Squaresoft tried to convince Nintendo to use CDs for the N64

As many gamers know, back in the day, Nintendo went with cartridges for the N64 as its media format. In many ways, this ended up doing quite a bit of damage. That was especially so given that PlayStation ended up using CDs.

Why was this a big deal? For one thing, CDs had the ability to hold more data compared to the N64. They were also becoming the more popular medium at the time and were cheaper to produce. Nintendo’s decision also led to some struggles with third-parties including Squaresoft, which ended up moving Final Fantasy to the PlayStation.

On the topic of Squaresoft, it turns out that the company once tried to convince Nintendo to use CDs with the N64. That news comes from Shu Yoshida, who spent three decades with PlayStation.

Yoshida said in an interview with GamesBeat:

“I became the lead account manager for the Japanese publishers and developers. Our goal was to get all the major games in Japan to come to the PlayStation. At the time there were two big teams working with Nintendo, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. For the Japanese audience, those were the most popular games. When a new one came out you had long lines of customers waiting to buy them. It made the national news when a new Dragon Quest came out. There was controversy over kids calling out sick from school to stay home and play games.

Of course, initially they weren’t interested. They were close to Nintendo. But Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, loved the potential of CDs. His dream was to create a movie-like Final Fantasy game. He was disappointed when he learned that the Nintendo 64 still used cartridges. His movies couldn’t fit there. Squaresoft tried to convince Nintendo to change that plan, but they wouldn’t. They didn’t believe in CD-ROM at all. That’s why they licensed the Super Nintendo add-on project to Sony in the first place, because they believed CD-ROM was just too slow to ever make for a good game system.”

Last year, Sakaguchi said he feels like he cheated on Nintendo by going to PlayStation with Final Fantasy 7. You can read his full comments here.