Philips CD-i (CDI) - Fourth VideoGame Generation Recap - Adam Koralik 

You're like a history teacher that teaches history that I actually care about.

The CD-I is worth it just for The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe.

On behalf of everybody in the Netherlands, we are sorry for the Philips CD I. Every nation has his dark history, this is ours.

The story of, essentially the birth of the PlayStation never gets old. I always want to find out more about what happened, although I think this time you pretty much covered all the aspects of it.

One of the reasons CD-i is fairly easy to find in europe is because many if not all driver's eds had one. The concept of interactive pics, video, along with voiceovers was just a perfect fit.

"They intended for it to be an all in one living room device" so what you're saying is it was the Xbox One of 91?

I just recently discovered your RU-vid page and have been going through your console history videos. I must say that you are very, very concise and easy to follow. Thank you for all the information and presenting it in a fun and entertaining way

15:35 That's actually identical to a Gravis PC controller. For all but the DIN style cable output. Gravis was hired by Philips to make them with the CD-i branding. There was another controller released after this one as well.

There’s another CD-i controller which is similar to a Genesis 3-Button Controllers

There was a great platformer on CD-i called The Apprentice that I used to play all the time check it out it looked amazing almost like Rayman before Rayman was a game, super colorful. Also Burn cycle was one of the best sci fi mystery games with very good fmv and music

Hi Adam, the reason Magnavox made one is rather simple: Magnavox is Philips: "In 1974, the Magnavox Company was acquired by Philips, and all Philips consumer electronics in the US under the Norelco name began rebranding them under the Magnavox name; Philips acquired the similar-sounding company Philco in 1981, and Philips was able to freely use the Philips name, alternating with the Magnavox name for some electronics, with the personal care business continuing to use the Norelco name."

Knowing that the CD-I was an all in one media platform, it can kinda be seen as a precursor to the 7th and 8th gen consoles.

Hi adam im glad you fleshed out more details ahout the phillips, sony and nintendo debacle. I never knew that the 3 companies made a meeting at one point. Thanks for sharing with all of us adam! Can't wait for your next video!!!

I like your version of the story about Nintendo, Sony, and Philips in regards to the making of the Super NES PlayStation add-on than most of the other people as yours makes more sense.

+Adam Koralik the Halcyon was the very first disc based console ever made, which was released in 1985. It used to cost around $2500 at the time, and that console was miles ahead of its time.

Nice job! I've really enjoyed your retrospective series, I hope you keep going! It would be cool to see some in-game footage of the rarer games every once in a while too.

My brother in law has one. Best memories: Seeing digital photography software for the first time Playing Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit with the whole family Watching my nephew play Sesame Street games with a giant kid controller Playing 7th Guest, INCA, Lil Devil, World Class Soccer, Dragon's Lair, Escape from Cyber City and more... Worst memory? Renting Wand of Gamelon. Honestly, it was a pretty cool piece of hardware, managed like poop.

just stumbled on your videos because of the Neo Geo... videos are awesome

Thanks Ronald! And thanks Adam for the great videos. Always fascinating.

Thank you Ronald for sending it thank you for the practical passion you have for gaming Adam

I recently found your channel and I have watched all your videos and really enjoy them. Lots of info thanks for doing them.

Wasn't expecting to hear Robert Mapplethorpe mentioned in a video on a Philips CD-i LOL

I just want to say good job on the series I can tell you put a lot of hard work into these videos and keep up the good work man

Wow I always assumed Nintendo was the bad guy in that Story because I only heard the last part of it. I had heard Sony and Nintendo made an agreement and Nintendo randomly backed out. I didn't know that Sony would have gotten all the money.

Hi Adam, just watched all your 4th Gen videos, really like them all, awesome vids.

Great video! Even without the RGB mod, another advantage the bigger CD-I model has is outputting S-Video natively which the smaller one doesn't.

Great video. The Magnavox also has a digital video cartridge input slot; making it my favorite model for its compact design and easy to repair.

Thanks for bringing back the memories of this console. The only game I remember playing and loving for my CD-I was a game called burn cycle. If you can find it I think you would enjoy it very much.

buen video adam, estoy ansioso por ver el resto de la serie, saludos!

Great Explanation. I like how you explain the market and relate it back to today and explain about the history.

The story about a 3rd game being located in my home city of Ottawa, canada intrigues me!!

Really love these series adam!!

Playstation and Xbox, I'm Philips cd-I and I am your father. This thing was ahead of its time. Stop the hate people and love it for its technological break through. Greetings from Namibia.

Dude, i always learn from your videos! Thanks for passing the knowledge and insight.

Thanks Ronald! From 2022 and friends!!

Hey! I noticed that game pad looked exactly like my first game pad for PC (but in white). So I looked it up and found the company that made that controller (Gravis) also made the controller for the CD-i! Very interesting! 🤓

These recaps made me subscribe your channel, just awesome!

This guy in Austria that sended the console for free so you could create the video for us properly, this guy kept my hope in humanity

Dude nice job! Cant wait to see the last part of the series! And idk why but for some reason the CDI reminds me of the PS3 and xbone being an all purpose console o.o

Not a better feeling than seeing a new Adam retrospect!

Great video Adam! I enjoyed hearing about the history of this console, very detailed! Man I wish I can eventually own a copy of Zelda's Adventure.

Always thought it was part of the 5th Gen, as like most 5th Gen consoles it was able to run the point and click game Myst which was quite impressive for the time. Great video 👍👍

I just want to add that I love these generation retrospective videos and would definitely love to see it continue with the third generation. I grew up originally on the NES but I don't know much about the Sega Master System or anything else that may have been out at the time.

Am I the only person who believes that the Zelda Cdi games don't deserve so much hate? I will admit, the cutscenes were a little goofy, but they were impressive for their time, remember this was 1993-94. Seeing animated cutscenes at that time would be mind blowing. The music was awesome and upbeat, and the graphics are full of color.

Excited for this!

@0:19 was lucky to own most of those consoles with both sides of my families, was a fun year to be a kid imo, sure love those memories picking up some games for those consoles

Great video! I got stuck with a CDI 450 Christmas 1994 and at the time (aged 10) thought it was amazing! I had Micro Machines, two Zelda games (not the rare one), Hotel Mario, Little Divil and The Apprentice (Which was my favourite).

Managed to grab one with the digital video cartdrige and the regular gamepad. I've been having more fun with it than i expected!

Adam, I have that same gamepad-style controller for my early 486 PC, but it was cream color with different color buttons and released as the Gravis Gamepad.

Adam looking mad good in this on

Wow, now i know more parts of that history... Thanks for the video, very good one!

this was a interesting video to watch. great upload!

I have the model 350 portable CD-i with the digital video dock . Its a beast and makes the sega nomad look like a game boy micro. Its pretty bad ass. It has a ntsc/pal switch, composite vidoe in/out and rgb out port. There were 4 different cdi portables. the 330(no screen and a 3.5 inch floppy). the 350(with a flip up 5.5 inch screen) the 360( same as 350 with a higher quality screen) and the 370 with a rechargeable battery and built in digital video cartridge. The previous models required a digital video dock to play the games that required it.

My uncle bought one of these for his daughter back in the day. He actually bought it s from a door-to-door salesman. It had all the accessories to do all kinds of things, including this weird controller that kinda looked like an arcade type of gaming pad but with a roller ball for bowling and golfing games.

Hey, I heard you say in a comment that not many have asked for a series over the 3rd gen, and I just wanted to say that I personally would love that.

Great video Adam! The history behind the CD-i is really interesting. Honestly, I think the worst thing about it is the size, and how much they cost on Ebay (which is pretty much the only place where I can find one). Apparently they're easier to find and cheaper in Europe, because Philips is a Dutch company. There were even models made for presentations, and one has zip disk drive!

I actually found one complete in box today while searching for stuff in a second hand store during my lunch break. It only cost around 100 euros, so I had to buy it. When I came home later today, I opened it up, and to my surprise, everything was as good as new. It was a CD-i 450 btw.

My dentist's office in Reidsville NC had one of these as recently as 2013. They used it with one of their little mini-cameras as a way of looking deep into the patient's mouth and had it hooked up to a monitor and had some kind of software that would take stills from the camera which would display on the monitor. Yet another example of a game console being usd for dentistry.

Enjoying these vids dude, great research. You should hit the guy back with some cash who gave it to you though, pretty major find.

Thanks Ronald!

I remember the CD-i infomercials that played all day for over a year.

I actually got one for Christmas of '93. Mad Dog McRee and The 7th Guest were pretty good.

Hey! Are you going to make a Generation Recap of handheld consoles?

I can't wait for the lazeractive video, always wanted one.

I live in a town that had a Magnavox store and saw THOUSANDS of these things locally with walls of "games". had all the consoles, addons, controllers, and EVERY disc. sold the entire collection for 300 bucks thinking it wasn't that big of a deal considering I had less in it all due to discounts from having family as a plant manager for Phillips/Magnavox. Have regretted selling it for years.

I remember playing CD-i at Service Merchandise. I think all Service Merchandise stores had CD-i kiosks when I was little. Still have yet to play Neo Geo, Jaguar, or 3D0 but I played CD-i a bunch when I was little.

I bought the CD-I back in late 1990. As long as you weren't expecting a video game console (Philips never originally marketed it as such) then you were probably happy with it. It's basically what you would buy if you wanted a PC CD-Rom and content on your living room TV. I paid over $800 for it and got my money's worth out of it, as well as a job with PIMA (Philips Media). ;) I had all of our photos developed on Kodak Photo-CD and it was great to see them displayed on a TV screen. The 910 is my favorite model and its built like a tank. Escape from Cyber-City is based on a Laser Disc game called Freedom Fighers, which in turn is based on Galaxy 999 anime. Some of the better games would be The Apprentice (this game actually looks and sounds better than most SNES games). Burn Cycle, The 7th Guest, Dragon's Lair 1 & 2 (best ports until the DVD-Video releases by Digital Leisure. There are many more, but I'm betting most people couldn't care less. :P

I remember seeing the CDi ads on TV when I was younger. Also, Magnavox is part of Philips.

I have an uncle who had bought it 20+ years ago. In Europe it was never advertised or promoted as a video game console. It was mostly promoted as an "interactive multimedia" TV experience. It wasn't cheap either.

I remember having a controller exactly like the "SNES" controller you showed. I never had a CI-i, but the controller was for a PC. It was the same exact shape, but it had colours similar to the Super Famicom controller if my memory is correct. The d-pad had a slot to screw in a mini-joystick.

I have a cdi with a game called flashback that i really like. They remade it on ps4 aswell, but i always had to play it with that remote controller which was very hard to do , i have more games too but its all in a box on the attic..

The digital Video Cartridge didn't come out until a couple of years after the launch of the CD-i. I used to review and beta test new hardware and CD-i titles for PIMA and have 2 beta units as well as a few final DVCs. Video CD was a neat format, but the 74 minute video limit hurt it, as well as the MPEG-1 codec, which yielded video quality which at it's best was close to LaserDisc, and at it's worst was below VHS, with it's blocky video, usually during fast action scene which requires higher bit rates. Had they been able to get the video length up to 100 minutes, to fit most movies or the time, it may have been a huge success. People didn't like the idea of changing discs mid movie. It was the same with LD. SVCD actually looked incredible for the time. It had double the resolution, but at half the play time (35 minutes). It looked like DVD quality (480p). I ended up buying a Pioneer Elite 5 disc carousel so I could load 3 disc SVCD movies. LOTR took 5.

i actually used the 220 type model as a cd player on my hifi separates, back in 88 i bought a first gen ferguson cd player, it was very expensive did nothing but play cd's but sounded fantastic(never found another that sounded as good), anyway in 2001 i had been ill and was broke and of course the cd player died, so i dusted off the cdi out of the loft and set it up, i used that as a cd until two years ago when i bought a new old stock denon cd player, the local game shop swapped the cdi and its stuff for an xbox one controller.

I love the tetris big box version you have, its very cool.

Thanks Ronald

A friend of mine had a CDi branded by Goldstar. Same thing happened with the Panasonic 3DO console.

Thanks to Ronald!

I actually got mine in 1990. :) I bought the store kiosk from a local Lechmere store in December 1990. The person ringing it up thought it was just a CD player and sold it as "used stereo equipment". I ended up buying a $799.99 CD-i 910 machine for $399.

1:52 favorite moment on this entire channel

The game pad you "Say" looks like a SNES controller is actually "identical" to a Gravis PC game pad I bought in very early 90's that came bundled with Commander Keen!!!

cool vids, just wondering if youll ever do a vid on system intro menu screens and/or more on some gameplay of these fourth gen consoles ? i only had megadrive and cd (still have it actually) and snes (of the 4th gens) and would like to see what the others looked like.

I love these videos

Remember playing with one in a high end electronic store in 92'. Compared to the Megadrive I had at home the CD-i was painful to use.

thank you ronald

Thanks ronald

thank you ronald!

Inca is a point and click adventure game. I had both of them for PC back in the day.

Funny that gamepad is rare since it's just a Gravis gamepad which themselves are common as dirt, must be a way to change the plugs around and just paint them dark grey so all CD-i owners could have one. Tough system to love, I'm thinking about collecting the software first and then getting a machine after. Bit like Wii game collecting in that I don't even want the shovelware cluttering my shelves no matter how cheap they are since I'm not going to play them.

I remember seeing the adverts then seeing it in the shops at the age of about 9. All that sticks in my mind was the price was some astronomical figure my young mind couldn't process.

Also, the CDi does have a platformer, and actually a very good one at that, i have it. It's called The Apprentice, and it's an exclusive. I'd say in fact that it's probably the best game on the console.

I never owned one of these, but I did play one back in the summer of 1999. I was 5 years old and at summer camp (Lake View Day Camp in East Brunswick, New Jersey). They had a bunch of N64's that kids could play as part of their activities for the day, but for some reason I'll never know, they also had a bunch of CDI's and games. I played Hotel Mario and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon on an actual CDI. Even being 5, I knew those games were terrible. All of the AVGN's complaints were completely accurate. The best game I remember playing was Battleship. It was literally just Battleship, but it had FMV clips of old black and white video from world war 2 or something. Me and my friend took turns looking away from the screen while the other took their turn haha

I have a U.S. Version of the console with a 3-button controller (similar to a sega controller) and actually one still in the box if I recall.

The CDi as a CD player is probably one of the best purchases you could make back in the day. One thing you didn’t mention is that the CDi did things that other CD players didn’t do. For example some cd albums had a track that was essentially a music video that would play in the CDi.

I have some great memories of the CD-i, my brother and I saved up our money so we could buy "Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon" together, only game with Zelda in the lead! Another great game we had was 7thGuest. And we used to play "Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam" a lot, great multiplayer game actually :). Actually first ..and only ..time my parents bought the newest hype... and it flopped :(.

I love your video it was the best as always I have the Zelda book called Zelda historia and your right those games arent mentioned in the time line its like they never even existed u should get the book it has every Zelda game on record and very nice art work I'm still trying to hunt down a TV to system peice for my dream cast that is hard to find with out buying another one off of amazon but anyway can't wait to see ur next video I didn't get to see the others cause of lack of internet

I had a go on one of these in Dixons.

Ha! You reminded me that People Play Games is somewhere I can go around here. Maybe I'll meet up with you some day. I will be that guy who goes "DUDE, ARE YOU ADAM KORALIK?" The CD-i is really only important in its concept of an "all purpose media player" prior to folks like Microsoft picking up on that. I think if it had gotten the CD-based developers like Cyan fully on board it may have shifted the tide in games a bit, if not really dominated to any degree. I can't help but imagine if the CD-i had more success though, the 3DO might have as well.

I have two cd-i and I like both of them

i am offered this machine with 15 Cd,s for for 150$, will think about it, it has the videocartridge too - it looks like the machine to the left, and pretty good locking as a CD player too, this is in Sweden

Magnavox is just a Philips brand. Companies that made CD-i's were GoldStar / LG Electronics, Digital Video Systems, Memorex, Grundig, Sony, Kyocera, NBS, Highscreen, and Bang & Olufsen. B&O made a TV with a build-in CD-i, and Philips made a few of such machines aswell.