While Pac-Panic on CD-i was specifically ported by Philips Research and not by Namco themselves, it was actually part of a combined promotional campaign, advertizing the Mega Drive, Game Boy and CD-i version in one advertisement. We've never seen this before. It is a French advertisement. "Pac est de retour... et il a les crocs!" is on the top. "Maintenant disponible sur Mega Drive, Gameboy et CD-i"
Shared by Facebook/twitter member IEUFunjeuvideo: "Retour en 1993 ! Publicité française pour le jeu Pac-Panic, développé par Namco pour les consoles SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Game Boy, GBC et la fameuse Philips CD-I. Pour plus de vieilles publicités: https://facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1024459101057876&type=1&l=3257c5ff66"
I think it is remarkable to see this in a combined advertisement, especially as there is the Philips logo on it, and they didnt publish the gameboy and Megadrive versions if i remember correctly. Are these the only versions that carry the name Pac-Panic? I know for example the SNES version was called Pac-Attack, but technically it was the same name. Why would they have changed it?
This poster above was published in a French gaming magazine, posted in 2019 by IEUFunjeuvideo and spotted by CD-i member Omegalfa in 2020. It is a combined promotion of the Sega Mega Drive version, the Philips CD-i version and the Nintendo Game Boy version of Pac-Panic. The Philips logo is on the bottom right and Philips Media is printed on the left. When we have a close look at the boxarts of the Game Boy and Mega Drive version we can find that these versions were also distributed by Philips Media, that is pretty interesting. We don't know any other cross-platform advertisements like this or examples that Philips Media distributed console versions of other games next to their own CD-i platform. This was probably part of a license deal between Namco and Philips and it may be the reason why Pac-Panic exists next to Pac-Attack, as for example the SNES version was called.
[Thanks, IEUFunjeuvideo]