Consoles are often released with a gamepad, but Philips positioned the CD-i closer to PC and also released the CD-i mouse as a common peripheral

One of the plus sides of the CD-i is that the mouse is a common pointing device. It is an often returning discussion why gaming consoles (up to this day) are delivered with a gamepad or joystick. While on the other hand, since its very start, PC's are mostly played with keyboard and mouse. Philips clearly positioned the CD-i closer to PC and wanted to combine both PC and console into the 'perfect multimedia machine'. All consumer CD-i models were bundled with an innovative thumbstick, but both the trackball and the mose were standard peripherals to buy.

Several CD-i games are played much easier and better with the use of the mouse (or even trackball), like all the American Laser Games (Mad Dog McCree and others), but also Thunder in Paradise, The 7th Guest and Creature Shock. I even find games like Alien Gate to work better with a mouse.

The 7th Guest on CD-i was very suitable to play with the CD-i mouse

Philips released a dark grey CD-i mouse as peripheral to the consumer. But this one is also a CD-i mouse (as can be seen from the dots on the buttons), it was sold for use with the white-coloured professional CD-i players.

Philips used a similar design mouse for its PCs in that time under the model NMS1146 (without the dots and with a light coloured mouse pad with the same stripe pattern). All of them were built by Kun Ying Enterprises (known from the Genius brand). Also, the PCB of the white mouse (KY900032) differs slightly to the PCB of the dark grey mouse (KY900042). It has some free space for additional components (e.g. a chip and two more buttons).This mouse pad has the light coloured stripe pattern on the back, by the way.