Exactly 23 years ago the world was about to hear the first signs that CD-i was going to an end. #onthisday in 1996 Philips announced the plan to close Philips Media and to discontinue CD-i as a platform. It would take another year before the process of closing down Philips Media was complete and another two years before CD-i vanished out of the stores and interest by the remaining CD-i enthusiasts. In the professional field CD-i was active until at least 2009 as we've seen in professional title development, but that was of course on a very small scale!
Philips mainly was about to stop any content related business. In 1986 Philips Media began its life as American Interactive Media (a combination of the formerly known Delaware and Polymedia). In 1992 the name was changed to Philips Interactive Media Corporation (PIMC), in 1995 it was changed to Philips Media. Every title being produced after may 1995, was showing the new introduction movie of Philips Media (the zooming blue philips logo), replacing the old one (the philips logo changing into a silver disc). In November 1998, the whole Philips Media business was handed over to Infogrames (known nowadays as Atari). Philips owned about 40% of it in 1995.
The process of closing down Philips Media took more than a year. Philips announced it to the press as following:
"Philips Media, an operating division of Philips Electronics N.V. based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, today announced that it has signed a letter of intent to transfer its multimedia software publishing and distribution activities to Infogrames Entertainment. Infogrames Entertainment, based in Villeurbanne, France, was already the European leader of interactive publishing and becomes with this transfer of Philips Media's activities, the strongest European entertainment company in interactive publishing an software distribution.
The combination of Infogrames Entertainment talents in publishing and development of interactive software titles and Philips Media's strength in European distribution will create a major company in the interactive entertainment industry. Philips Media and Infogrames Entertainment have been partners for many years.
They have jointly developed and produced many successful international interactive software titles, such as International Tennis Open, Chaos Control, Asterix, Marco Polo, Shaolin's Road. Philips Media became a major shareholder of Infogrames Entertainment in 1993 and has a seat on the board of Infogrames Entertainment. At the end of 1996, Philips Media has a 13.2% stake in Infogrames Entertainment. After completion of the current agreement, Philips will increase this minority stake in Infogrames Entertainment.
Richard de Lange, President & CEO of Philips Media stated: "We are now in a position to align ourselves with another strong European company. We have successfully restructured our US and European publishing organization last year and we have built up our distribution strengths by acquiring Bomico (Germany), Ecudis (France) and Leisuresoft (United Kingdom). This transfer of our assets is a natural extension of a very successful relationship with Infogrames Entertainment, which has matured over the past decade. Philips is pleased to contribute to the creation of a company that will be a major player in the fields of interactive multimedia worldwide."
According to Bruno Bonnell, Chairman and CEO of Infogrames Entertainment, "With this transfer Infogrames Entertainment strengthens its unique position in creation and publishing of interactive titles and is able to develop a pan-European distribution strategy. The long and rich relationship with Philips Media taught all of us to work together which is a guarantee of success."
