King's Quest V SNES CD

King's Quest V for the SNES CD was a cancelled port of the game for the SNES CD.

Background

With it’s high quality stereo sound, high-color graphics, and even support of SNES mouse, and an SNES with a CD based technology would have been shoehorn for Sierra adventure games, and indeed Sierra had plans to convert a number of games over to planned SNES CD add-on.

Not long after Nintendo announced its plans to make a Super Nintendo CD-Rom technology, Sierra discussed possible plans to port King's Quest V and several other games over to the system/upgrade in an issue of InterAction Magazine.

...our resident rumor-monger, Johnnie Magpie, claims Sierra is ready to publish seven CD-ROM titles on Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo in 1992. No confirmation on the actual titles yet, hut King's Que* V does seem to top the list. Sierra doesn't have any plans to support the NEC TG-16 at this time, hut who knows. Watch these pages for more information. Sierra is serious about supporting what they consider viable platforms in the multimedia industry, for the big picture, read "Making Sense of Multimedia " in this issue.

The article discussed plans to convert the games to a number of popular consoles of the day to get access to console and wider audience and market share. At the time computers were niche market only available to a certain class of people. Sierra was not interested in making cartridges but willing to license series out to other companies that were interested (starting with the KQ1 on SMS by Milton Bradley, and later KQ5 on NES which was the best selling system at the time). Sierra wanted to focus on Multimedia CD conversions themselves.

"Back when I got started, which sounds like ancient history, back then the demographics of people who were into computer games, was totally different, in my opinion, then they are today. Back then, computers were more expensive, which made them more exclusive to people who were maybe at a certain income level, or education level. So the people that played computer games 15 years ago were that type of person. They probably didn’t watch television as much, and the instant gratification era hadn’t quite grown the way it has lately. I think in the last 5 or 6 years, the demographics have really changed, now this is my opinion, because computers are less expensive so more people can afford them. More “average” people now feel they should own one."-Roberta Williams

Retail sales of personal computer-based games grew only 28.5% between 1987 and 1988, according to Stamford, Conn.-based Software Industry Bulletin, the newsletter of the Digital Information Group. Retail sales of video games such as those used for the Nintendo Entertainment System, on the other hand, grew 100% between 1987 and 1988, partially due to a strong Christmas. To PC games publishers, the disparity is alarming...."PCs will never have the penetration into homes that video games do," says Davis. Nintendo sets, which sell for $99.95 with a game pack, are far cheaper and easier to use.

Here’s one thought on why MS-DOS might be doing so well, and this one takes some thinking about. It’s you and us. Take away Sierra’s revenue from the MS-DOS entertainment segment and even this market was essentially flat! My sense is that Nintendo does some kinds of games better than any personal computer and that, with the exception of Sierra (and a few others), the software industry just didn’t do enough product which demonstrates the power of a computer when compared with a video game. Perhaps as Sierra moves our enhanced SCI products to non-MS-DOS machines over the next year, we can get some much deserved momentum going for these other computers.

In 1983, a company called Nintendo introduced the Family Computer into the Japanese market. In America, we call it the NES. It's central processor is the same 6502 processor that drives the Apple II...Why has Nintendo been so successful in penetrating almost every household with children in the U.S. and Japan? It's cheap, easy-to-use, and every cartridge sold runs on every Nintendo sold. Computers aren't cheap, easy-to-use, or very standard.

Sierra made the point that as far as hardware was concerned (and consoles in general);

Sega or Nintendo: limited memory and computing power but graphics hardware which allows for special effects which computers can't do. For instance, the scrolling in Super Mario or Sonic is almost impossible on an IBM. Action games are better on video game systems. FRP type games seem to run well on both systems.

They hoped that CD-Add-ons would get around these limitations.

Sierra would bring up their interest in SNES CD technology in several magazine issues.

Editor's Note: Do the initials MPC, CDI, CDTV, VIS, SEGA, NES, SNES or 3D0 mean anything to you? Should you care? Ken Williams, President and founder of Sierra On-Line Inc. tries to make some sense of the alphabet soup that represents interactive entertainment today.

Nintendo 8-bit cartridges can still be found but are fading away quickly. The Super NES is todays dominant Nintendo machine. A CD-ROM drive is now available for the Sega and is expected in the next year for the Super NES. The Super NES and the Sega Genesis are both great systems. I have favorite games on each of them.

I predict that within two years almost all games and educational products will be sold on a CD, regardless of whether the game runs on a computer or a video game system. In other words, if you want to stick with your IBM, Sega or SNES, and want to be able to run the hottest new games, plan on spending money to buy a CD-ROM drive upgrade. On an IBM this will run you around $500. For a Sega it'll cost around $300. Nintendo hasn't shipped theirs yet, but my guess is that it will be similar in cost to Sega's.

Both Sega and Nintendo have promised to ship inexpensive CD units that hook up to their 16- bit game systems.

Any discussion of Nintendo and Sega in the multimedia market is pretty much speculative at this point. Both of these Japanese giants have made public comments about coming consoles or add-ons to current equipment, but in reality no one exactly knows what the true potential of these manufacturers will be in the market.

The argument could be made that those most interested in multimedia will want to do productive things with their machines, and therefore the game console offerings will have limited potential in the U.S. But Sega and Nintendo are marketing machines and have sold umpteen-million game consoles.

The first iteration of a 16-bit Nintendo multimedia machine has not yet been released, but it was shown for the first time at the Summer '91 Consumer Electronics Show. Final pricing wasn't quoted, and the software that would take advantage of the machine isn't complete, but a few ready points on the Nintendo with CD are very illuminating.

The Nintendo is a game machine and not a computer. No keyboard, no mass storage device is included. Whether you consider that to be a pro or con is a personal choice, but the lack of the mass storage and keyboard could hinder the development of productivity software and some educational applications.

Also, there seems to be some controversy brewing about exactly who will be making the CD ROM drive for the Nintendo System. At the Summer CES show, Philips and Sony both claimed to have been given the project by Nintendo. Whether this was inspired negotiating by Nintendo (roping two major electronics makers to develop the hardware) or a case of Nintendo's left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing is still unclear, but what is clear is that there will be two incompatible hardware standards for the Nintendo CD ROM unit. This alone could cause the Nintendo multimedia entry major problems. Add on the fact that most of the other multimedia platforms will beat Nintendo to the stores and Nintendos success possibilities begin to dim.

Development

Nintendo actually planned several versions of SNES CD (before eventual cancellations) with both Sony and Panasonic with Nintendo backing out of each company before it could be released.

• The first was simply an 16-bit add-on to the SNES by Sony.
• The second was also an 16-bit add-on to the SNES by Phillips (some of these ideas made it into the Phillips CDI, and gave them licenses to Hotel Mario, and three Zelda CDI games).
• The last was a 16-bit console by Sony marketed as the "Sony Playstation" (some fans dub this the "Nintendo Playstation") which contained Sony branded versions of SNES controllers, and a slot for the cartridges along with the CD Slot (Sony would reuse this name for the later 32bit system also known as the PSX/PSOne.) Nintendo had backed out of the development since Sony wanted to take over branding, and rights to the CD media, and more or less attempting a hostile take over of Nintendo brand.

Since the CDI became its own thing Sierra had plans to develop a version for it as well.

See also

• King's Quest V FM-Towns
• King's Quest V (NES)
• King's Quest V Sega CD
• King's Quest V VIS
• KIng's Quest V CDI
• King's Quest V 3DO