Matt Davies asked us the following: "Just out of curiosity, what in your opinion is the reason for Cd-I downfall? I think they tried to push more and more models into the market and it each bite of the cherry just kept on degrading their brand. On another note market force's, the sheer price of the games must have put people off and all the features that people just didn't use. It was almost too innovative for its time. I also think the power and popularity of rival playstation console played s huge part in its downfall. What do you think are the main reasons for its downfall?"
It's always speculation, but Philips CD-i was relatively weak compared to the competition. At that time, there were quite a few formats competing with each other. Maybe one mis-step was that Philips was kind of avoiding the games segment from the beginning and the specs of CD-i were not the best even at the launch of CD-i. The first 'mistake' was the long development time before introduction: The first public announcement of CD-i was in 1986, they probably started developing before that (1985?), but the first system was released in 1991. We've heard numerous developers who were active in the eighties on CD-i projects, but cancelled their efforts because CD-i was delayed just too much. Once it was released, the games that were available were just not that great compared to the competition (Nintendo, Sega). And while Philips was not positioning CD-i as a games machine, the public saw CD-i as a rival of Sega and Nintendo anyway. The extra bits, allowing video-cd's and multimedia & reference content, just didn't make the cut. The public Philips had it mind perhaps wasn't ready yet, preferred CD-ROM or VHS. Maybe they just wanted to do too much, lacking any focus. The CD-i was to replace everything. And while it was truely innovative and ahead of its time (first online features, first multimedia device for your tv, first digital video) - image is everything. And when the world sees CD-i is not cool, doesn't have triple-AAA exclusives, offers the top of the market, then it's done.
However, this is just our current view. CD-i member Fred Ingebritson tells us this: "Philips saw the CD-i as a success. The change to CD-MMC (as how the final CD-i players 660 and 670 were called in 1998/1999) at the time was in response to a major shift in the industry. Computers had become the number one rising home appliance and stayed so since the early nineties, adding the rise and spread of internet into the mix, Philips saw the staying focused on the disc was not it's only future. So the new dynamic was going to be an internet connected future with the box. Unfortunately the late nineties and early 2000 was a dog eat dog world in the computer industry and until the smart phone made it's dominance, the computer industry was flooded with innovations and corporate wars. So, rather than go by the way of the tried and fails, Philips decided to focus new trails in the health industry, which was why 1999 was the last year Philips competed in the entertainment industry.
The CD-i was not as bad as people "remember" it. Having been there, and lived it, the CD-i was a cheap set top box that not only played games, but also movies. The CD-i was growing and they had plans to expand it to the internet. However, the best way to survive the treacherous times was to find a new pasture."
[Thanks, Matt Davies, Fred Ingebritson. The top picture is from the book "Let's Make Things Better" by Marcel Metze, published in 1997]