“Shuhei Yoshida Reflects on the Nostalgic Journey of Sony’s First ‘SNES PlayStation’ Game”

Wow, Shuhei Yoshida has genuinely brought us the Nintendo stories of today, hasn’t he? In the latest episode of the Minnmax podcast, the former PlayStation executive began to reflect on the early stages of his career at Sony, recalling the moment he had the chance to play the company’s initial title for the legendary ‘SNES PlayStation’ — the CD-ROM enhancement that never truly materialized.

We’re sure you know the tale, but to summarize, Nintendo had consented to collaborate with Sony on the SNES disk expansion, yet the Big N secretly maneuvered behind the partner’s back and revealed its plan to work with Phillips just moments before Sony was set to announce the console. Talk about drama, right?

Before the notorious betrayal could even unfold, however, Sony was already developing video games for the partnership. The first game, as Yoshida recalls, was a home shooter reminiscent of the SEGA CD shmup Slipheed. According to the former PlayStation executive, the game was “almost complete” and showcased “superior graphics for that era” due to assets being streamed from the CD.

Unfortunately, Yoshida can’t recall the title of the game or the development team behind it (not even if it was made in the US or Japan), though he mentioned that he “wouldn’t be shocked” if a copy still existed within Sony’s archives. Come on, Sony, take a look, will ya?

As noted by Gameranx, VGDensetsu managed to provide even more details on BlueSky, stating that Yoshida’s description aligns with “Fortessa [/Forteza], a shmup made by Epic Sony and (co-?)developed by System Sacom”. It’s an obscure title, we must admit, but the descriptions definitely seem to correspond.

According to a forum post shared on VGDensetsu’s Tumblr back in 2018, Fortessa was intended to be an “exclusive for the SNES CD and might have been a potential pack-in”, featuring “FMV backgrounds combined with sprite-based graphics”. The new forum poster claimed they were on a quest to locate a video of the game, although the post has since been removed, leaving it unclear whether the footage was ever found.

Fortessa or not, there’s something quite fascinating about hearing the former executive discuss taking the ‘SNES PlayStation’ for a spin — how many people can say they’ve done that?

For the PlayStation’s 30th anniversary last year, former Sony executive Shawn Layden chatted with Eurogamer about the collaboration that never came to fruition, describing the betrayal.