CD-i member Blazers bought this Japanese CD-i 205 player by Philips, which gives away some more details about the marketing strategy of Philips in Japan. As what we've seen more in Japanese flyers, the CD-i hardware was positioned as 'Super Home Media', perhaps a bit as how Philips marketed CD-i as 'The Imagination Machine'. Interesting to see that Philips used the Marantz channels to put this on the market, obviously as Marantz is a lot more well known in Japan compared to Philips in that time, and Philips was 100% owner of Marantz in 1990. Still the player itself is branded Philips as Philips' strategy was to strengthen the Philips brand in areas outside Europe, that's why they also released Philips CD-i (Next to Magnavox CD-i) in USA.
Some interesting details pop up here. First, there is a sticker on it stating “This apparatus has been assembled with piece parts from the trial-run and thus not intended for measurement as it don’t meet the requirements of the specifications“
Again this is seen on all other Philips CD-i hardware in Japan, which still feeds our thought how far the introduction of CD-i in Japan really went. With this sticker on it, it is reasonable to think this player was made before the introduction of this player in 1991. This player is a CD-i 205/11 - The sublabel is typical to Japan.
CD-i member cdifan about the trial run sticker:"A remark about the "trial run" sticker: I have seen this before. Philips apparently did a "trial run" of DV cartridges or parts of them for production calibration and when they were done there were a lot of parts left, many of them apparently "out of spec". They assembled some of these into working cartridges and I think they were then sold or given to insiders, typically Philips employees, probably for free or a reduced price. To avoid any later complaints, these stickers were put on. Basically, "have fun with this, but if it breaks, we cannot help you"."The sticker pertains only to the DV cartridge, there is nothing "risky" about the rest player."