Ill-fated Nintendo PlayStation’s first game was a space shooter, says former exec Shuhei Yoshida
The legendary, unreleased Nintendo PlayStation was due to get an unnamed 2D space shooter as its first game – and the project was almost finished.
It’s well-documented how Sony and Nintendo first partnered on an ill-fated disc drive add-on for the SNES – a project that ultimately resulted in Sony launching the PlayStation as its own console. But in a new interview with MinnMax, former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida discussed playing the prototype Nintendo PlayStation system for the first time.
The first game everyone played, said Yoshida, was a 2D (or 2.5D) space shooter with assets streamed from the disc to offer richer graphics than had been seen at the time.
Yoshida compared the graphics to Silpheed developed by Game Arts that was released on Sega’s Mega CD and used pre-rendered animation as a full motion video background.
Yoshida said he doesn’t remember who developed or directed the game, though he wouldn’t be surprised if the game still existed in Sony’s archives on a CD.
As the Nintendo PlayStation was never released – and only one prototype seemingly still exists – Yoshida’s comments are the only snippet we have of what kind of games players could have expected from the system.
Speaking of Nintendo, Yoshida also thought the Switch 2 announcement could have been a “larger reveal”. “I am surprised there are not many surprises,” he said, adding that the mouse controller was the only real shock.
The mouse functionality is something Yoshida can see being used for FPS games, he said. “But hopefully because it’s Nintendo they’ll use it in some more weird, bizarre, amazing way,” he continued. “Something people wouldn’t anticipate.”
Yoshida hopes Nintendo Switch 2’s full reveal in April will show us something new that’s still hidden to us about the console.
Yoshida left PlayStation last month after over 30 years at Sony.
He’s since been discussing his time at the company and, in a previous interview, discussed how the PS Vita almost had Switch-like capabilities.
