding the pitch tha their video system is better because your children can use it for their entertainment as well. In 1995 the home entertainment market was very segmented with multiple stratas  of competition. While it's easy in hindsight to blanket them all into the "video game market", as  vertical market players, in reality they were horizontal market players that crossed into the space to increase their feature lists.
These catagories of systems were generally never even marketed on the whole as game machines. They were attempts at driving a home video format/player when it was preceived that the killer ap to sell your video player was including the ability to do other things than play movies. Pioneer attempted to enter this market as well with the model CLD-A100 LaserDisc player which had Genesis/PC Engine AND karaoke expansion capabilities. But even then, that system was marketed as a LaserDisc player with these extra enhanced features. The Nuon was originally planned as an enhanced DVD player that *also* played games and would eventually have internet access. The Pippen was a home Internet appliance that *also* played games. Heck my Palm Pilot plays games but that doesn't make it a game machine.
In 1995 the replacement for VHS was the killer ap everyone was searching for. Everyone wanted to show you how great a movie looked on their player first followed by "oh and by the way it will play games too!" But that didn't make any of these systems video game consoles.
Personally I think that it's questionable having CD-i in the cvg comparison listings, and at best it should have it's own side catagory. BcRIPster 02:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is wrong to describe in the summary that the CD-i was the biggest commercial failure for game consoles, because it was not from the start intended as only a game console. It should be toned down. Andries (talk) 07:57, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I just removed the whole sentence. I personally take odds with GamePro's dubious classification for the system. BcRIPster (talk) 15:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: was also officially promoted as a multimedia system, as you could also run movies, pictures and music. 2001:1C03:4918:A100:2895:BC7B:930A:D90D (talk) 19:10, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notion of the CD-i platform as being a game machine. 

message: If I am not wrong, this console the CDi, was one of the first cd based consoles releaced on the market and this should be included in the article. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No joy? Give us a bell on wether or not the Phillips CDi is one of the first CD based consoles asap. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 14:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it was. Andries (talk) 20:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's not just go on belief though. Someone should confirm release dates. The real challenge here though and what I suspect you're getting at is it being the first cd-based videogame console? If not, then how are you defining console? So with that said, how do we factor in that it wasn't re-purposed as a videogaming console until 1994 at the earliest? If you take it from that approach then it is possibly the last cd based gaming console for that generation. BcRIPster (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

text: No it was a multimedia system oficially. still home entertainment, like gaming consoles are. 2001:1C03:4918:A100:2895:BC7B:930A:D90D (talk) 19:11, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: One of the first cd based home consoles

message: I've just removed the following unsourced and unclear statements from this article:
"What is little realized or understood is that Philips and Sony made large sums of money of the patents pioneered with CDi, and these patents carried over to many other formats, so all of the efforts were both product centric and also pioneering research to helped us get where we are today."
"What it is important to know is that Philips and others filed so many patents from the CDi development that enormous revenues were generated. For those who actually understand the economics of the compact disc evolution, it is useful to understand that large continuing revenue streams were created that were not calculated into the typical reporting or understanding."
If these statements can be sourced and elucidated, it would be better to place them in the Green Book (CD standard) article. 66.18.219.221 (talk) 13:51, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed statements

message: I've also removed the merge tags on this article and on the Green Book (CD standard) article.  There was no discussion present about this proposed merge anywhere that I could find, and no reasons were given for it back when the merge tags were added on March 16, 2013. 66.18.219.221 (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed merge tags

message: So, someone removed S-video from the "accessories" list. Granted they didn't ship with S-video cables, some systems did have S-video ports. It just wasn't universal and apparently the manual that is being demonstrated is for a model without the port (I didn't look at the manual myself). So... it probably doesn't belong under "accessories", but S-video and SCART should both be listed as an output formats supported on some models. We may need to rework that section of the page. BcRIPster (talk) 19:14, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  S-video support 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The October 1994 Desert News article says "According to Philips, there are one million CD-i owners worldwide." However, the GamePro article I've just added references a Wall Street Journal article which says Philips, in July 1996, claimed it had sold 200,000 CD-i units. Since both sources are unquestionably reliable, and the wording of the Desert News article rules out the idea that 1 million was a "shipped to retailers" figure, I can only think of two explanations for this discrepancy:
#Philips was outright lying in October 1994.
#Third-party manufacturers accounted for the lion's share of CD-i sales.
And I'm not really happy with either explanation. Sure, exaggerating your sales figures is part and parcel of the gaming hardware industry, but claiming sales more than five times what you've actually sold? (I say "more than", because the CD-i must have sold at least a few thousand units in the two intervening years.) If they could get away with a whopper like that in 1994, why didn't they stick to their story in 1996? As for explanation 2, given how much Philips invested in making the CD-i a success, it's hard to believe they could have been trounced that badly by their own licensees.
Ideas, anyone?--Martin IIIa (talk) 17:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It's our job to report the sources, and sometimes we can't totally reconcile them. Sometimes you can just say that sources vary, and one says this and the other says that.  So that's a lame answer but that's one idea, at minimum. — Smuckola(talk) 17:59, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, at first I thought the text implied that the 200,000 figure is worldwide, but double-checking it now I see that if anything it hints that the figure is US only. Here's the relevant text: "The WSJ called the CD-i a 'marketing nightmare' in the U.S., although Philips maintained that it had sold 200,000 units and would soon be integrating the system into a new digital video disc player." I really wish I could read the original article in the Wall Street Journal, but I checked online before starting this thread, and WSJ's archives only cover up through 1923. And unfortunately, GamePro doesn't identify which issue of WSJ it was, just that it was in July.--Martin IIIa (talk) 19:36, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

text: There's this: "CD-I sales help Microware: Worldwide sales of compact disc interactive players, an audio-video CD system partially invented by an Iowa software maker, doubled last year to about 200,000." The Gamepro article might very well be talking about an old number for yearly sales, not all time sales.--tronvillain (talk) 23:11, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait, where does that GamePro article mention the Wall Street Journal? And that version of the article appears to say 570,000 units. --tronvillain (talk) 23:35, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Just so you know, that GamePro article on worst-selling consoles has been thoroughly discredited, as several of the figures are verifiably wrong.  I think you are on to something though with the idea that the 200,000 units figure represented sales in a single year. Indrian (talk) 01:26, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it seems odd to describe the GamePro article as "unquestionably reliable." Anyway, here is a 1996 WSJ article on the CD-i, if anyone is able to access it.--tronvillain (talk) 14:04, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, found the full text of the GamePro blurb that has the above quote. It could be yearly sales, or US sales, or US yearly sales.--tronvillain (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

text: It's for the U.S. only. It not far from Phillips announced 100,000 U.S> sales the year/year and a half ewarlier. I also find it odd that this talk page has this conversation but someone place the words "but in July 1996 they said they had still sold only 200,000 units" as if that's a factual statement with consensus behind it. Removed. 71.178.34.108 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 14:17, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Between this and Talk: Gex (video game), it feels like lately I'm really coming under fire for reporting contradicting sales figures from reliable sources rather than just pretending the figure I don't like is from an unreliable source. For the record, here is my version of the text (minus the sources so as not to have a bunch of ugly footnotes at the bottom of the talk page): "In October 1994 Philips claimed an installed base of 1 million units for the CD-i, but in July 1996 they said they had still sold only 200,000 units." And prior to adding it, I started up the discussion here. 71.178.34.108, please explain how these actions constitute misrepresenting the facts and going against consensus. Your reasoning for removing the GamePro citation is also unclear to say the least; first you say that their figure is for the U.S. only (with no explanation for why you think that), immediately after you imply that the entire article is factually incorrect (again with no explanation for why you think that), and your edit removes that one specific citation, not the source entirely.--Martin IIIa (talk) 21:06, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at it again, I'd say that the sentence probably constitutes WP:SYN. Combining them like that implies that one necessarily contradicts the other, when the sentence reporting 200,000 units has "in the U.S." in its first half about marketing. Here we have reports of 400,000 units in 1994, and here and here we have over a million units in 1996. --tronvillain (talk) 21:39, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, I finally have access to the WSJ article that the GamePro article is apparently referencing (linked previously), and what it actually says is "More than one million Sony PlayStation game machines have been shipped to U.S. stores in less than a year, but Philips has sold a mere 400,000 CD-i units in this country in five years." It also says "Although Philips won't discuss its losses, many industry veterans think it dropped more than $1 billion on CD-i, a huge amount even in a business where new products regularly crash and burn." --tronvillain (talk) 22:22, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think think the word "but" always implies a necessary contradiction. Doesn't really matter, though, if GamePro made a crucial typo in reporting the WSJ figure. Would you be willing to edit the article to replace the GamePro figure and citation with the Wall Street Journal figure and citation? I don't have access to the WSJ article.--Martin IIIa (talk) 22:22, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The word "but" doesn't necessarily imply a contradiction, but in this context it's the implication that's likely to be drawn. But yes, I'll tweak the sentence and reference the WSJ. There's quite a bit of information in the WSJ article I can add. --tronvillain (talk) 22:40, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: There are multiple reliable sources placing higher numbers during that time period. The gamepro/WSJ article clearly refers to the U.S> as the context across the pages around it makes clear, therefore it makes no sense to add to the article "but Phillips claimed 200,000" especially since there's nowhere in the article that says or even implies the number comes directly from Phillips. 71.178.34.108 (talk) 18:45, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I've been meaning to substitute the WSJ info.  --tronvillain (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The detail that the 200,000 referred to only US sales is pertinent, but the idea that the GamePro source didn't quote the numbers as from Phillip's is a little silly. The exact text in the source is "Phillip's maintained", attributing the statement clearly to Phillips. -- ferret (talk) 22:16, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It contradicts Phillips own press release around the same time but that doesn't matter, the point is the 200,000 was US only and the issue has been resolved. 71.178.34.108 (talk) 14:28, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  CD-i sales get more confusing 

message: I think calling CD-i a standalone CD player or computer games system is wrong, because if you think about it CD-i (CD interactive) was in fact an optical disc format that was used by other manufacturers too other than Philips themselves. [This article] about CD-i's history explains how Philips owned it but other makers could license it. Others have also called this a 'format', like in [this link] and [this link]. In fact, [This website] which is all about CD-i lists the hardware products of CD-i and notice that there are non-Philips CD-i players too, like from GoldStar, LG, and Sony. Here for example is info about a Sony Discman CD-i player: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102662474.
:It's presence in the gaming community both from it's functionality and marketed presence I would say qualifies it as a gaming console.  Playing games on it was a focal feature, although it was established with the intention of a hybrid multimedia device and gaming device.  I think it is categorically respected as a video game console and the absence of it's presence would be less informative of the console climate in general.--47.208.18.49 (talk) 23:10, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right that this is misleading. I have made changes to solve this, see below. --Данасул (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

text: This article is primarily about the Philips CD-I system. It was also a format (Green Book, just as CD used Red Book and Video CD used White Book) but this article is about the systems (the article already mentions other manufacturers). The format itself was published, so in theory anyone could have released discs in the format, but Philips was reportedly reluctant to share the technical specifications of the system. --tronvillain (talk) 20:14, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we change CD-i to be a 'format'? 

message: I think the user above is very correct about the inaccuracy in this article. CD-i is indeed an optical disc format, licensed to other manufacturers - basically just like a normal CD, or VCD, or DVD. This source  even mentions how it's an open standard, like normal CD. Currently the article is presented in a way that makes the CD-i just the name of a games console hardware from Philips, which is not right. To solve this, I have just restructured the article, putting an infobox for the CD-i format modeled after the Compact disc or MiniDisc articles. The infobox for the hardware players I've kept and it's below in its respective section. --Данасул (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Restructured

message: Certain parts of the Wikipedia article state that the CD-i was discontinued in 1996, but other sections state that it was discontinued in 1998. Could we please settle on the proper date and reflect that across the article? Thanks.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18F:603:EE00:44A3:EFA2:C1B9:2D31 (talk) 22:55, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Clarification is needed but 1996 appears to refer to the US market while 1998 is the final discontinuation of the product line. -- ferret (talk) 23:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it 1996 or 1998? 

message: What about the logo? It has been famous and is used in old YTPs. unsigned comment added by Chiagozie Elobuike (talk • contribs) 16:31 9 June 2022 (UTC) Chiagozie Elobuike (talk) 22:31, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logo 

message: Someone that has CD-i media should scan and upload the underside of the disc, similarly to :File:Compact Disc.jpg. That is necessary especially as every CD variant looks a bit different including this one. Maybe it even belongs at the top here because this article is about the format and not about the Philips CDI910 system as the current picture shows. Sateystnes (talk) 01:17, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scan of CD-i disc