Great video man and thank you so much for that shoutout! Really kind of you and much appreciated. I've never gotten my hands on a portable CD-i, but I here they are some of the best units to have. I believe the 370 is one of the few (if not the only) system that has an actually easy to replace timekeeper battery. Thanks for showing these, great overview!
Where can i buy the battery for this? My father lost it 5y ago:) in my country, so difficult to find the accessories because They are not widely used. Can you help me?
Yea the blue button odd I have never seen that before????? But interesting and weird though wouldnt the portable lock out games like maddog mcgree and drug wars and police force because the light gun was kinda needed for those titles I could see why these failed not because of screen size but elemination of the gun would be a downer
Well as said this version was never designed to be a games console. It's main purpose was as a video player for professional market. For company reps to show customers product videos.
Its amazing at how many different things were on the market way back in the day. Bold, innovative designs but they didnt have the development capital to make a large go of it.
@superlegoman64 CD-i's were made up to 2000 I believe, and were used a good while after that too as a business tool. As a gaming system it died out at around 1998, as a retail device a good while earlier still.
But that blue lead you got. looks like a Caravan plug. My family has had a few caravans over the years and they looked like that. But they're mostly used for stuff like Car lights for bumpers than anything else.
Nice review man! I remember when the portable ones were out back in the day, I really wanted one, but I had the CD-i 450 which I liked a lot. I still have a couple of issues of the CD-i magazine and use to bring them to school because hardly any of the other kids had heard of the system. A lot of people on youtube make fun of it now, but every one of my friends enjoyed coming over to play it back then.
Magnavox must've looked at Philips's game console and made a "Mag"-nificent face-palm and said, "This isn't how you were suppose to take video gaming to the next level!"
@Gamester81, can you switch between PAL and NTSC on the other versions of the CD-i? Because I watched the HalfBlindGamer's review of Zenith, and it looks really cool, but it was only released in Europe AFIK. Great video!!
Wow! Never seen or heard about a portable CDi before! Thanks for the info John! Looks awesome.. The case that it came with looks super cool. Great vid!!!!
I was unaware that there were cd-I handhelds... If there are so many different models how come it's hard to find one? Also what kind of watch were u wearing?
I recently got this and it came with some Quiznos employee training discs. i can't get them to work though but im keeping them since im guessing they have to be ultra rare. the player itself works great though.
@@BuckoBean29 nah. idk they're pretty scratched up. i think they're too messed up to read but i'll keep them and eventually get rid of them to someone that has more time to mess with them
@@TekMoliGy well if you ever want to get rid of them please let me know. I own a professional disc resurfacer and can make these discs look like new. I would love the chance to archive these discs for the world to see. Thanks.
Sony also made a portable CDi. It's really pretty and very modern looking for the time it came out, but its very hard to come by these days. It was insanely expensive and very few units were sold. Great vid :-)
@RetroGamer3 These units were not intended for games, most people prefer a pointing device (like a mouse) on the right side. For games... it's really awkward though. But as I said, these were not designed for games, but rather for presentations and such. You wouldn't want to hold that like a controller anyway, way to big! They have inputs for a normal (for CD-i...) gamepads too.
I would be abit scared about putting in a valuable game in a portable cd player though specially when the dpad and stuff is right on top of the disk. Is it stable?
@angelpichu1 no as that wasnt a format at the time. CD-i is a format of disc that can play all sorts of media. There were CD-i movies though. I have Ghost and the Hunt for Red October.
Maybe you can help me! I bought a Philips cdi 370 console off eBay and the seller showed it working but the ac adapter was not included. But I can't find the power supply anywhere very disappointing the console looks new nuts
I went through the same problem. You can make your own and its not too hard.All you need is a universal laptop charger that has a usb and a 5 pin mini DIN connector. both can be found on eBay. Here is a link to the instructions. www.retrovideogames.de/mods-adaptors/philips-cd-i-370-power-supply-pinout/
@dungeonblaster It's really on the right. It's not designed with games in mind though, these units were mainly used to augment business presentations. Much like how we use laptops for presentations these days.
@ProjectFreelancer64 It's more of a portable version and it wasn't intended as a handheld gaming system at all. CD-i was a pretty successful medium as a business tool. This was more aimed towards easier use in that field.
When I played a CD-I device when I was in elementary school, that is when I first head of the company Philips. However, I have heard of Magnavox years before that when I played the NES on an inexpensive Magnavox brand TV. Ya know, I never knew that Philips itself was the originator of the Compact Disc which I never even seen until like maybe early 1994, as well as the compact cassette which I used to use alot. Philips sure was involved in engineering multimedia equipment for me.
Yeah if I could afford to pick up this portable cdi I would pick it up and play some shitty zelda games my friends be like wtf is that? And I be like you don't even want to know. lol.
Weird that the d-pac is on the right hand side rather then the left like we're used to. Oh, and I watch HBG's videos all the time. Great stuff he does! ;)
hey! i know this is a longshot, but do you still need that thing? this is going to sound so goofy, but i've been meaning to just get one to play! im not a collecter, i just want hotel mario on the go! im also not very wealthy but if youll sell it ill see what i can scrape up! thanks!
@TheBloodyKnife1 CD-i has no copy protection and pretty much all of the games are made to work on both PAL and NTSC systems. So it's really easy to play burned games on it indeed, back then most consumers did not have burners yet.
The watch you are wearing at 4:27 looks alot like a C-Watch, of which is a retro 90s piece. One day, I'd like to see an MP3 player watch be distributed in a similar look.
Great video. I actually prefer handhelds to home consoles so it's cool to see another handheld that actually plays home console games. Now they just need to work on the Nintendo 64 handheld, and maybe a better handheld SNES than the FC 16 Go.
@CaptainAwesomeness34 well it goes for no less then $100 so yeah. but not unless you want one. But you couldve also sell it on ebay for like $80 if it was just the system or over $100 if it came with like the controllers and cords.
Huh, it has an additional input on the side... if you wanted, you could play one of the most compact versions of Mad Dog McCree with the zapper, that is, if the 350 came with the equivilant FMV card built in. If nothing else, you could still use the zapper to play games, which, is far better than the default remote style controller that came with the CD-i 220 (the model I own,) or the 350's default controls on the face of the system.
I can't believe you own allll those systems and that's the first time you've seen a power inverter got one in my car can bring a small led tv and a game system on roadtrips
For professional use I guess it was handy. I never knew anyone with any CDi hardware. It was so expensive and as a gaming platform couldn't compete with Sega and Nintendo. It wasn't even originally marketed as a game system. But that's what it ended up being remembered as for the most part. It's because of that whole SNES disc add-on thing and those terrible Zelda games.
In today's world, I think GP2X-sized game systems (or computers of that size) are capable of being way more portable with even way more processing power on storage with 10x+ the storage density than CDs (in which CD-i was made for), and they don't even need moving parts, since SD and USB flash memory are the WAVE OF THE FUTURE. But I understand if you're the retro enthusiast who idolizes the bulky equipment with moving parts. And for a portable console to be heavy kinda defeats its purpose
@youtubasoarus I agree, if it wasn't for pioneering technology like this, there wouldn't be DVD or PlayStation discs. Heck, even Blu-Ray still used conventions invented with the CD-i format. The music in the two Zelda platformers is also really good indeed. It's a real shame Philips didn't care at all for the gaming market (we don't toys...), if they would have focused on that in the design they could have scored a real hit I think.
I had a chance to buy one of these a year or two ago for not too much but I mean... It's a CDi. How much entertainment am I really gonna get out of it?
@dave4shmups Almost all of the CD-i games are coded to run perfectly in both regions. So Zenith should run just fine on any NTSC system, at least I never heard any complaints on that game. The only game I know that has region issues is Family Games 2. Most normal players don't have a region switch (there are a ton, so there are probably some that do). The portable ones do though. If you can find it, the 370 is probably the best CD-i to get these days.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Great video man and thank you so much for that shoutout! Really kind of you and much appreciated. I've never gotten my hands on a portable CD-i, but I here they are some of the best units to have. I believe the 370 is one of the few (if not the only) system that has an actually easy to replace timekeeper battery.
Thanks for showing these, great overview!
Where can i buy the battery for this? My father lost it 5y ago:) in my country, so difficult to find the accessories because They are not widely used. Can you help me?
"Zelda's Adventure looks like a pretty good game actually."
No.
In 1993 this was 1200 quid
Amazing! I never even knew these existed! Great video!
It’s rare coz it was so expensive at the time way back in 1993
0:08:15 I thought that was only an UA-cam animation going viral... I would-of never thought it was to a real actual game. :P
Once again... you amaze me with your stuff.
Yea the blue button odd I have never seen that before????? But interesting and weird though wouldnt the portable lock out games like maddog mcgree and drug wars and police force because the light gun was kinda needed for those titles I could see why these failed not because of screen size but elemination of the gun would be a downer
Well as said this version was never designed to be a games console. It's main purpose was as a video player for professional market. For company reps to show customers product videos.
Its amazing at how many different things were on the market way back in the day. Bold, innovative designs but they didnt have the development capital to make a large go of it.
@superlegoman64 CD-i's were made up to 2000 I believe, and were used a good while after that too as a business tool. As a gaming system it died out at around 1998, as a retail device a good while earlier still.
But that blue lead you got. looks like a Caravan plug. My family has had a few caravans over the years and they looked like that.
But they're mostly used for stuff like Car lights for bumpers than anything else.
Nice review man! I remember when the portable ones were out back in the day, I really wanted one, but I had the CD-i 450 which I liked a lot. I still have a couple of issues of the CD-i magazine and use to bring them to school because hardly any of the other kids had heard of the system. A lot of people on youtube make fun of it now, but every one of my friends enjoyed coming over to play it back then.
Magnavox must've looked at Philips's game console and made a "Mag"-nificent face-palm and said, "This isn't how you were suppose to take video gaming to the next level!"
Thanks,
for the shout out .
Hi, Gamester81 do you know by chance how much was cost Philips CD-i 370 back in 1995/1996? I heard that was $1900.00 but I’m not sure if that is true.
Gamester81, these are both really cool cdi models! Does either one come with the digital video cartridge that some games need?
Doesn't look like it, don't see any room for that beast of an expansion pack in this cute and tiny piece of failed entertainment hardware.
Very interesting stuff. I never heard of these versions.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you for the video gamester81
@Gamester81, can you switch between PAL and NTSC on the other versions of the CD-i? Because I watched the HalfBlindGamer's review of Zenith, and it looks really cool, but it was only released in Europe AFIK. Great video!!
Super rare and super cool, both of them. I guess I got lucky to have found two of the console models. Nice video!
Wow! Never seen or heard about a portable CDi before! Thanks for the info John! Looks awesome.. The case that it came with looks super cool. Great vid!!!!
awesome review john
I'm assuming that you can't move the system to dramatically while playing otherwise it would scratch the cds. Am I correct on that?
I was unaware that there were cd-I handhelds... If there are so many different models how come it's hard to find one? Also what kind of watch were u wearing?
I have a Sony CDI brand new in the box going up for auction this evening on eBay.
The MsPacman game on the CDi is amazing - it only features one moving ghost I believe!
I recently got this and it came with some Quiznos employee training discs. i can't get them to work though but im keeping them since im guessing they have to be ultra rare. the player itself works great though.
Upload 'em somewhere!
Did you ever get those discs archived?
@@BuckoBean29 nah. idk they're pretty scratched up. i think they're too messed up to read but i'll keep them and eventually get rid of them to someone that has more time to mess with them
@@TekMoliGy well if you ever want to get rid of them please let me know. I own a professional disc resurfacer and can make these discs look like new. I would love the chance to archive these discs for the world to see. Thanks.
Sony also made a portable CDi. It's really pretty and very modern looking for the time it came out, but its very hard to come by these days. It was insanely expensive and very few units were sold. Great vid :-)
How is the first handheld portable if it needs to be plugged in?
@RetroGamer3 These units were not intended for games, most people prefer a pointing device (like a mouse) on the right side. For games... it's really awkward though. But as I said, these were not designed for games, but rather for presentations and such. You wouldn't want to hold that like a controller anyway, way to big! They have inputs for a normal (for CD-i...) gamepads too.
When was it released, how many were sold
Sweet review, also, will you be reviewing that plug n' play stuff?
does the portable version have the digital video cartrige in it ? sorry for bad spelling -_-;
I would be abit scared about putting in a valuable game in a portable cd player though specially when the dpad and stuff is right on top of the disk. Is it stable?
Does your camera make everything looked reversed, or is the d-pad on the right hand side of the console, if so wow that must be hard to get used to.
@angelpichu1 no as that wasnt a format at the time. CD-i is a format of disc that can play all sorts of media. There were CD-i movies though. I have Ghost and the Hunt for Red October.
was there a Panasonic one to, that sacked the fat one
MAH BOI, THIS IS WHAT ALL TRUE WARRIORS STRIVE FOR!
where u buy it?
omg was that dark castle in the CD-I?
I never knew these existed, been gaming since 1976! Thanks for the info.
szor1 0-0 your awsome
Maybe you can help me! I bought a Philips cdi 370 console off eBay and the seller showed it working but the ac adapter was not included. But I can't find the power supply anywhere very disappointing the console looks new nuts
I went through the same problem. You can make your own and its not too hard.All you need is a universal laptop charger that has a usb and a 5 pin mini DIN connector. both can be found on eBay. Here is a link to the instructions. www.retrovideogames.de/mods-adaptors/philips-cd-i-370-power-supply-pinout/
Do you know anyone that makes them?
thank you for responding to my question
Could these systems be hooked up to a TV?
Looking for one of those Paddle Plug N Plays so congrats on get it and on the rest of them and a great video from as always. : )
having the controller upon the cd player? hmmm getting nervous would be a problem no?
@dungeonblaster It's really on the right. It's not designed with games in mind though, these units were mainly used to augment business presentations. Much like how we use laptops for presentations these days.
Make an updated video about thsi
5:37 is a power inverter, i have been using them for years to hook up things like tv's and vid game systems up in my vehicles. Sweet review btw.
@ProjectFreelancer64 It's more of a portable version and it wasn't intended as a handheld gaming system at all. CD-i was a pretty successful medium as a business tool. This was more aimed towards easier use in that field.
could i ask where you got one of them or both?
Is that Link game the only Zelda game that's named after Link?
I'm sitting here, watching this, while playing my 3ds, and thinking, "Wow, it's amazing how technology has progressed in the last 20 years"
@angelpichu1 no dvds came out at around 1996
can the cdi play dvd's?
I have seen this watch before.. (at a long time)
What is it?
0:02 looks like a burnt in plasma TV
When I played a CD-I device when I was in elementary school, that is when I first head of the company Philips. However, I have heard of Magnavox years before that when I played the NES on an inexpensive Magnavox brand TV. Ya know, I never knew that Philips itself was the originator of the Compact Disc which I never even seen until like maybe early 1994, as well as the compact cassette which I used to use alot. Philips sure was involved in engineering multimedia equipment for me.
THe CD-i sucked, but truthfully I'd be stoked to own one in the 90s and even now.
Yeah if I could afford to pick up this portable cdi I would pick it up and play some shitty zelda games my friends be like wtf is that? And I be like you don't even want to know. lol.
I feel the same. As horrible as the CD-i is (as far as I heard), I would sort of be interested in having one of these, for curiousness and stuff.
I would have a CDi for Hotel Mario.
Would be kinda sweet if it also played VCD's as well, but I don't suppose that was ever thought about at the time.
@tsukasa2k6 350... I don't think, but the 370 does for sure.
@markvergeer Haha, it does have three :P But you can move faster then the screen can scroll, so it's no great port by any means.
It will play on the 370, but not on the 350 because of the lack of the MPEG decoder.
I had no idea that they made a portable version of CDI.
I kind of want this just so I can take it on the plane and see what people's reactions to it are like.
so is the phillips cdi a 16 bit game system? or is it a made up number of bits all it's own?
Weird that the d-pac is on the right hand side rather then the left like we're used to.
Oh, and I watch HBG's videos all the time. Great stuff he does! ;)
The intention was aimed at the UA-cam poops that used the CD-I games as source material. AVGN did a review of the games and system.
What watch are you wearing dude?
Amazing systems never seen them but they look really awesome thanks a lot for this review.
hey! i know this is a longshot, but do you still need that thing?
this is going to sound so goofy, but i've been meaning to just get one to play! im not a collecter, i just want hotel mario on the go! im also not very wealthy but if youll sell it ill see what i can scrape up! thanks!
@TheBloodyKnife1 CD-i has no copy protection and pretty much all of the games are made to work on both PAL and NTSC systems. So it's really easy to play burned games on it indeed, back then most consumers did not have burners yet.
Those CD-i handhelds are monsters fighting with the Sega Game Gear in Tokyo for dominance over who is the largest, less conveniently sized handheld.
@moviemovies1 I just wonder what Gannon's up to.
The watch you are wearing at 4:27 looks alot like a C-Watch, of which is a retro 90s piece. One day, I'd like to see an MP3 player watch be distributed in a similar look.
Great video. I actually prefer handhelds to home consoles so it's cool to see another handheld that actually plays home console games. Now they just need to work on the Nintendo 64 handheld, and maybe a better handheld SNES than the FC 16 Go.
Thank you for explaining that. These people wont stop bothering me!!!
@CaptainAwesomeness34 well it goes for no less then $100 so yeah. but not unless you want one. But you couldve also sell it on ebay for like $80 if it was just the system or over $100 if it came with like the controllers and cords.
@HalfBlindGamer By the way John, the 370 was made by GoldStar ;)
The side-scrolling Link game is pretty good, but it would be good if they actually cut out the cut scenes.
how much
Well, that was the first standalone CD-based console, called the CD-I.
Huh, it has an additional input on the side... if you wanted, you could play one of the most compact versions of Mad Dog McCree with the zapper, that is, if the 350 came with the equivilant FMV card built in. If nothing else, you could still use the zapper to play games, which, is far better than the default remote style controller that came with the CD-i 220 (the model I own,) or the 350's default controls on the face of the system.
I've watched the custscenes like a million times but this is my first time seeing the actual game.
I can't believe you own allll those systems and that's the first time you've seen a power inverter got one in my car can bring a small led tv and a game system on roadtrips
Wow....Was the CDi doing that well that they were compelled to make a portable version of it...Good portable CD player back in the day I guess.
The Philips CDi was the first console to use a cd drive.
DUDE you have the old H-handle star wars game?!?!?!? I'm gonna cry now...
For professional use I guess it was handy. I never knew anyone with any CDi hardware. It was so expensive and as a gaming platform couldn't compete with Sega and Nintendo. It wasn't even originally marketed as a game system. But that's what it ended up being remembered as for the most part. It's because of that whole SNES disc add-on thing and those terrible Zelda games.
You've never seen a AC inverter before?
In today's world, I think GP2X-sized game systems (or computers of that size) are capable of being way more portable with even way more processing power on storage with 10x+ the storage density than CDs (in which CD-i was made for), and they don't even need moving parts, since SD and USB flash memory are the WAVE OF THE FUTURE.
But I understand if you're the retro enthusiast who idolizes the bulky equipment with moving parts.
And for a portable console to be heavy kinda defeats its purpose
Do you have Hotel Mario?
Please record the hotel mario cutscenes from the cd-i 350
@youtubasoarus I agree, if it wasn't for pioneering technology like this, there wouldn't be DVD or PlayStation discs. Heck, even Blu-Ray still used conventions invented with the CD-i format. The music in the two Zelda platformers is also really good indeed.
It's a real shame Philips didn't care at all for the gaming market (we don't toys...), if they would have focused on that in the design they could have scored a real hit I think.
great vid 5 star ill show you guys my philips cdi soon.
I had a chance to buy one of these a year or two ago for not too much but I mean... It's a CDi. How much entertainment am I really gonna get out of it?
@dave4shmups Almost all of the CD-i games are coded to run perfectly in both regions. So Zenith should run just fine on any NTSC system, at least I never heard any complaints on that game. The only game I know that has region issues is Family Games 2.
Most normal players don't have a region switch (there are a ton, so there are probably some that do). The portable ones do though. If you can find it, the 370 is probably the best CD-i to get these days.
I have those tetris plug-n-plays, they work really well
The CDI 370 was over $1000 new...it was made by LG for Philips.
Wow, never realized there were so many CDi models. lol.
my boy this piece is what all true warriors strive for