Philips Interactive Media/Summary

Background : Philips Interactive Media was a division of the titular Dutch conglomerate that created the CD-i, an interactive multimedia CD player that could play games and movies. The system came out of Philips wanting to get into the gaming market, and attempting (and failing) to produce a CD-based add-on for the Super Nintendo. (Sony also attempted this prior to Philips, but the deals fell through, which led to the creation of the PlayStation.) Despite heavy marketing, the system did not do well, largely thanks to a mediocre game library as well as poorly made controllers. It is also particularly infamous nowadays for four games based off of the Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda series of games, notorious for their poor quality. 136 games were released for the system (in contrast to almost 8,000 games on the PS1), and 570,000 units were sold worldwide (in contrast to over 100,000,000 units of PS1s sold worldwide). Philips Interactive Media was sold to Infogrames in 1996, and in 1998 the CD-i was discontinued.

1st Logo (1992-1995)


Nicknames : "The Philips Shield"

Logo : Against a black background, we see a dark blue Philips' corporate shield logo. The circle transforms into a CD and flips around as the shield morphs into a bright blue rectangle, with "PHILIPS" left intact. The CD inserts itself into the rectangle, forming a black line, which turns white. "INTERACTIVE" and "MEDIA" appear above and below the line, respectively. The logo then goes "3D" at the end.

Variants :
 * A still version exists, with "DISTRIBUTED BY" over the logo. You can find this on Mad Dog McCree.
 * Sometimes on the still version, "INTERACTIVE" is absent. This is mainly seen on CD-i Video releases.
 * On the CD-i port of The 7th Guest, the completed logo crossfades to the publisher/developer card.
 * On Philips Funhouse games, the logo goes still after the words appearing.

FX/SFX : The transformation effects.

Music/Sounds : It starts out with a deep bass chord, which culminates in a synth fanfare.

Availability : Extremely rare. Seen on the beginning of most games for the Philips CD-i console. It is also shown on the earliest games published for DOS, like International Tennis Open.

Editor's Note : None.

2nd Logo (1995-1999)


Logo : We see the Philips shield logo as described above, then it zooms to the waves, which begin to move, and the word "PHILIPS" emerges. The waving lines go down to reveal "MEDIA" below it and convert into a red line. A red strike is moving by the line from left to right and vice-versa until the music ends.

Variant : A still version exists.

FX/SFX : The transformation effects.

Music/Sounds : A composite electronic fanfare.

Availability : Rare. Can be seen on games on CD-i from 1995 to 1999, most notably in Asterix: Caesar's Challenge. The still version can be seen on the on Myst.